I was surfing through the blogs that I read today, catching up on posts that I missed, and I came across this in the comment section of one of Ren Kat’s (Sidestepping Real) posts: “I always thought "intriguing" means "I don't quite get it". . .”
That’s something I always thought, too. Well, actually, that’s not quite true. I didn’t always think that until Ren said it, at which point in time I realised I always thought that.
It’s a word like “interesting.” Opening a Christmas present. It’s an elegant replica of a famous statue that you never really thought was quite all that. It matches nothing in any of your rooms, and it serves no useful purpose, and you didn’t even think the original was very beautiful. Are you going to say that? Of course not. It’s “interesting.” Perhaps “different.”
It’s like “I know.” You’ve known a friend, maybe for years; from church, from work, via another friend, whatever; male or female as the case may be. She tells you what she wants you to know about her. You tell him what you want him to know about you. You do stuff together. You like the friend. And then, platonic though the friendship is, the friend says “I love you.” And that’s when you’re supposed to say “I love you, too.” But you don’t. To you, the friendship is not all that far past utility. So you say “I know.”
Or maybe you say “I love you, too” and that’s your euphemism for “I don’t love you, but I don’t want to hurt you by telling you that.”
And there’s, “What’s the matter?” Tell me so that I can get out of this awkward situation as fast as possible.
“I’d rather not talk about it.” Stop snooping and get the hell out of my life.
“I’m fine.” I have a shit life at the moment, but I don’t want to seem pathetic whining to you about it.
Except there’s also “I’m fine.” I’m at the top of my game, things could not be better, but I’ll seem like a big-headed boasting prick if I tell you about it, plus I know things aren’t that great for you so it seems insensitive to be so happy.
I always wondered if it really would hurt that badly, of course, if euphemisms were dropped. You can always tell when they’re in use. You give someone a present that’s deemed “interesting.” Of course they don’t like it. Couldn’t that be said? So did you like your present? “I don’t like it all that much, sorry.” Why not? “Because it’s useless/ugly/whatever.” And then you’d know what to get next time, that they would like.
But no one can say that on opening a present. It’s too selfish. You got them a present, and they didn’t like it, and they said so? Horrors! Even if they say they appreciate the thought (a very good euphemism, except that in my case it’s true and now I can’t use the phrase because it’s a common euphemism) they obviously didn’t really, or they wouldn’t have criticised it.
But anyway.
Today, I’m going to tell you that I haven’t blogged recently because “I’ve been busy.” This is my euphemism for “I think I’ll sound like a whiner if I say what was really holding me up, because I know people, even some who read this, who have it so much worse.”
But I am all right, were you wondering, and I am back. It’s good to be alive.
05 November 2007
30 September 2007
Sunday Scribblings: Powerful
The prompt for this week’s Sunday Scribbling is powerful. When do you feel most powerful? I did something I usually don’t do this week, which was to procrastinate on writing about it and to read other people’s posts first. Some people think that they were powerful as children, and some feel powerful as adults. Some feel powerful as women—it seems especially as women who have given birth, and some because they are men. Some write about the use of power. Myself, I had to think about personal power for a while, because it’s usually something I avoid thinking about at all.
First I thought I would say I felt powerful as a child. But the moment I thought about that I started laughing. I do sigh sometimes and think how great it would be to be a kid again. But the reason for that is not because I want to be powerful again, and have the confidence and resilience and imagined power of a child again. I never had the confidence in the first place, although I did have more resilience, and I still have all the imagined power.
The reason is because I was not powerful then.
I knew when I was a child that I was not powerful. All I had to do was look at my parents to know where power was. I wasn’t even powerful among children. My older sister was able to tell me to do anything and to shut me in a closet if I didn’t do it and she was upset about it. My older brother could roll me in a rug and sit on the end and reduce me to a screaming and gibbering claustrophobic animal. Both he and my younger brother could complain to my mother about anything and prompt her to send me to stand still with my face to the wall. Before I was home-schooled, I couldn’t prevent other children from putting clods of mud down my clothing. I was very aware that I was not a powerful child, nor important to many, although I suppose I did have the power to sit in the closet for long periods of time, and the power to stand very still in corners for even longer periods of time, and not be bothered by it.
But when I was a child, because I was not powerful, I was not expected to use power wisely. I had no responsibility. If I goofed, someone else would fix it. I did not have to think about the consequences of my actions, and how I could make life better or worse for someone.
And I used to run and jump off the roof because I was sure with a fast and high enough start that I could fly. Then after three or four times I realised that, as my friend says, “Gravity was inevitable.” But I’d run and jump again and again anyway, even knowing that I couldn’t fly, because I could pretend I was flying, that the fall was merely the start of flight, and because there was always that tiny hope that maybe this time might be different.
Of course it never was—I never flew. But I did jump. As I’ve grown older I’ve lost the ability to jump off the roof. Because now I am powerful. I have the power to own my mistakes and take the gaff myself. I have the power to make things better for other people, and I have the power to make things worse. If I need something done, I know people who can and will help me get it done, because I have the power to ask or persuade them to do it. I am a single, white, western woman impeded only by other western women in my rise to greater power.
Well, them and myself. If I do not think about what I am doing, but set myself on a path and focus on reaching the end of it, I do great. I’m certain I can get there, and I have the power to do it. That’s how I graduated from university, that’s how I wrote my first story, that’s how I’ve done everything major I’ve ever done in my life. I thought about it in the beginning and then took a breath and dove, continuing straight on without giving it thought. Most people who meet me think I’m singularly determined, but really I only seem that way because if I did not plunge ahead, I would never get anything done.
Because as soon as I think about power, and if my actions are increasing my own personal power, I freeze up and become indecisive. That’s why I did not apply to graduate school while I was in university and am running around trying to apply now. I’m still worrying about it. Would it be better to go for the thing that would surely help me—should I get a one-year education degree that would guarantee me a stable job? Or should I do the Ph.D.? I love math, and the only people in my school that would not help me are the female professors and secretaries. But do I really love math that much, or is it just to prove myself to my family? Am I creative enough to come up with a Ph.D. dissertation? Should I get any sort of degree at all, or should I just continue substitute teaching until I sell a book?
Today I feel that if I jump off the roof, I certainly won’t fly, but I might break a leg and have to pay for the enormous hospital bills (health insurance, you ask, and I laugh) and certainly if anyone saw me jumping off roofs they would think I was suicidal. I have to think about these sorts of things, because if I take a risk and it turns out bad, I’m the one that has to fix it.
But until I start thinking about it, I do fine. Until I start thinking about everything that I do in terms of advancement and loss, power and control, I’m great. When I was a kid, I never thought about that, and nothing mattered to me. I sometimes wish for that back, but then again, my childhood was kind of miserable. I just want to be able to not worry about it.
So the answer, for me, to the Scribblings prompt is: I am most powerful when I do not think about power at all.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go jump off the roof. I’ll let you know how it goes.
First I thought I would say I felt powerful as a child. But the moment I thought about that I started laughing. I do sigh sometimes and think how great it would be to be a kid again. But the reason for that is not because I want to be powerful again, and have the confidence and resilience and imagined power of a child again. I never had the confidence in the first place, although I did have more resilience, and I still have all the imagined power.
The reason is because I was not powerful then.
I knew when I was a child that I was not powerful. All I had to do was look at my parents to know where power was. I wasn’t even powerful among children. My older sister was able to tell me to do anything and to shut me in a closet if I didn’t do it and she was upset about it. My older brother could roll me in a rug and sit on the end and reduce me to a screaming and gibbering claustrophobic animal. Both he and my younger brother could complain to my mother about anything and prompt her to send me to stand still with my face to the wall. Before I was home-schooled, I couldn’t prevent other children from putting clods of mud down my clothing. I was very aware that I was not a powerful child, nor important to many, although I suppose I did have the power to sit in the closet for long periods of time, and the power to stand very still in corners for even longer periods of time, and not be bothered by it.
But when I was a child, because I was not powerful, I was not expected to use power wisely. I had no responsibility. If I goofed, someone else would fix it. I did not have to think about the consequences of my actions, and how I could make life better or worse for someone.
And I used to run and jump off the roof because I was sure with a fast and high enough start that I could fly. Then after three or four times I realised that, as my friend says, “Gravity was inevitable.” But I’d run and jump again and again anyway, even knowing that I couldn’t fly, because I could pretend I was flying, that the fall was merely the start of flight, and because there was always that tiny hope that maybe this time might be different.
Of course it never was—I never flew. But I did jump. As I’ve grown older I’ve lost the ability to jump off the roof. Because now I am powerful. I have the power to own my mistakes and take the gaff myself. I have the power to make things better for other people, and I have the power to make things worse. If I need something done, I know people who can and will help me get it done, because I have the power to ask or persuade them to do it. I am a single, white, western woman impeded only by other western women in my rise to greater power.
Well, them and myself. If I do not think about what I am doing, but set myself on a path and focus on reaching the end of it, I do great. I’m certain I can get there, and I have the power to do it. That’s how I graduated from university, that’s how I wrote my first story, that’s how I’ve done everything major I’ve ever done in my life. I thought about it in the beginning and then took a breath and dove, continuing straight on without giving it thought. Most people who meet me think I’m singularly determined, but really I only seem that way because if I did not plunge ahead, I would never get anything done.
Because as soon as I think about power, and if my actions are increasing my own personal power, I freeze up and become indecisive. That’s why I did not apply to graduate school while I was in university and am running around trying to apply now. I’m still worrying about it. Would it be better to go for the thing that would surely help me—should I get a one-year education degree that would guarantee me a stable job? Or should I do the Ph.D.? I love math, and the only people in my school that would not help me are the female professors and secretaries. But do I really love math that much, or is it just to prove myself to my family? Am I creative enough to come up with a Ph.D. dissertation? Should I get any sort of degree at all, or should I just continue substitute teaching until I sell a book?
Today I feel that if I jump off the roof, I certainly won’t fly, but I might break a leg and have to pay for the enormous hospital bills (health insurance, you ask, and I laugh) and certainly if anyone saw me jumping off roofs they would think I was suicidal. I have to think about these sorts of things, because if I take a risk and it turns out bad, I’m the one that has to fix it.
But until I start thinking about it, I do fine. Until I start thinking about everything that I do in terms of advancement and loss, power and control, I’m great. When I was a kid, I never thought about that, and nothing mattered to me. I sometimes wish for that back, but then again, my childhood was kind of miserable. I just want to be able to not worry about it.
So the answer, for me, to the Scribblings prompt is: I am most powerful when I do not think about power at all.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go jump off the roof. I’ll let you know how it goes.
23 September 2007
My Byronic Hero
Well, plans failed, as sometimes plans will, so here I am, writing when I thought I wouldn’t be. I haven’t anything else to do at the moment, so I’m going to feel free to write as much as I want. You can feel free to read as much or as little as you want, too.
I just finished watching the 1993 film version of Wuthering Heights. Despite the fact that it had Ralph Fiennes’ incredible voice in it, I managed to dislike it intensely. It wasn’t because the actors were bad—Fiennes had the best death stare that I’ve seen that wasn’t on a dead person. It wasn’t because so very many of the historical details were off. It wasn’t because the haircuts were hideous early nineties rat-nests, although that didn’t help. It was partly because of the music, but I could probably have gotten over that if it weren’t for what the cause of my dislike for the movie was mainly the result of.
I didn’t like the movie because I didn’t like the book.
