Scratching could not make worse... such a blog as this.

I don't exactly remember my first experience with Shakespeare, but I do know that I have always loved him. Even when I really didn't know anything about him or his works, I was determined to love him. The first time I remember reading Shakespeare was in a class my freshman year of high school. We read Romeo and Juliet (which is my very least favorite work of Shakespeare. I wrote a personal essay for a creative writing class about how much I actually hate Romeo and Juliet's characters). But I remember sitting in that freshman English class and the girl sitting next to me turned and asked, "Do you, like, actually get this? This is, like, so boring!" I told her that, yes, I got it, and yes, I liked it. She stared at me blankly for a second then turned to the person on her other side and asked them the same question, seeking the appropriate response.
Sophomore year I read "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Merchant of Venice" along with a few of Shakespeare's most famous sonnets. When I read "The Merchant of Venice" I was in a group with three or four other girls. We were supposed to take a scene from the play and present it whatever way we wanted to the rest of the class. We put on a puppet show. The others in my group hated the whole ordeal and put zero work into it, which made me angry. I suppose I was/am just a snob about things I believe to give me and others essential culture and when people disagree with me I do desire we may be strangers. That year I was also on a committee to put together a birthday party for Shakespeare. We wrote him cards, ate foods that he probably would have eaten, jousted, etc. 
Junior was my first exposure to "Hamlet" by watching the full play in the form of Kenneth Branagh. My senior year came about and we read "Othello" which I fell in love with instantly. I read the part of Iago and he has since been my favorite villian (even more so after we watched the Kenneth Branagh adaptation. I really do love him, especially in "Much Ado About Nothing).
I suppose all in all, my Shakespeare experience is pretty limited, but I find him fascinating. Especially going in depth and trying to tie his works in with my major (Anthropology emphasis: Archaeology). Even though the characters he created are ficticious, they represent the minds of real people and similar situations people might find themselves in, and I think it's fun to tie in things I've learned about theories of society to Shakespearian characters and worlds.