I had no sympathy for Heathcliff. I had no sympathy for Catherine Earnshaw. The rest of the characters I formed no attachment to, except perhaps Ellen. For me, the book was simply a Gothic Romance, by which I mean Early Victorian Emo. I know, heresy for me to criticise the great literary masterpiece and all, but there you have it. I either like books or I don’t, and this was one of the don’ts.
I usually detest Byronic heroes. I sometimes like the stories that go on around them, but I usually hate the gentlemen themselves. I think I should have found Byron himself insufferable, had I ever met him, and he I. It’s not that Byronic men are too mysterious for me, or that they’re incomprehensible. I can understand most Byronic heroes. I just don’t like them.
Which brings me to the subject of this post (yes, I wandered a bit getting here, didn’t I?): I have finally found a Byronic hero that I absolutely love. Who is it that breaks through the instinctive dislike?
Severus Snape.
Yes, from the Harry Potter books. If you’ve never read them or never particularly bothered to remember them, allow me to briefly outline his Byronic nature. He is a loner, disliked even by his peers; before this he was an outcast during his school days; he has a very troubled past, including childhood abuse by his family members; he suffers to the end of his days from unrequited love (and without the hope of resolution, since the object of his affections is dead); his chief descriptors are terms like “dour” and “gloomy” and “brooding”; he is arrogant, demanding, and cynical; he suffers from a conflict of emotions over his self-imposed penance; he has trouble maintaining the integrity of his judgement around Harry Potter and matters involving the boy; he feels no need to conform to public opinion and in fact despises it in many instances; and he has certain things about him, such as his willingness to hurt people, his pettiness, and the murders he’s committed, that are not generally considered heroic traits.
Phew. Yeah, I know, brief. Anyway, from these and other observations, I’ve decided that he is one hundred percent Byronic hero. And I do love him so very much. He is, in fact, the reason I read anything past the middle of the fourth book.
My relationship to JK Rowling’s books over the years went like this: At thirteen, I read the first book, a year after it’s published. I quickly find a copy of the second and read it. At fourteen, I read the third book, and it becomes my favourite. At this time, Harry Potter is great. I love him. He does what I cannot, he stands up to teachers, he’s got great lines, &c &c. I adore him. Then at fifteen I read Goblet of Fire and two things have changed. One, Harry’s hit puberty, and two, I’ve gone to University. I no longer adore Harry Potter. I only read past the dragon fight because I want to see if the new idea forming in my mind is correct—that Harry Potter unjustly hates his Potions teacher.
The fifth book comes out. By this time I have been teaching under the supervision of another teacher while attending University full time, and I have been given a brand-new perspective with which to read the book: The perspective of someone who has already learned to hate students who emulate the behaviours of Harry Potter. I instantly take an extreme dislike to Harry Potter in book five, and cheer on his antagonists, especially the one teacher who dares to dislike him also. I resolve not to read the sixth book.
The sixth book comes out. I read it, because I must have the justification for my hero’s behaviour. I must know that he is not simply a ruthless villain supporting an even more ruthless villain but instead the hero that I believe him to be. I find the support I need in a single glimpse into his memory that the author provides. I know I am right. All is well in the world.
The seventh book comes out. I read it through (this morning, in fact), and for Severus I do what I have not done for Heathcliff and his ilk. I cry when he dies.
Yup. I liked him that much. I never wrote poems or drew pictures or any of that other stuff that some fans do (unless you count this blog post), but I gave him the greatest compliment I can give a literary character. I bought books because of him.
I am Severus!
Congratulations if you read to this point. I think I’ll quit before my mental stability is thrown into any more question. But a question to answer, if you will: Have you a favourite Byronic hero? Who and why?
I just finished watching the 1993 film version of Wuthering Heights. Despite the fact that it had Ralph Fiennes’ incredible voice in it, I managed to dislike it intensely. It wasn’t because the actors were bad—Fiennes had the best death stare that I’ve seen that wasn’t on a dead person. It wasn’t because so very many of the historical details were off. It wasn’t because the haircuts were hideous early nineties rat-nests, although that didn’t help. It was partly because of the music, but I could probably have gotten over that if it weren’t for what the cause of my dislike for the movie was mainly the result of.
I didn’t like the movie because I didn’t like the book.
I had no sympathy for Heathcliff. I had no sympathy for Catherine Earnshaw. The rest of the characters I formed no attachment to, except perhaps Ellen. For me, the book was simply a Gothic Romance, by which I mean Early Victorian Emo. I know, heresy for me to criticise the great literary masterpiece and all, but there you have it. I either like books or I don’t, and this was one of the don’ts.
I usually detest Byronic heroes. I sometimes like the stories that go on around them, but I usually hate the gentlemen themselves. I think I should have found Byron himself insufferable, had I ever met him, and he I. It’s not that Byronic men are too mysterious for me, or that they’re incomprehensible. I can understand most Byronic heroes. I just don’t like them.
Which brings me to the subject of this post (yes, I wandered a bit getting here, didn’t I?): I have finally found a Byronic hero that I absolutely love. Who is it that breaks through the instinctive dislike?
Severus Snape.
Yes, from the Harry Potter books. If you’ve never read them or never particularly bothered to remember them, allow me to briefly outline his Byronic nature. He is a loner, disliked even by his peers; before this he was an outcast during his school days; he has a very troubled past, including childhood abuse by his family members; he suffers to the end of his days from unrequited love (and without the hope of resolution, since the object of his affections is dead); his chief descriptors are terms like “dour” and “gloomy” and “brooding”; he is arrogant, demanding, and cynical; he suffers from a conflict of emotions over his self-imposed penance; he has trouble maintaining the integrity of his judgement around Harry Potter and matters involving the boy; he feels no need to conform to public opinion and in fact despises it in many instances; and he has certain things about him, such as his willingness to hurt people, his pettiness, and the murders he’s committed, that are not generally considered heroic traits.
Phew. Yeah, I know, brief. Anyway, from these and other observations, I’ve decided that he is one hundred percent Byronic hero. And I do love him so very much. He is, in fact, the reason I read anything past the middle of the fourth book.
My relationship to JK Rowling’s books over the years went like this: At thirteen, I read the first book, a year after it’s published. I quickly find a copy of the second and read it. At fourteen, I read the third book, and it becomes my favourite. At this time, Harry Potter is great. I love him. He does what I cannot, he stands up to teachers, he’s got great lines, &c &c. I adore him. Then at fifteen I read Goblet of Fire and two things have changed. One, Harry’s hit puberty, and two, I’ve gone to University. I no longer adore Harry Potter. I only read past the dragon fight because I want to see if the new idea forming in my mind is correct—that Harry Potter unjustly hates his Potions teacher.
The fifth book comes out. By this time I have been teaching under the supervision of another teacher while attending University full time, and I have been given a brand-new perspective with which to read the book: The perspective of someone who has already learned to hate students who emulate the behaviours of Harry Potter. I instantly take an extreme dislike to Harry Potter in book five, and cheer on his antagonists, especially the one teacher who dares to dislike him also. I resolve not to read the sixth book.
The sixth book comes out. I read it, because I must have the justification for my hero’s behaviour. I must know that he is not simply a ruthless villain supporting an even more ruthless villain but instead the hero that I believe him to be. I find the support I need in a single glimpse into his memory that the author provides. I know I am right. All is well in the world.
The seventh book comes out. I read it through (this morning, in fact), and for Severus I do what I have not done for Heathcliff and his ilk. I cry when he dies.
Yup. I liked him that much. I never wrote poems or drew pictures or any of that other stuff that some fans do (unless you count this blog post), but I gave him the greatest compliment I can give a literary character. I bought books because of him.
I am Severus!
Congratulations if you read to this point. I think I’ll quit before my mental stability is thrown into any more question. But a question to answer, if you will: Have you a favourite Byronic hero? Who and why?
22 September 2007
Sunday Scribblings: Hi, My Name Is...
I won’t be around net access on Sunday, most likely, so here it is, a day early. This is, for the record, not at all pretty much modelled off of conversations I’ve had at a new job in the past, with the names and places changed to protect the not-so-innocent. Not at all. Why would you suspect such a thing?
___________________________
Week 1, Monday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Young lady? Young lady? Hello, young lady. You’ll need to sign in and take a visitor badge, please. No, they’re the ones over there, with “Hi, My Name Is _____”. Yes, those ones. Is this your first day? Who have you got? Ooo, Mrs Wallerstein’s classes! They’re a real handful. If you have any trouble just send the problem up here with a referral. Oh, the forms are in that box. Sure, no problem; see that desk back there? That’s Miss Buchanan, she handles subs. You’re welcome. Thanks, you too.”
Week 1, Tuesday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Hello! You’ll need to sign in and take a visitor badge, please. Janice, hmm? I have a cousin called that. Pretty name. Oh, Maria’s out today, she’ll be back tomorrow. The badge? That’s so security knows you’re supposed to be on campus. Yes, every day. I don’t know, school policy? It does seem kind of redundant, doesn’t it? You all have substitute IDs anyway, couldn’t they check those? Oh, there’s the first bell! Good luck!”
Week 1, Wednesday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Young lady? Oh, hi. Haven’t you been here before? Mrs Wallerstein on Monday, that’s right. You’ll need to sign in and… yeah. Thanks, you too. Hey, young lady! You forgot your badge! You’re welcome. Can’t be on campus without one, you know. Thanks, you too.”
Week 1, Thursday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Young lady? Oh, hi. You know the drill. Hey, you can’t put it on your purse, Janice. Because it has to be on where everyone can see it. There you go. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Thanks, you too.”
Week 1, Friday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Young lady? Oh, hi. Of course I remember. Brittany. Yeah, the badges are helpful, aren’t they? Thanks, you too.”
Week 1, Friday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Young lady, you forgot to sign in this morning. Hey! Where’s your badge! Did you take it off? That’s against school policy, young lady. I don’t want to see that again, do you understand? All right. Anyone can make a mistake once. Just don’t do it again. Thanks, you too.”
Week 2, Thursday, Emerson High School, Staff Entrance to Main Office
“Hey, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at lunch with your friends? Oh, are you? I’m sorry, you look so young. I thought you were a student. You got your badge? Sure, come on in. Sorry about that. Haha, yeah, it is a nuisance, isn’t it? Sometimes I think they should just tattoo them to your foreheads. Yeah, but then at least Maria would know who you were at once. Have the students given you trouble at all? Really? Great! Hey, I’ll be out next week, let me have your sub number and I’ll request you. Yeah, they’re easy. Best kids in the school. And they’re doing the CHASEE for three days, so you’ll have an easy go. They’re real little angels, not like some of the classes. 3165? Got it. Yeah, Joe Wallerstein. Yeah, she’s my wife! Yeah, aren’t they great? Oh, there’s the bell. See you later!”
Week 3, Monday, Emerson High School, Joe Wallerstein’s Second Period Class
“Hey look, it’s her badge!”
“Give it here!”
“Write on it, Jesus!”
“What should I write? You write on it!”
“Give it here!”
“Haha! Way to go, Mario!”
“What?”
“What, now? Are you serious? Yeah, but I finished the test! What, them? They don’t care!”
“I’ll wait for you outside detention, bro.”
“Thanks, chamo. I’m going, I’m going. Geez, are you new or something? We always do this!”
Week 3, Monday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Where’s your badge, young lady? I thought I told you not to take it off again. You have to wear it at all times. School policy. That’s not very funny, young lady. Are you trying to make fun of me? Displaying obscenities on or about your person is against school policy. I don’t care, young lady, one more incident like this and I’ll have to report you to the principal.”
Week 4, Friday, Emerson High School, Quad
“Young lady? Young lady! Young lady, STOP! Hey, what’s the matter with you?! Didn’t you hear me calling you? Yes, I was! Are you supposed to be out of class? A substitute? You’ll have to come up with a better one… oh. I’m sorry, ma’am. Hey, where’s your visitor badge? You’re not supposed to be on campus without one. Did you check in at the office? Come with me, please, I have to verify this.”
Week 4, Friday, Emerson High School, Principal’s Office
“You are Janice Smith? You know, Miss Smith, I’ve been listening to the talk about the office. It seems that you’ve had more than one problem with this sort of thing before. Are you trying to flout our educational policy? We have a system in place, Miss Smith, because we have found that system to work. Do you understand? We can’t have people running all over campus without identification, and when you attempt to disobey procedure, you send a message to our students. When you “lose” your visitor badge or scribble obscene humour on it, you send a message. Do you know what that message is? You are saying to our students that they can feel free to disobey, too. I understand that, but it is your responsibility to come to the office and get a new one. Miss Smith, I think you are being purposefully difficult. We in the administration have always tried to support our teachers and substitutes with as little hassle as possible, and you should return the favour. This kind of fuss is not something we need. Am I clear?”
Week 5, Monday, Lincoln High School, Main Office
“Hi, I’m Kelly, how are you this morning? Fine, thanks. What’s your name? Ah, let me see… Monica, right? Here’s the keys. Monica said to tell her sub not to let them use the TV, they’re in her class to do math even when she isn’t. What badge? Don’t be silly, that’s what you have a sub ID for. Here’s the map, we’re here, and Monica’s class is here. If you get lost, just ask one of the kids, they’ll help you. Have a nice day!”
Week 25, Thursday, Lincoln High School, Main Office
“Hi, Janice! Monica again today. Nate’s gonna ask you to do a period coverage, just warning you. Hey, you’ve been subbing here exclusively now for a while, haven’t you? Yeah, wow, almost six months! Why do you like Lincoln so much?”
___________________________
Week 1, Monday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Young lady? Young lady? Hello, young lady. You’ll need to sign in and take a visitor badge, please. No, they’re the ones over there, with “Hi, My Name Is _____”. Yes, those ones. Is this your first day? Who have you got? Ooo, Mrs Wallerstein’s classes! They’re a real handful. If you have any trouble just send the problem up here with a referral. Oh, the forms are in that box. Sure, no problem; see that desk back there? That’s Miss Buchanan, she handles subs. You’re welcome. Thanks, you too.”
Week 1, Tuesday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Hello! You’ll need to sign in and take a visitor badge, please. Janice, hmm? I have a cousin called that. Pretty name. Oh, Maria’s out today, she’ll be back tomorrow. The badge? That’s so security knows you’re supposed to be on campus. Yes, every day. I don’t know, school policy? It does seem kind of redundant, doesn’t it? You all have substitute IDs anyway, couldn’t they check those? Oh, there’s the first bell! Good luck!”
Week 1, Wednesday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Young lady? Oh, hi. Haven’t you been here before? Mrs Wallerstein on Monday, that’s right. You’ll need to sign in and… yeah. Thanks, you too. Hey, young lady! You forgot your badge! You’re welcome. Can’t be on campus without one, you know. Thanks, you too.”
Week 1, Thursday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Young lady? Oh, hi. You know the drill. Hey, you can’t put it on your purse, Janice. Because it has to be on where everyone can see it. There you go. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Thanks, you too.”
Week 1, Friday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Young lady? Oh, hi. Of course I remember. Brittany. Yeah, the badges are helpful, aren’t they? Thanks, you too.”
Week 1, Friday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Young lady, you forgot to sign in this morning. Hey! Where’s your badge! Did you take it off? That’s against school policy, young lady. I don’t want to see that again, do you understand? All right. Anyone can make a mistake once. Just don’t do it again. Thanks, you too.”
Week 2, Thursday, Emerson High School, Staff Entrance to Main Office
“Hey, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at lunch with your friends? Oh, are you? I’m sorry, you look so young. I thought you were a student. You got your badge? Sure, come on in. Sorry about that. Haha, yeah, it is a nuisance, isn’t it? Sometimes I think they should just tattoo them to your foreheads. Yeah, but then at least Maria would know who you were at once. Have the students given you trouble at all? Really? Great! Hey, I’ll be out next week, let me have your sub number and I’ll request you. Yeah, they’re easy. Best kids in the school. And they’re doing the CHASEE for three days, so you’ll have an easy go. They’re real little angels, not like some of the classes. 3165? Got it. Yeah, Joe Wallerstein. Yeah, she’s my wife! Yeah, aren’t they great? Oh, there’s the bell. See you later!”
Week 3, Monday, Emerson High School, Joe Wallerstein’s Second Period Class
“Hey look, it’s her badge!”
“Give it here!”
“Write on it, Jesus!”
“What should I write? You write on it!”
“Give it here!”
“Haha! Way to go, Mario!”
“What?”
“What, now? Are you serious? Yeah, but I finished the test! What, them? They don’t care!”
“I’ll wait for you outside detention, bro.”
“Thanks, chamo. I’m going, I’m going. Geez, are you new or something? We always do this!”
Week 3, Monday, Emerson High School, Main Office
“Where’s your badge, young lady? I thought I told you not to take it off again. You have to wear it at all times. School policy. That’s not very funny, young lady. Are you trying to make fun of me? Displaying obscenities on or about your person is against school policy. I don’t care, young lady, one more incident like this and I’ll have to report you to the principal.”
Week 4, Friday, Emerson High School, Quad
“Young lady? Young lady! Young lady, STOP! Hey, what’s the matter with you?! Didn’t you hear me calling you? Yes, I was! Are you supposed to be out of class? A substitute? You’ll have to come up with a better one… oh. I’m sorry, ma’am. Hey, where’s your visitor badge? You’re not supposed to be on campus without one. Did you check in at the office? Come with me, please, I have to verify this.”
Week 4, Friday, Emerson High School, Principal’s Office
“You are Janice Smith? You know, Miss Smith, I’ve been listening to the talk about the office. It seems that you’ve had more than one problem with this sort of thing before. Are you trying to flout our educational policy? We have a system in place, Miss Smith, because we have found that system to work. Do you understand? We can’t have people running all over campus without identification, and when you attempt to disobey procedure, you send a message to our students. When you “lose” your visitor badge or scribble obscene humour on it, you send a message. Do you know what that message is? You are saying to our students that they can feel free to disobey, too. I understand that, but it is your responsibility to come to the office and get a new one. Miss Smith, I think you are being purposefully difficult. We in the administration have always tried to support our teachers and substitutes with as little hassle as possible, and you should return the favour. This kind of fuss is not something we need. Am I clear?”
Week 5, Monday, Lincoln High School, Main Office
“Hi, I’m Kelly, how are you this morning? Fine, thanks. What’s your name? Ah, let me see… Monica, right? Here’s the keys. Monica said to tell her sub not to let them use the TV, they’re in her class to do math even when she isn’t. What badge? Don’t be silly, that’s what you have a sub ID for. Here’s the map, we’re here, and Monica’s class is here. If you get lost, just ask one of the kids, they’ll help you. Have a nice day!”
Week 25, Thursday, Lincoln High School, Main Office
“Hi, Janice! Monica again today. Nate’s gonna ask you to do a period coverage, just warning you. Hey, you’ve been subbing here exclusively now for a while, haven’t you? Yeah, wow, almost six months! Why do you like Lincoln so much?”
16 September 2007
Sunday Scribblings: Collector's Personality
I started thinking about what I was going to write for the Sunday Scribblings prompt this week, and I was thinking about all the things that I collect.
I could say I collect the playing of musical instruments. I collect instruments that seem exotic (to Americans, which I will admit is not very difficult) and learn how to play them. I’m not very good at most, but I have a reckoning of all of them and can play my hardangerfele fairly well (laugh it up, Norwegians, but no here knows what it is :/).
I could say I collect sharp bladed objects, except I only really have ones that were given to me as a gift or that I thought were pretty on the spur of the moment. I never really set out to buy one on purpose. So am I really collecting them, or are they just accumulating?
I have a rack of DVDs and a steamer trunk full of books (because I ran out of space on my available shelves). But those books and DVDs were bought not because they were books or DVDs but because of the content they contained. Perhaps I’m collecting information? I definitely have a lot of unicorn paraphernalia and bric-a-brac. Throws and blankets with unicorns, pictures and clocks, tons of things. But I haven’t really bought something like that in five or six years. So that’s a past collection.
So then I started thinking about past things I’ve collected, searching for something suitably impressive to write about. I gave up on that idea quickly, since pretty rocks are generally underappreciated and my mum made me throw out my dead bugs collection when I was five. I think it was the still-living cockroach that ratted out my hiding place for it.
The past proving barren of interesting collections, I thought about ideas and less material things of that general abstract nature. But I don’t collect ideas, they just happen upon me; I don’t collect dreams, I only wish them; and I don’t collect years, they collect me.
So I gave up on writing about a collection of mine and decided to write a story about somebody else’s collection. Maybe I’d write about someone who collected jewellery, and write about where it came from. Or I’d write about someone who collected hair. Or cats. Or shampoo, possibly to be used on the cats or the hair. Or I’d write about a murderer who collected lives.
And then this story idea popped in my head, and I thought it would be fun to write about a person who doesn’t really collect things, but is more forced to collect them. Has to collect them. And then I thought it would be fun to try and see if I couldn’t write a story in the style of author X, so I gave it my best shot (which, as it turns out, is not very good, since I forgot whom I was trying to imitate halfway through and now I can’t tell from the finished product).
Any rate. The story follows.
_____________________________________
And now it actually doesn't follow, because I'm trying to get it published and I can't have it here no more.
I could say I collect the playing of musical instruments. I collect instruments that seem exotic (to Americans, which I will admit is not very difficult) and learn how to play them. I’m not very good at most, but I have a reckoning of all of them and can play my hardangerfele fairly well (laugh it up, Norwegians, but no here knows what it is :/).
I could say I collect sharp bladed objects, except I only really have ones that were given to me as a gift or that I thought were pretty on the spur of the moment. I never really set out to buy one on purpose. So am I really collecting them, or are they just accumulating?
I have a rack of DVDs and a steamer trunk full of books (because I ran out of space on my available shelves). But those books and DVDs were bought not because they were books or DVDs but because of the content they contained. Perhaps I’m collecting information? I definitely have a lot of unicorn paraphernalia and bric-a-brac. Throws and blankets with unicorns, pictures and clocks, tons of things. But I haven’t really bought something like that in five or six years. So that’s a past collection.
So then I started thinking about past things I’ve collected, searching for something suitably impressive to write about. I gave up on that idea quickly, since pretty rocks are generally underappreciated and my mum made me throw out my dead bugs collection when I was five. I think it was the still-living cockroach that ratted out my hiding place for it.
The past proving barren of interesting collections, I thought about ideas and less material things of that general abstract nature. But I don’t collect ideas, they just happen upon me; I don’t collect dreams, I only wish them; and I don’t collect years, they collect me.
So I gave up on writing about a collection of mine and decided to write a story about somebody else’s collection. Maybe I’d write about someone who collected jewellery, and write about where it came from. Or I’d write about someone who collected hair. Or cats. Or shampoo, possibly to be used on the cats or the hair. Or I’d write about a murderer who collected lives.
And then this story idea popped in my head, and I thought it would be fun to write about a person who doesn’t really collect things, but is more forced to collect them. Has to collect them. And then I thought it would be fun to try and see if I couldn’t write a story in the style of author X, so I gave it my best shot (which, as it turns out, is not very good, since I forgot whom I was trying to imitate halfway through and now I can’t tell from the finished product).
Any rate. The story follows.
_____________________________________
And now it actually doesn't follow, because I'm trying to get it published and I can't have it here no more.
14 September 2007
It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know
As it so happens, my prediction of four days ago was entirely correct. The schmuck won. Unfortunately for him, the fifth fundamental force of nepotism did not exert a strong enough pull this time around, and he was forced to share his first place status with the Russian schlemiel.
I thought the Russian dude would win second, seeing as how he was only a student of the Russian judge, and the Hungarian bloc of voters was much bigger than the Russian bloc. I guess the Hungarian bloke really bungled his concerto. Sad, really, when a mere student of a jury member can tie with the nephew of the dean and the student of the President of the Jury. Where’s the sense in that?
Of the two third place winners, I predicted this one (also a student of the Russian judge) but missed out on this one. She was a wild card winner; I thought it would be this girl, the student of the Japanese judge.
But, all in all, I did a pretty fair job of predicting this one. I’ll have to try my hand at predicting other competitions as they come around. Or perhaps I should just become a medium right now.
I thought the Russian dude would win second, seeing as how he was only a student of the Russian judge, and the Hungarian bloc of voters was much bigger than the Russian bloc. I guess the Hungarian bloke really bungled his concerto. Sad, really, when a mere student of a jury member can tie with the nephew of the dean and the student of the President of the Jury. Where’s the sense in that?
Of the two third place winners, I predicted this one (also a student of the Russian judge) but missed out on this one. She was a wild card winner; I thought it would be this girl, the student of the Japanese judge.
But, all in all, I did a pretty fair job of predicting this one. I’ll have to try my hand at predicting other competitions as they come around. Or perhaps I should just become a medium right now.
10 September 2007
The Wheel Keeps Turning… But It Only Matters To Those On The Rim
The József Szigeti Violin Competition is one of the most prestigious violin competitions in the world. It’s not as important as the Indianapolis or the Queen Elizabeth, but it’s up there. It’s supposed to help aspiring musicians break into the world of concert performing and suchlike. Now, you’d think that, given all the preaching about helping young musicians get a leg up into a professional career, may the best player win, fairness of judging, &c &c, that the best player would, in fact, win.
Wrong.
The competition is not over yet. But I, a mediocre player at best since I can’t be bothered to practice the seven or eight hours a day it would require to be good, can tell you the exact characteristics of the person who will win. Even though I’ve displayed no previous aptitude for fortunetelling.
The winner will be Hungarian. He will be male. He will be the nephew of the dean of the Ferenc Liszt University of Music, where the competition is being held. He will be the student of the President of the International Jury judging the competition, and, as it so happens, one year younger than me. It will be this schmuck.
Does that seem fair to you? That I can predict with such ease? Yeah, it did to me too.
Wrong.
The competition is not over yet. But I, a mediocre player at best since I can’t be bothered to practice the seven or eight hours a day it would require to be good, can tell you the exact characteristics of the person who will win. Even though I’ve displayed no previous aptitude for fortunetelling.
The winner will be Hungarian. He will be male. He will be the nephew of the dean of the Ferenc Liszt University of Music, where the competition is being held. He will be the student of the President of the International Jury judging the competition, and, as it so happens, one year younger than me. It will be this schmuck.
Does that seem fair to you? That I can predict with such ease? Yeah, it did to me too.
09 September 2007
Sunday Scribblings: Writing
She’s written one thousand, five hundred and forty-three pages of twelve point Times New Roman text in the last year. Perhaps fifty people have seen portions of it, and only two have read it all. The writing is commonplace, neither great nor terrible. She makes her errors, misspellings here and missing punctuation there, but no more than most and far less than some. It’s mostly prose, green shading to blue, rather than purple. She writes in response to the prompts other people give, and in turn prompts others to write. None of it is publishable—she hasn’t even tried. An editor would use the SASE after reading the first page.
But her sister read it all, as it was written, and she laughed and liked it, for the most part.
She writes about people, all sorts. Broken people, whole people, cracked people. Strong people, weak people, happy people, and sad people. She writes about sneaks, and she writes about honest blokes. She writes about hope and anger and love—sometimes too much. The people she writes about feel too much, or too little, and sometimes nothing happens to them so they don’t feel at all, but are put in her writer’s refrigerator to keep them fresh for later use. Every one of the people in the story is somehow connected to each of the others within three or four degrees, even the ones she doesn’t write about. She is the Kevin Bacon of the story. She tries to keep everything cohesive but sometimes it spirals away, stray wisps of hair blowing on the wind. Sometimes she’s happy with what she’s written, and other times not.
But her best friend read it all, as it was written, and she said she was happier and hopeful, for the most part.
She writes for a readership of two, sometimes more, and ignores her mother, who thinks it’s a waste of time. She smiles and nods to her father, who thinks it’s a form of social networking. She jokes with her brother, who sometimes writes with her. And she keeps on writing.
It’s worth it to her.
But her sister read it all, as it was written, and she laughed and liked it, for the most part.
She writes about people, all sorts. Broken people, whole people, cracked people. Strong people, weak people, happy people, and sad people. She writes about sneaks, and she writes about honest blokes. She writes about hope and anger and love—sometimes too much. The people she writes about feel too much, or too little, and sometimes nothing happens to them so they don’t feel at all, but are put in her writer’s refrigerator to keep them fresh for later use. Every one of the people in the story is somehow connected to each of the others within three or four degrees, even the ones she doesn’t write about. She is the Kevin Bacon of the story. She tries to keep everything cohesive but sometimes it spirals away, stray wisps of hair blowing on the wind. Sometimes she’s happy with what she’s written, and other times not.
But her best friend read it all, as it was written, and she said she was happier and hopeful, for the most part.
She writes for a readership of two, sometimes more, and ignores her mother, who thinks it’s a waste of time. She smiles and nods to her father, who thinks it’s a form of social networking. She jokes with her brother, who sometimes writes with her. And she keeps on writing.
It’s worth it to her.
26 July 2007
Final Fantasy: Advent Children
After a long time of being too unmotivated to blog, I’ve come to the point where I am still too unmotivated to blog. However, since I’m also bored to tears, I’ve decided to amuse myself by writing down what I think of a movie I watched yesterday, Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Posterity will long be awed at my sparkling wit and keen observations, I’m sure.
Final Fantasy: Advent Children is about a lot of women who are really good at defying physics. They’re like Neo on crack. Most of them are about as flat as him, too. They fly around having graceful fights, being doused by water, and riding motorcycles through all kinds of debris; and they do this all without messing up their hair. Or even getting wet. You’d think there’d be a lot of she-looks-sexy-in-her-wet-clothes scenes, but nope, not a one. They stay bone dry no matter how hard it rains or how many pools they fall in. Before I tell you about the plot, let me introduce the characters.
Most of them are women. In fact there are four men in the entire movie (not counting the peons that are an unfortunate part of the masses destined to be killed to demonstrate how really evil the bad guys are). There’s Cid Highwind, a guy with a bit part if I ever saw one. There’s Loz, the crybaby brother of the two main bad chicks. Barret Wallace, the token black guy, is an oil driller who’s into fishnets and BDSM. And there’s Rude (yes, that is his name), one of those gentlemen of the suit and sunglasses persuasion, with the added twist of a multi-pierced ears. And that’s the entire cast of gents—oh, except possibly Clifford the big red dog might be a guy. Didn’t see any direct evidence one way or the other.
The women vastly outnumber the men. Cloud Strife is the main female lead in the movie. She’s a lesbian who’s hung up over this girl she knew in the past that turned into some kind of Earth mother type thing. Cloud is blaming herself for it, because you know it’s bad for your love to be turned into an all-powerful, immortal Earth mother, and so she’s having trouble in the day-to-day, withdrawing from her friends.
Then there’s the first of those friends, Tifa Lockhart. She’s really cool for about the first ten minutes of the film and then falls into the role destined for her: being the only woman with really big boobs. There’s also Reno, the red-haired wife of Rude. Rufus Shinra is an invalid woman who hides her face for most of the movie because she doesn’t want everyone to know she looks like Cloud without gel. Yuffie Kisaragi shows up late in the movie, with a bit part, along with Cait Sith (a stuffed animal) and Clifford. Vincent Valentine is the stern, strong type of girl.
Now then, the villainesses and villain. The main one is Kadaj, a badass woman with no other goal than to find Mum. Mum is the progenitor of Kadaj and her siblings, a disembodied head. Yazoo is Kadaj’s little sister, and Loz is their brother. There’s also Sephiroth, who shows up only at the end, expressing a desire to replace Cloud’s old girlfriend as the Earth spirit.
There, that’s the cast. Now, this is the way the movie goes: All of Cloud’s friends live in this city that’s partially destroyed. They’re bummed because of it, or perhaps because of the sadness that a useless girl mentions in the opening narration (apparently two years ago there was a huge struggle, and things got out of hand, and so the all-powerful Earth mother thing washed away the greed and sadness of the world, but… sadness was the price to see it end. Yes, that’s what she says. I don’t get it either.). Now, people in this city are getting a disease, because the planet is mad at them. That’s bad.
Cut to shabby bar. This is the headquarters of Strife’s Delivery Service. Why? No idea. Haven’t got a clue what she delivers either. Reno calls to tell Tifa that she’s got work for Cloud. She leaves a message for Cloud and Cloud goes to find out what it is. She gets attacked on the way in, by ferocious beasties at the beck of Kadaj, plus Kadaj’s siblings. They’re looking for their Mum, and they call her sister. Cloud is very unemotional about finding out that she has murderous siblings. Fortunately she gets away okay. The motorcycles, despite the abuse they go through, also make it out.
She goes on to meet Reno and get attacked by her, but defeats her in one move. That prompts Rude, Reno’s husband, to get edgy, but the bosswoman, Rufus Shinra, comes in and her cloaked presence calms him. They talk; it’s exposition time. Cloud gets told she’s needed as muscle, cause that’s always a good way to make friends. She says her muscle capability is all in her head, but, being curious about that Mum that Loz and Yazoo were talking about, stays to hear Shinra out. Some very unconvincing lies happen here too.
Then it’s time to move on. Tifa and a brat go to visit Cloud at the wrecked church where she lives and don’t find her. Tifa gets the opportunity to be cool when Loz shows up, but it turns out he’s the better fighter and she gets knocked out, after they ruin the church some more. Loz steals the brat and some important spheres. But meanwhile, Kadaj has beaten up Reno and her husband and is threatening Shinra. She’s angsty. Also during this time, Cloud is being overcome by memories. She goes back to the church too late to save anyone and in fact passes out to some really cheerful music.
When she comes to, she’s in a strange place. Reno and her husband, Rude, picked them up. Reno thinks Cloud is fat and her husband asks what’s been done with the kids Cloud lived with. They’re suspicious that she was living alone with them in a wrecked church, possibly. Eventually they go out looking for the missing brats. Meanwhile Kadaj absorbs some of the important spheres. Cut back to Cloud; we find out she’s worthless, in her own estimation. Reno comes back to say that they’ve found the kids.
Surprise surprise, we find out that Kadaj has the kids and is turning them into little monsters via a process of making them drink water she’s tainted by immersing herself to the waist in. We don’t even want to think about what it was that made the water that highly suspicious colour. She gives an inspirational speech where she psyches the kids up about dear old Mum. But oops! Now Cloud attacks! The glowing trees get heavy use as springboards, and Kadaj and her relatives proceed to attack Cloud with the mob of demon kids. Though Cloud can block bullets with her sword, she still can’t beat the peeps with edged weapons.
Cloud gets beat. A floating rag rescues her, which turns out to be an old lover, Vincent Valentine. Vincent’s depressed that her voice is that of a two-packs-a-day-for-thirty-years smoker, or perhaps because some buds of hers have been tortured. In any case, she helps Cloud get over her depression. The brat that was stolen from Tifa arrives, having escaped from Kadaj during the confusion, and is bratty. They go back home.
Next morning, there’s a mob of unsuspecting peons watching the demon kids behave oddly. Yazoo sets some beasties on them and they start to die. Tifa arrives in the confusion. Reno arrives with her husband. They start getting pounded by Loz and Yazoo. Meanwhile, high in a ruined skyscraper, Kadaj torments Shinra, because she’d do anything for Mum. She summons a gigantic beastie. Down below, Tifa is helpless, because as the chick with the biggest boobs, it’s preferable that they get as much notice as possible, which is difficult when you’re kicking ass. She’s near death many times as she tries to save a demon kid, but fortunately at this point the men of the movie start showing up to save her. Barret and Cid make their grand bit part entrance this way. Valentine shows up too, along with Yuffie, Cait Sith and the red dog.
Then Cloud shows up. Tifa is informed that Cloud thinks Cloud’s lost some weight (really!). I guess Reno’s gibe got to her. The huge monster is killing people by eating them in interesting ways, or barfing up spheres at them. A big battle happens. Cloud finally kills the monster by flying with the help of all her friends. While she’s doing that, Shinra’s finally revealing her resemblance to Cloud, plus showing Kadaj that she’s got Mum. Shinra throws the box containing Mum over the side of the ruined skyscraper, so Kadaj blasts her off for it. Kadaj has to dive over after Mum; Shinra tries to shoot her on the way down but has terrible aim. She does hit the box, however, breaking the cryo-seal on the disembodied head. Kadaj lands safely forty stories below. Shinra is saved from a gruesome death by two henchwomen that show up out of the blue.
Kadaj and her siblings see Cloud coming. This is frightful to them despite that they beat her up only yesterday night, so they run away. Cloud has to chase them onto an empty freeway. She almost gets decapitated eighteen times, and shot at a lot, but, fortunately, emerges without a scratch, as does her motorcycle. This is where we learn that the motorcycles are alive, and can be steered with the knees (and even feet) alone, like horses; and that they follow along faithfully waiting to catch their mistresses when the said feel the need to fly into a fight. Loz loses his bike and has to double up with Yazoo. Reno and her husband flirt a bit and then blow Yazoo’s motorcycle up (but not Yazoo and Loz, they make it out).
Cloud catches up to Kadaj and there’s some fighting before she loses track of Kadaj. Cloud reveals her arm has the disease from the beginning of the movie, which was why it was hidden all this time. Kadaj goes to Cloud’s church, ‘cause you know no one would ever look for her there. Cloud goes there too and finds her weeping over Mum, whose box has been shot, which means that Mum’s gonna be defrosted and dead. Kadaj flees when Cloud’s old girlfriend, now the all-powerful Earth mother, shows up and heals Cloud of her disease. Cloud pursues. They fight. Cloud’s buddies show up in an airship, but, because it’s her battle, they don’t fight, just watch. Yuffie doesn’t understand why, and Cid tells her it’s a man thing. Not realising that Cloud is a lesbian denying the existence of her boobs, Barret is confused by this information.
Kadaj absorbs Mum’s head, which changes her into Sephiroth. Now, Sephiroth has a grudge against Cloud because she wanted to have the place of Cloud’s girlfriend; she wanted to become the immortal Earth spirit. So they fight about it. A lot. Matrix-style with swords, in a giant storm… lots of Reloaded and Revolutions vibes here. Turns out that Cloud wins, and Sephiroth changes back into Kadaj, who dies in Cloud’s arms on top of the tallest tower in the city. There’s a curiously un-wetting downpour, during which Cloud is shot by Loz and Yazoo, and then blown up. But Loz and Yazoo die because the effort of climbing up to Cloud on the skyscraper was too much for them after being blown up by Reno and Rude.
Cloud’s dead now, and floating in white limbo. She gets sent back to the land of the living by her old girlfriend, whom she now thinks is her Mum. Everything goes back to being fine and dandy again. The city is a little more ruined but that’s okay since it was partially destroyed to begin with. Cloud agrees to not distance herself from her friends, and then does this baptismal thing with diseased peeps to restore them to normal. The End.
And that’s Final Fantasy: Advent Children for you. Okay, yes, as you can tell, I got about zero of the plot. But it was pretty to watch all the girls fighting. And the music was beautiful. It’s an excellent movie if you turn your brain off.
Final Fantasy: Advent Children is about a lot of women who are really good at defying physics. They’re like Neo on crack. Most of them are about as flat as him, too. They fly around having graceful fights, being doused by water, and riding motorcycles through all kinds of debris; and they do this all without messing up their hair. Or even getting wet. You’d think there’d be a lot of she-looks-sexy-in-her-wet-clothes scenes, but nope, not a one. They stay bone dry no matter how hard it rains or how many pools they fall in. Before I tell you about the plot, let me introduce the characters.
Most of them are women. In fact there are four men in the entire movie (not counting the peons that are an unfortunate part of the masses destined to be killed to demonstrate how really evil the bad guys are). There’s Cid Highwind, a guy with a bit part if I ever saw one. There’s Loz, the crybaby brother of the two main bad chicks. Barret Wallace, the token black guy, is an oil driller who’s into fishnets and BDSM. And there’s Rude (yes, that is his name), one of those gentlemen of the suit and sunglasses persuasion, with the added twist of a multi-pierced ears. And that’s the entire cast of gents—oh, except possibly Clifford the big red dog might be a guy. Didn’t see any direct evidence one way or the other.
The women vastly outnumber the men. Cloud Strife is the main female lead in the movie. She’s a lesbian who’s hung up over this girl she knew in the past that turned into some kind of Earth mother type thing. Cloud is blaming herself for it, because you know it’s bad for your love to be turned into an all-powerful, immortal Earth mother, and so she’s having trouble in the day-to-day, withdrawing from her friends.
Then there’s the first of those friends, Tifa Lockhart. She’s really cool for about the first ten minutes of the film and then falls into the role destined for her: being the only woman with really big boobs. There’s also Reno, the red-haired wife of Rude. Rufus Shinra is an invalid woman who hides her face for most of the movie because she doesn’t want everyone to know she looks like Cloud without gel. Yuffie Kisaragi shows up late in the movie, with a bit part, along with Cait Sith (a stuffed animal) and Clifford. Vincent Valentine is the stern, strong type of girl.
Now then, the villainesses and villain. The main one is Kadaj, a badass woman with no other goal than to find Mum. Mum is the progenitor of Kadaj and her siblings, a disembodied head. Yazoo is Kadaj’s little sister, and Loz is their brother. There’s also Sephiroth, who shows up only at the end, expressing a desire to replace Cloud’s old girlfriend as the Earth spirit.
There, that’s the cast. Now, this is the way the movie goes: All of Cloud’s friends live in this city that’s partially destroyed. They’re bummed because of it, or perhaps because of the sadness that a useless girl mentions in the opening narration (apparently two years ago there was a huge struggle, and things got out of hand, and so the all-powerful Earth mother thing washed away the greed and sadness of the world, but… sadness was the price to see it end. Yes, that’s what she says. I don’t get it either.). Now, people in this city are getting a disease, because the planet is mad at them. That’s bad.
Cut to shabby bar. This is the headquarters of Strife’s Delivery Service. Why? No idea. Haven’t got a clue what she delivers either. Reno calls to tell Tifa that she’s got work for Cloud. She leaves a message for Cloud and Cloud goes to find out what it is. She gets attacked on the way in, by ferocious beasties at the beck of Kadaj, plus Kadaj’s siblings. They’re looking for their Mum, and they call her sister. Cloud is very unemotional about finding out that she has murderous siblings. Fortunately she gets away okay. The motorcycles, despite the abuse they go through, also make it out.
She goes on to meet Reno and get attacked by her, but defeats her in one move. That prompts Rude, Reno’s husband, to get edgy, but the bosswoman, Rufus Shinra, comes in and her cloaked presence calms him. They talk; it’s exposition time. Cloud gets told she’s needed as muscle, cause that’s always a good way to make friends. She says her muscle capability is all in her head, but, being curious about that Mum that Loz and Yazoo were talking about, stays to hear Shinra out. Some very unconvincing lies happen here too.
Then it’s time to move on. Tifa and a brat go to visit Cloud at the wrecked church where she lives and don’t find her. Tifa gets the opportunity to be cool when Loz shows up, but it turns out he’s the better fighter and she gets knocked out, after they ruin the church some more. Loz steals the brat and some important spheres. But meanwhile, Kadaj has beaten up Reno and her husband and is threatening Shinra. She’s angsty. Also during this time, Cloud is being overcome by memories. She goes back to the church too late to save anyone and in fact passes out to some really cheerful music.
When she comes to, she’s in a strange place. Reno and her husband, Rude, picked them up. Reno thinks Cloud is fat and her husband asks what’s been done with the kids Cloud lived with. They’re suspicious that she was living alone with them in a wrecked church, possibly. Eventually they go out looking for the missing brats. Meanwhile Kadaj absorbs some of the important spheres. Cut back to Cloud; we find out she’s worthless, in her own estimation. Reno comes back to say that they’ve found the kids.
Surprise surprise, we find out that Kadaj has the kids and is turning them into little monsters via a process of making them drink water she’s tainted by immersing herself to the waist in. We don’t even want to think about what it was that made the water that highly suspicious colour. She gives an inspirational speech where she psyches the kids up about dear old Mum. But oops! Now Cloud attacks! The glowing trees get heavy use as springboards, and Kadaj and her relatives proceed to attack Cloud with the mob of demon kids. Though Cloud can block bullets with her sword, she still can’t beat the peeps with edged weapons.
Cloud gets beat. A floating rag rescues her, which turns out to be an old lover, Vincent Valentine. Vincent’s depressed that her voice is that of a two-packs-a-day-for-thirty-years smoker, or perhaps because some buds of hers have been tortured. In any case, she helps Cloud get over her depression. The brat that was stolen from Tifa arrives, having escaped from Kadaj during the confusion, and is bratty. They go back home.
Next morning, there’s a mob of unsuspecting peons watching the demon kids behave oddly. Yazoo sets some beasties on them and they start to die. Tifa arrives in the confusion. Reno arrives with her husband. They start getting pounded by Loz and Yazoo. Meanwhile, high in a ruined skyscraper, Kadaj torments Shinra, because she’d do anything for Mum. She summons a gigantic beastie. Down below, Tifa is helpless, because as the chick with the biggest boobs, it’s preferable that they get as much notice as possible, which is difficult when you’re kicking ass. She’s near death many times as she tries to save a demon kid, but fortunately at this point the men of the movie start showing up to save her. Barret and Cid make their grand bit part entrance this way. Valentine shows up too, along with Yuffie, Cait Sith and the red dog.
Then Cloud shows up. Tifa is informed that Cloud thinks Cloud’s lost some weight (really!). I guess Reno’s gibe got to her. The huge monster is killing people by eating them in interesting ways, or barfing up spheres at them. A big battle happens. Cloud finally kills the monster by flying with the help of all her friends. While she’s doing that, Shinra’s finally revealing her resemblance to Cloud, plus showing Kadaj that she’s got Mum. Shinra throws the box containing Mum over the side of the ruined skyscraper, so Kadaj blasts her off for it. Kadaj has to dive over after Mum; Shinra tries to shoot her on the way down but has terrible aim. She does hit the box, however, breaking the cryo-seal on the disembodied head. Kadaj lands safely forty stories below. Shinra is saved from a gruesome death by two henchwomen that show up out of the blue.
Kadaj and her siblings see Cloud coming. This is frightful to them despite that they beat her up only yesterday night, so they run away. Cloud has to chase them onto an empty freeway. She almost gets decapitated eighteen times, and shot at a lot, but, fortunately, emerges without a scratch, as does her motorcycle. This is where we learn that the motorcycles are alive, and can be steered with the knees (and even feet) alone, like horses; and that they follow along faithfully waiting to catch their mistresses when the said feel the need to fly into a fight. Loz loses his bike and has to double up with Yazoo. Reno and her husband flirt a bit and then blow Yazoo’s motorcycle up (but not Yazoo and Loz, they make it out).
Cloud catches up to Kadaj and there’s some fighting before she loses track of Kadaj. Cloud reveals her arm has the disease from the beginning of the movie, which was why it was hidden all this time. Kadaj goes to Cloud’s church, ‘cause you know no one would ever look for her there. Cloud goes there too and finds her weeping over Mum, whose box has been shot, which means that Mum’s gonna be defrosted and dead. Kadaj flees when Cloud’s old girlfriend, now the all-powerful Earth mother, shows up and heals Cloud of her disease. Cloud pursues. They fight. Cloud’s buddies show up in an airship, but, because it’s her battle, they don’t fight, just watch. Yuffie doesn’t understand why, and Cid tells her it’s a man thing. Not realising that Cloud is a lesbian denying the existence of her boobs, Barret is confused by this information.
Kadaj absorbs Mum’s head, which changes her into Sephiroth. Now, Sephiroth has a grudge against Cloud because she wanted to have the place of Cloud’s girlfriend; she wanted to become the immortal Earth spirit. So they fight about it. A lot. Matrix-style with swords, in a giant storm… lots of Reloaded and Revolutions vibes here. Turns out that Cloud wins, and Sephiroth changes back into Kadaj, who dies in Cloud’s arms on top of the tallest tower in the city. There’s a curiously un-wetting downpour, during which Cloud is shot by Loz and Yazoo, and then blown up. But Loz and Yazoo die because the effort of climbing up to Cloud on the skyscraper was too much for them after being blown up by Reno and Rude.
Cloud’s dead now, and floating in white limbo. She gets sent back to the land of the living by her old girlfriend, whom she now thinks is her Mum. Everything goes back to being fine and dandy again. The city is a little more ruined but that’s okay since it was partially destroyed to begin with. Cloud agrees to not distance herself from her friends, and then does this baptismal thing with diseased peeps to restore them to normal. The End.
And that’s Final Fantasy: Advent Children for you. Okay, yes, as you can tell, I got about zero of the plot. But it was pretty to watch all the girls fighting. And the music was beautiful. It’s an excellent movie if you turn your brain off.
30 March 2007
Baja California
The Beginning
I live again! Yes, I am back to blogging after my month-long hiatus. Because I know everyone is absolutely dying to hear about my trip to Mexico, I’ve chosen it as the subject of this blog. All right, then, here we go. It was a dark and stormy night…
…erm, the bright and sunny Saturday morning of March the 24th at 9 o’clock when I set out for the state of Baja California, in Mexico, with my two sisters. Our chosen mode of transportation was my brother-in-law’s extremely nice Toyota Rav4, which he was so generous as to lend us for the week. We packed it with our stuff and Anubis, the protector-dog belonging to my older sister Rebecca, and set out. We crossed the US-Mexican border without even being stopped, which has happened both of the other times I’ve visited Mexico, too.
Once inside Mexico we tried to make it to El Rosario so that we could stay at Mama Espinoza’s, a hotel that Rebecca was familiar with and highly recommended. We took a side detour to visit La Bufadora. Here I got my first pictures of the trip.
La Bufadora is a marine geyser, and is much more impressive in life than in my pictures. It shoots, many people said, up to eighty feet high. I think it goes higher; it certainly looks much higher than that. There’s a legend about it: a baby whale swam into the cave at the base of it and then grew too fast and got stuck in there. The spout is the breath from its blowhole, and the roar of La Bufadora is the sound of its cry. Ickle baby whale, poor thing.
The channel and the geyser, the geyser spouting, more spouting, the runoff during a lull, a particularly high spout, and two more pictures for good measure: one and two.
Along the way to La Bufadora the walk is lined with shops selling all sorts of stuff. Rebecca bought me a bag from here. It says that it’s Gucci, and purports to be made in Italy, but it’s manifestly not. I know this because what is actually stamped in the side is “GUCCI, mede in italy”. I nearly laughed myself to death. I also bought some fake Chanel sunglasses there, because they were nice, except that the brand-stamping was shoddy, so I’ve taken off the marks so that no one can tell they were supposed to be Chanel. Perfectly usable now.
After this detour, we continued on to El Rosario, where we attempted to stay at Mama Espinoza’s. It was full, so we got directed to another place, the Cactus Hotel. Upon seeing the gigantic room we got, plus the very cool arrangement of it and the utter cleanliness of the place, Rebecca pronounced it to be far superior to Mama Espinoza’s.
Also in El Rosario is a little convenience store, Danny’s Espinoza Market, run by a man called Mishael Espinoza. If ever anyone who reads this happens to be in El Rosario, this is the place to buy your stuff. Not because it’s such a very great store, but because of Mishael. More on him later.
Guerrero Negro
On our second day we went down about 350 kilometres more, to the town of Guerrero Negro, which actually saw us leaving the state of Baja California and entering Baja California Sur. Guerrero Negro is a very orderly town, very flat, and very spread out. We stayed in a hotel that at first we thought was very nice. We went along in this happy delusion until the next morning, when we showered and spotted fleas jumping about on the white tiles of the shower. This unwaggy discovery incited us to think that if there were fleas in the shower where we could see them, there very likely were also fleas on the dark carpet where we could not see them. We vacated the premises as soon thereafter as possible. We do not seem to have picked up fleas, so I guess we suffered no harm after all.
There were quite a few interesting features about Guerrero Negro. There is a huge salt processing facility; we actually traveled through it on the way to the whale-watching boat. The salt water is spread out into huge lagoons, which are then allowed to dry. The salt crusts in piles and is then gathered, and seems to be stored in this one gigantic pile. I actually saw bulldozers traveling up it; the pile was about twenty-five times the height of one bulldozer, and many more times as wide and long. I also saw huge sea-barges piled with the stuff.
There are osprey breeding-platforms dotting this area; it has something to do with a conservation effort because of too many osprey eggs breaking because the shells were too thin, a result of overuse of pesticides. I didn’t quite understand the guide on that bit (his English was not the best, and my Spanish is the worst). In Guerrero Negro proper, however, the wildlife consists mainly of dogs. They run everywhere and do not belong to anyone. They flinch away from people at the slightest sharp movement, leading me to believe that they probably get hit quite often. I got a picture of three of them on the roof of a store. I have no idea how they got up there (plus I’ve never seen such a thing in the US) so I took a picture.
Roof Dogs.
Then there were also seals, which we saw on the end of the whale-watching tour. They were quite funny; the men were sticking their noses up in the air, and the less fat one was honking, and the ladies were just flopping about totally ignoring them. We went past some very sandy beaches, piled high with dunes and very desolate indeed, on the tour, which I liked so much that I got pictures of as well. I would have loved to have been able to stop and walk on them, but, sadly, the boat didn’t stop. The picture quality is less sometimes because these pictures were taken from a boat going about forty to fifty kilometers an hour, bumping over the waves.
The seals, proud males and bored females, and one lady notices. The empty sand beaches are as follows: one, two, and three.
And then there was the actual whale-watching tour. It was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. The boat went out to a very wide bay/lagoon, where grey whales give birth and prepare the babies to go into the open ocean. We got surrounded by them and saw all of the things of a stereotypical whale-watching tour; the breathing, breaching, skyhopping, &c. And all three of us got to touch a baby whale! And his/her mama, too! They feel exactly like wet rubber, except for the barnacles, which are scratchy. The mums were worried about letting the babies near at first, but they loosened up after a while; either that or the babies became more disobedient. We saw one mom shove her baby away when he got too close. That pair went away after that.
All told we probably saw about forty-fifty whales that were distinguishably different (there might have been more, I just couldn’t tell since they weren’t all up at the same time, and I have a limited memory for distinguishing marks). There was one whale that scratched himself or herself on the bottom of our boat; it made the whole thing shake. That actually happened each time a whale was on one side of the boat close enough to touch; the boat shivers and then sinks on that side. Not enough to capsize it or anything, but that’s how you tell when a whale is there. I actually have no idea why it happens. I’ll have to look into the physics of large masses underneath small boats sometime.
The first whale we saw.
I took the picture out of excitement at actually seeing a whale, figuring that I wouldn’t get to see too many more (as happened on my last whale-watching trip, when I was 13). How wrong I was…
The first mother and baby.
Whale with tail visible.
A mother whale, very barnacled.
That mother’s curious baby.
The mother warning him off.
The baby coming back anyway.
That’s Rebecca about to touch the baby.
The mother checking us out.
That’s Jessica about to touch her.
Contact photo!
Jessica actually touching a grey whale! Woot! It was so cool, I touched that one too! And her baby! Whales whales whales! Whee!
Mulegé
Then on the next day we drove from Guerrero Negro to Mulegé. It’s a tiny little town, very peaceful, with the friendliest people imaginable. We actually stayed about ten miles outside of town, on this little protrusion of land aptly named the Point of Dreams (in Spanish of course, but I can’t remember how to spell it correctly). We stayed in a little bungalow we rented, for two days. And we swam, and snorkeled, and it was the most relaxing thing I have ever done, I think. Jessica, my younger sister, found an otter skull, and a starfish, and was the one to spot the first stingray. She kept the skull, but we had to put the starfish back because it turned out to be alive. I haven’t really got much to say about Mulegé except that the two days we spent there were my favourite of the trip.
The sunrise at our private stretch of beach, which came with the bungalow when we rented it, and a scenic wave, also taken at sunrise.
Driving
Then we drove back, and it was pretty much just retracing our steps back, except that we went straight from Mulegé to El Rosario, without stopping in Guerrero Negro. Along the way I took some pictures of various things that interested me.
Drug lord house.
This was a house in an entire neighborhood of houses belonging to drug lords. The construction on some of them is straight from the realm of the fantastic. There was one that was done with minarets, and a yellow castle—with turrets—not far from it, and a bunch done in what I shall term “cinderblock style”, which looks a lot like a prison only with windows. I even saw one shaped like a naked woman’s chest and face. Yes, really, complete with flesh-coloured paint and erect nipples; it was probably forty feet high, set on a hillside. I would have got a picture except that we were going down the highway at 140 kilometres an hour and there was no access ramp to turn back on. It was the single most amusing and pathetic house I’ve ever seen.
Pretty desert.
Pretty cacti.
A flower farm.
A forest of palms.
Vista one.
Vista two.
Military checkpoint.
We also went through eight military checkpoints, four each way, and were stopped six times and inspected five. This is one we got stopped at and asked a bunch of questions, but not actually made to get out of the vehicle and searched. It was kind of amusing to watch them searching our car very assiduously for smuggled drugs. They even opened the hood to check once, but they left most of our stuff alone, not pawing through our belongings.
A cow.
This animal is, as you can see, a cow. It was standing about a foot off the side of the main highway, without any kind of barrier between it and the road.
Cow bones.
And not too much further on we observed these bones, which leads me to think that sometimes the cows get hit when they wander about like that.
We started watching for bones after that, and found at least twenty that we considered worth going to look at. The reason we were looking at them is because we had by this time come upon a desire to possess some desert-bleached skulls, the stereotypical sort you see in movies and suchlike. And we did in fact collect a skull for each of us. Rebecca got the most fantastic cow skull ever (I’ll try an obtain a picture for a later post), Jessica got a somewhat less fantastic but still impressive cow skull (because she already had the otter skull), and I got a horse skull. My skull has a bullet-hole between the eyes; the poor baby was shot and then left in the desert to rot away and get bleached.
The cow skull front, the cow skull from the side, my horse skull from the front, horse skull from the side, and a close-up of the bullet hole.
Pay it Forward
And then on the drive back, one other extra-special thing happened. We ran out of gas on the way from Mulegé to El Rosario, because we forgot to fill the tank in Guerrero Negro, which is the last place with gas before El Rosario. El Rosario is about 350 kilometres from Guerrero Negro, as previously mentioned, and we left Guerrero Negro with half a tank. We were, upon reflection, perhaps carelessly forgetful.
Then, naturally, we were not wagged when we ran out of gas about 15 kilometres from El Rosario. We were having a collective “oh shit” moment, because for three gringas in Mexico, two of whom do not speak Spanish, running out of gas is definitely not a safe thing. Especially at night, which was due in one half hour.
And then the amazing part happened. Jess and I pushed the Rav4 off the road onto a pullout, and there happened to be a pickup hauling a boat parked some ways ahead on the same pullout. Immediately after we got the car off the road, a van pulled in behind us, carrying a man by the name of Mishael Espinoza (related to Mama Espinoza of El Rosario, charity must run in the family) and his friend. These two gentlemen offered to take Rebecca into town to get gas to bring back for the car, and the hubbub of people around the car attracted the attention of the gentleman who owned the boat. He came up to see what all the fuss was, and when he found out, said that he had a can of spare gas with him that we could use.
This gentleman was probably between fifty and sixty, and was a visitor to Baja from Wyoming. And his only requirement for giving us his gas and pulling us out of our tight spot was that we pass it on ten times. I’ve watched the movie Pay it Forward, but I’ve never seen anything in real life remotely like that before now.
So then Mishael followed us into town, to the Pemex station, and made sure we were all right before leaving. It was really the most extraordinary resolution to a potentially catastrophic disaster ever.
That’s the basic rundown on our trip to Mexico. I could elaborate more, but this is long enough, I think. Adios, until next time.
I live again! Yes, I am back to blogging after my month-long hiatus. Because I know everyone is absolutely dying to hear about my trip to Mexico, I’ve chosen it as the subject of this blog. All right, then, here we go. It was a dark and stormy night…
…erm, the bright and sunny Saturday morning of March the 24th at 9 o’clock when I set out for the state of Baja California, in Mexico, with my two sisters. Our chosen mode of transportation was my brother-in-law’s extremely nice Toyota Rav4, which he was so generous as to lend us for the week. We packed it with our stuff and Anubis, the protector-dog belonging to my older sister Rebecca, and set out. We crossed the US-Mexican border without even being stopped, which has happened both of the other times I’ve visited Mexico, too.
Once inside Mexico we tried to make it to El Rosario so that we could stay at Mama Espinoza’s, a hotel that Rebecca was familiar with and highly recommended. We took a side detour to visit La Bufadora. Here I got my first pictures of the trip.
La Bufadora is a marine geyser, and is much more impressive in life than in my pictures. It shoots, many people said, up to eighty feet high. I think it goes higher; it certainly looks much higher than that. There’s a legend about it: a baby whale swam into the cave at the base of it and then grew too fast and got stuck in there. The spout is the breath from its blowhole, and the roar of La Bufadora is the sound of its cry. Ickle baby whale, poor thing.
The channel and the geyser, the geyser spouting, more spouting, the runoff during a lull, a particularly high spout, and two more pictures for good measure: one and two.
Along the way to La Bufadora the walk is lined with shops selling all sorts of stuff. Rebecca bought me a bag from here. It says that it’s Gucci, and purports to be made in Italy, but it’s manifestly not. I know this because what is actually stamped in the side is “GUCCI, mede in italy”. I nearly laughed myself to death. I also bought some fake Chanel sunglasses there, because they were nice, except that the brand-stamping was shoddy, so I’ve taken off the marks so that no one can tell they were supposed to be Chanel. Perfectly usable now.
After this detour, we continued on to El Rosario, where we attempted to stay at Mama Espinoza’s. It was full, so we got directed to another place, the Cactus Hotel. Upon seeing the gigantic room we got, plus the very cool arrangement of it and the utter cleanliness of the place, Rebecca pronounced it to be far superior to Mama Espinoza’s.
Also in El Rosario is a little convenience store, Danny’s Espinoza Market, run by a man called Mishael Espinoza. If ever anyone who reads this happens to be in El Rosario, this is the place to buy your stuff. Not because it’s such a very great store, but because of Mishael. More on him later.
Guerrero Negro
On our second day we went down about 350 kilometres more, to the town of Guerrero Negro, which actually saw us leaving the state of Baja California and entering Baja California Sur. Guerrero Negro is a very orderly town, very flat, and very spread out. We stayed in a hotel that at first we thought was very nice. We went along in this happy delusion until the next morning, when we showered and spotted fleas jumping about on the white tiles of the shower. This unwaggy discovery incited us to think that if there were fleas in the shower where we could see them, there very likely were also fleas on the dark carpet where we could not see them. We vacated the premises as soon thereafter as possible. We do not seem to have picked up fleas, so I guess we suffered no harm after all.
There were quite a few interesting features about Guerrero Negro. There is a huge salt processing facility; we actually traveled through it on the way to the whale-watching boat. The salt water is spread out into huge lagoons, which are then allowed to dry. The salt crusts in piles and is then gathered, and seems to be stored in this one gigantic pile. I actually saw bulldozers traveling up it; the pile was about twenty-five times the height of one bulldozer, and many more times as wide and long. I also saw huge sea-barges piled with the stuff.
There are osprey breeding-platforms dotting this area; it has something to do with a conservation effort because of too many osprey eggs breaking because the shells were too thin, a result of overuse of pesticides. I didn’t quite understand the guide on that bit (his English was not the best, and my Spanish is the worst). In Guerrero Negro proper, however, the wildlife consists mainly of dogs. They run everywhere and do not belong to anyone. They flinch away from people at the slightest sharp movement, leading me to believe that they probably get hit quite often. I got a picture of three of them on the roof of a store. I have no idea how they got up there (plus I’ve never seen such a thing in the US) so I took a picture.
Roof Dogs.
Then there were also seals, which we saw on the end of the whale-watching tour. They were quite funny; the men were sticking their noses up in the air, and the less fat one was honking, and the ladies were just flopping about totally ignoring them. We went past some very sandy beaches, piled high with dunes and very desolate indeed, on the tour, which I liked so much that I got pictures of as well. I would have loved to have been able to stop and walk on them, but, sadly, the boat didn’t stop. The picture quality is less sometimes because these pictures were taken from a boat going about forty to fifty kilometers an hour, bumping over the waves.
The seals, proud males and bored females, and one lady notices. The empty sand beaches are as follows: one, two, and three.
And then there was the actual whale-watching tour. It was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. The boat went out to a very wide bay/lagoon, where grey whales give birth and prepare the babies to go into the open ocean. We got surrounded by them and saw all of the things of a stereotypical whale-watching tour; the breathing, breaching, skyhopping, &c. And all three of us got to touch a baby whale! And his/her mama, too! They feel exactly like wet rubber, except for the barnacles, which are scratchy. The mums were worried about letting the babies near at first, but they loosened up after a while; either that or the babies became more disobedient. We saw one mom shove her baby away when he got too close. That pair went away after that.
All told we probably saw about forty-fifty whales that were distinguishably different (there might have been more, I just couldn’t tell since they weren’t all up at the same time, and I have a limited memory for distinguishing marks). There was one whale that scratched himself or herself on the bottom of our boat; it made the whole thing shake. That actually happened each time a whale was on one side of the boat close enough to touch; the boat shivers and then sinks on that side. Not enough to capsize it or anything, but that’s how you tell when a whale is there. I actually have no idea why it happens. I’ll have to look into the physics of large masses underneath small boats sometime.
The first whale we saw.
I took the picture out of excitement at actually seeing a whale, figuring that I wouldn’t get to see too many more (as happened on my last whale-watching trip, when I was 13). How wrong I was…
The first mother and baby.
Whale with tail visible.
A mother whale, very barnacled.
That mother’s curious baby.
The mother warning him off.
The baby coming back anyway.
That’s Rebecca about to touch the baby.
The mother checking us out.
That’s Jessica about to touch her.
Contact photo!
Jessica actually touching a grey whale! Woot! It was so cool, I touched that one too! And her baby! Whales whales whales! Whee!
Mulegé
Then on the next day we drove from Guerrero Negro to Mulegé. It’s a tiny little town, very peaceful, with the friendliest people imaginable. We actually stayed about ten miles outside of town, on this little protrusion of land aptly named the Point of Dreams (in Spanish of course, but I can’t remember how to spell it correctly). We stayed in a little bungalow we rented, for two days. And we swam, and snorkeled, and it was the most relaxing thing I have ever done, I think. Jessica, my younger sister, found an otter skull, and a starfish, and was the one to spot the first stingray. She kept the skull, but we had to put the starfish back because it turned out to be alive. I haven’t really got much to say about Mulegé except that the two days we spent there were my favourite of the trip.
The sunrise at our private stretch of beach, which came with the bungalow when we rented it, and a scenic wave, also taken at sunrise.
Driving
Then we drove back, and it was pretty much just retracing our steps back, except that we went straight from Mulegé to El Rosario, without stopping in Guerrero Negro. Along the way I took some pictures of various things that interested me.
Drug lord house.
This was a house in an entire neighborhood of houses belonging to drug lords. The construction on some of them is straight from the realm of the fantastic. There was one that was done with minarets, and a yellow castle—with turrets—not far from it, and a bunch done in what I shall term “cinderblock style”, which looks a lot like a prison only with windows. I even saw one shaped like a naked woman’s chest and face. Yes, really, complete with flesh-coloured paint and erect nipples; it was probably forty feet high, set on a hillside. I would have got a picture except that we were going down the highway at 140 kilometres an hour and there was no access ramp to turn back on. It was the single most amusing and pathetic house I’ve ever seen.
Pretty desert.
Pretty cacti.
A flower farm.
A forest of palms.
Vista one.
Vista two.
Military checkpoint.
We also went through eight military checkpoints, four each way, and were stopped six times and inspected five. This is one we got stopped at and asked a bunch of questions, but not actually made to get out of the vehicle and searched. It was kind of amusing to watch them searching our car very assiduously for smuggled drugs. They even opened the hood to check once, but they left most of our stuff alone, not pawing through our belongings.
A cow.
This animal is, as you can see, a cow. It was standing about a foot off the side of the main highway, without any kind of barrier between it and the road.
Cow bones.
And not too much further on we observed these bones, which leads me to think that sometimes the cows get hit when they wander about like that.
We started watching for bones after that, and found at least twenty that we considered worth going to look at. The reason we were looking at them is because we had by this time come upon a desire to possess some desert-bleached skulls, the stereotypical sort you see in movies and suchlike. And we did in fact collect a skull for each of us. Rebecca got the most fantastic cow skull ever (I’ll try an obtain a picture for a later post), Jessica got a somewhat less fantastic but still impressive cow skull (because she already had the otter skull), and I got a horse skull. My skull has a bullet-hole between the eyes; the poor baby was shot and then left in the desert to rot away and get bleached.
The cow skull front, the cow skull from the side, my horse skull from the front, horse skull from the side, and a close-up of the bullet hole.
Pay it Forward
And then on the drive back, one other extra-special thing happened. We ran out of gas on the way from Mulegé to El Rosario, because we forgot to fill the tank in Guerrero Negro, which is the last place with gas before El Rosario. El Rosario is about 350 kilometres from Guerrero Negro, as previously mentioned, and we left Guerrero Negro with half a tank. We were, upon reflection, perhaps carelessly forgetful.
Then, naturally, we were not wagged when we ran out of gas about 15 kilometres from El Rosario. We were having a collective “oh shit” moment, because for three gringas in Mexico, two of whom do not speak Spanish, running out of gas is definitely not a safe thing. Especially at night, which was due in one half hour.
And then the amazing part happened. Jess and I pushed the Rav4 off the road onto a pullout, and there happened to be a pickup hauling a boat parked some ways ahead on the same pullout. Immediately after we got the car off the road, a van pulled in behind us, carrying a man by the name of Mishael Espinoza (related to Mama Espinoza of El Rosario, charity must run in the family) and his friend. These two gentlemen offered to take Rebecca into town to get gas to bring back for the car, and the hubbub of people around the car attracted the attention of the gentleman who owned the boat. He came up to see what all the fuss was, and when he found out, said that he had a can of spare gas with him that we could use.
This gentleman was probably between fifty and sixty, and was a visitor to Baja from Wyoming. And his only requirement for giving us his gas and pulling us out of our tight spot was that we pass it on ten times. I’ve watched the movie Pay it Forward, but I’ve never seen anything in real life remotely like that before now.
So then Mishael followed us into town, to the Pemex station, and made sure we were all right before leaving. It was really the most extraordinary resolution to a potentially catastrophic disaster ever.
That’s the basic rundown on our trip to Mexico. I could elaborate more, but this is long enough, I think. Adios, until next time.
28 February 2007
Ceramics
I’m a substitute teacher (and student and wannabe writer). About a year ago, I subbed for Mr P, the ceramics teacher at a school in my district. I had lots and lots of spare time on my hands, so during one period, I made a little statuette. It was of a generic ancient Egyptian woman, standing about eight or nine inches tall. I made it from clay and I tried to mimic the look of ancient Egyptian statues. Not sure how well I succeeded, but you can judge for yourself.
The statue: Left Side, Right Side, Front, and Closeup.
I left the statue as wet clay on the top of the odds-and-ends box (that’s what I made it from) so that Mr P could reuse the clay in his class.
Today, I subbed for Mr P again, and the very first thing after “Hi” that he said to me when I walked in his door was, “Oh, you’ve subbed for me before! You made that little statue… I still have it, if you want it.” And he gave it to me. He’d fired it and everything, and he remembered that I made it, even though he hadn’t seen me in a year!
I feel special.
The statue: Left Side, Right Side, Front, and Closeup.
I left the statue as wet clay on the top of the odds-and-ends box (that’s what I made it from) so that Mr P could reuse the clay in his class.
Today, I subbed for Mr P again, and the very first thing after “Hi” that he said to me when I walked in his door was, “Oh, you’ve subbed for me before! You made that little statue… I still have it, if you want it.” And he gave it to me. He’d fired it and everything, and he remembered that I made it, even though he hadn’t seen me in a year!
I feel special.
04 February 2007
My Sister In Kenya
My older sister, Rebecca, recently went to Nairobi, Kenya for the World Social Forum; she was funded by her university department as part of a research group. They paid for the ticket, room, and board while she was there. She decided, along with the other graduate students going, that since tickets to Africa, not to mention time off work and school, are hard to come by, they would go early and have a bit of a safari trip as well. So they arranged it; cheap safari, since they only had to pay for hotels for the extra week and the transportation and suchlike. These are the marvelous pictures (plus some of the stories) that came back from that part of the trip.
First of all, the pictures with my sister in them:
The Group.
This is part of the university group in Nairobi. My sister is the blonde one in the approximate center. The older gentleman beside her is Dr. Chase-Dunn, her advising professor. The little one in the very bright green shoes is a boy who tagged along. He used to be barefoot, but my sister bought him the shoes—he picked them himself.
The Hospital.
Actually my sister isn’t in this picture, but since we’re on the subject of Nairobi; this is a hospital signboard in the city. The circumcision listed as a service offered refers to female genital mutilation.
The Escort.
My sister is the blond one. The gentleman beside her is the escort mentioned in the sign; yes, he really did have to carry that gun the whole time.
The Camel Ride.
The very tall camel which my sister rode She got up there and then got scared. The gentlemen with her are from the Samburu area, and the one in the red lied about his fraterity to the chairperson of Umoja. More on Umoja in a few posts.
The Monkey.
My sister posing with a very cute monkey that is quite at ease with people. Note the sign above her head; it says “Please do not feed Monkeys.” She ignored this very good advice, and fed it part of a Power Bar. As a result, it wouldn’t leave her alone, and it got into her hotel room. It searched around until it found another Power Bar, which it stole. She saw it outside eating it and decided to get revenge on it.
The Sad Monkey.
She placed a bunch of bananas inside the window, and teased the poor creature.
Next, the scenery pictures:
The sun, shining through the Kenyan jungle.
A beautiful sunset.
A second beautiful sunset.
And finally, the animal pictures:
The Trashers.
These charming fellows were photographed outside her cabin on the safari. She came out of the cabin eating a Power Bar (this was before the monkey in the above photos) and got ambushed by one that leapt upon her and fastened itself to her leg. She got scared it would bite her and threw a piece of the Power Bar away from her to get it to leave. It did, but a number of its buddies gathered around, and chased her into a friend’s cabin. The later she went back to her cabin to find it totally trashed. She had closed the door but not locked it, and the monkeys had broken in. They did not find her Power Bars but did find all her papers, clothes, makeup, and sundry items. They bit her toothpaste tube open, and left some lovely gifts in the sink and on the bed to show their appreciation of it.
Demon Crocodiles.
The Demon Crocodiles of Kenya. These fellows had their picture taken at night, hence the flash glow and the demonification. My sister was behind a low wall, which was built around the entire safari hotel with the idea of keeping these guys out.
A Black Mamba.
Cheetahs.
Fighting Rhinos.
A very nice picture of fighting rhinos. They watched them for about fifteen minutes. The one with the broken horn seemed to be winning, or at least pushing the other one around more. It was not fast clashing together, but more of a sort of game of chicken.
A Dikdik.
A weeny little antelope.
An Elephant.
A Baby Elephant.
This little guy was with his mother. The safari group thought he was darn cute.
Charging Baby Elephant.
Until he charged the safari van. That was when they moved on from elephant-watching.
A Giraffe.
Zebras.
The one lying down is not ill, just lazy. While my sister was watching it, it raised the upper hind leg, as if doing a leg lift, and let out a giant fart. That was when they moved on from zebra-watching.
Lions.
A Leopard.
This one followed the safari van for a bit before giving up on the idea of free food.
Hippos.
She got about twenty feet from them, because the boat driver didn’t know they were there until then.
And that’s all, folks, until next time.
First of all, the pictures with my sister in them:
The Group.
This is part of the university group in Nairobi. My sister is the blonde one in the approximate center. The older gentleman beside her is Dr. Chase-Dunn, her advising professor. The little one in the very bright green shoes is a boy who tagged along. He used to be barefoot, but my sister bought him the shoes—he picked them himself.
The Hospital.
Actually my sister isn’t in this picture, but since we’re on the subject of Nairobi; this is a hospital signboard in the city. The circumcision listed as a service offered refers to female genital mutilation.
The Escort.
My sister is the blond one. The gentleman beside her is the escort mentioned in the sign; yes, he really did have to carry that gun the whole time.
The Camel Ride.
The very tall camel which my sister rode She got up there and then got scared. The gentlemen with her are from the Samburu area, and the one in the red lied about his fraterity to the chairperson of Umoja. More on Umoja in a few posts.
The Monkey.
My sister posing with a very cute monkey that is quite at ease with people. Note the sign above her head; it says “Please do not feed Monkeys.” She ignored this very good advice, and fed it part of a Power Bar. As a result, it wouldn’t leave her alone, and it got into her hotel room. It searched around until it found another Power Bar, which it stole. She saw it outside eating it and decided to get revenge on it.
The Sad Monkey.
She placed a bunch of bananas inside the window, and teased the poor creature.
Next, the scenery pictures:
The sun, shining through the Kenyan jungle.
A beautiful sunset.
A second beautiful sunset.
And finally, the animal pictures:
The Trashers.
These charming fellows were photographed outside her cabin on the safari. She came out of the cabin eating a Power Bar (this was before the monkey in the above photos) and got ambushed by one that leapt upon her and fastened itself to her leg. She got scared it would bite her and threw a piece of the Power Bar away from her to get it to leave. It did, but a number of its buddies gathered around, and chased her into a friend’s cabin. The later she went back to her cabin to find it totally trashed. She had closed the door but not locked it, and the monkeys had broken in. They did not find her Power Bars but did find all her papers, clothes, makeup, and sundry items. They bit her toothpaste tube open, and left some lovely gifts in the sink and on the bed to show their appreciation of it.
Demon Crocodiles.
The Demon Crocodiles of Kenya. These fellows had their picture taken at night, hence the flash glow and the demonification. My sister was behind a low wall, which was built around the entire safari hotel with the idea of keeping these guys out.
A Black Mamba.
Cheetahs.
Fighting Rhinos.
A very nice picture of fighting rhinos. They watched them for about fifteen minutes. The one with the broken horn seemed to be winning, or at least pushing the other one around more. It was not fast clashing together, but more of a sort of game of chicken.
A Dikdik.
A weeny little antelope.
An Elephant.
A Baby Elephant.
This little guy was with his mother. The safari group thought he was darn cute.
Charging Baby Elephant.
Until he charged the safari van. That was when they moved on from elephant-watching.
A Giraffe.
Zebras.
The one lying down is not ill, just lazy. While my sister was watching it, it raised the upper hind leg, as if doing a leg lift, and let out a giant fart. That was when they moved on from zebra-watching.
Lions.
A Leopard.
This one followed the safari van for a bit before giving up on the idea of free food.
Hippos.
She got about twenty feet from them, because the boat driver didn’t know they were there until then.
And that’s all, folks, until next time.
30 January 2007
Intro Post
I went online today, was bored, and decided to start a blog. Now that I have one, I find I have very little to say. I expect that I'll eventually use this particular bit of web-space for something. I might gush about people I know or wish I knew, advertise for things I like, rant about things I find stupid or don't like, or any of the other things that people use blogs for. But not today. Unless I find later that I simply must say something.
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