![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Some good news across the country - a few socialist upsets in states you wouldn't assume would go in that direction. New Orleans elected their first woman mayor. I like the idea of a large scale left pushback, and it seems sustainable. I have a lot to say on politics, but it takes a lot out of me emotionally, so maybe later.
We're getting into the later end of November, like, the last third. You got your Thanksgiving coming up, and my birthday is at the cusp of November and December. The proximity of the days used to create a big burst of activity carrying on from about now to Thanksgiving when it blew up and there would be all this commotion around the house or wherever we'd go. It'd quiet down a few days and then we'd do a birthday thing at the house because maybe we'd go to Red Lobster or something (my favorite was sea food, hands down) and come back. When my parents gave me presents, which were always a prelude to the December Christmas season, they'd have to remind my brother that his birthday was coming soon and he'd get stuff, too. They'd painstakingly count the number of presents I got and make sure he got as many or more, and I was mostly just glad when he didn't throw a fit.
I'm coming up on 34, which means mid-thirties and in my head this morning I immediately rounded that up to "almost 40." It seems distinctly alien. In my head, the world is very similar to how it was when I was growing up, and I have been working hard to change my conceptions of how the world works from my assumptions to how it functions now, which causes me to lose a little bit of my own memories in the translation. I've lost a fair amount of my past due to intentionally forgetting, trying to move past it, trying to deal with my situation in the present instead of sitting in the past holding onto old injuries. Now I'm able, a little, to go back to periods of my life and remember them now that... I guess emotional scar tissue has formed and I'm able to recall them without falling into a deep depression or anger. Doing this has kind of helped me remember why I'm where I'm at today and that I've actually done okay despite a lot of setbacks and weird circumstances.
November and December are tough months to try to segue into a job environment and because of the holiday season even though places are hiring for corporate positions, I think things slow down a lot. I was told to expect a callback on my first phone interview, which I was told by someone who got a job there earlier that I can likely expect to be called in for an in-person discussion, interview, review of skills. I checked the metrics that tend to be used, like what constitutes "advanced" knowledge of Microsoft Office, for example, and it's well below my personal experience which means I'm strongly positioned to do well. While I wait, I clean and write, and look through want ads online to submit to other positions in case this falls through (or I see something better).
This weekend, we watched three movies - we owned a copy of Silent Running and finally watched it on Saturday and on Sunday we went to the matinee to see Thor: Ragnarok before hitting up Family Video on our errands to rent Dr. Strange on Blue Ray for a buck.
Very mild spoilers for these movies if you haven't seen them, I guess. Only Thor is recent, though.
Silent Running's one of those older sci-fi films that you can't make in the same way today. Check out the pacing on any movie, pre-Top Gun, seriously and you'll notice a huge difference in the way movies are paced. Anyhow, it's really a sad film, but pretty influential and worth seeing in its own right if you're a fan of classic sci-fi. Thor was pretty good - it seems like the culmination of style in Marvel from the galactic angle - full of 70's rock poster aesthetic, color saturated, neon, rock music - a departure from the washed out winter tones of the 00's military espionage action of Captain America 2 and even Civil War, to a degree. People seem to be having a good time even when things are very serious which is probably why some of the very sudden deaths (which go completely undiscussed) read as a huge surprise to me. I definitely have some issues with both Thor and Dr. Strange, and my complaints about Strange actually diverge a little from the brouhaha when it was being released.
Dr. Strange is kind of an inherently problematic film and you can tell that the director and writing staff were consciously aware and trying to move away from its troubled past. I can actually understand very well why they'd cast a white woman in the role of the Ancient One, having seen it, and I think the biggest problem is the writing in that regard; I think their writing essentially shows a lack of creativity and a willingness to take a broader licence on the property - though that's as likely to be an issue with Marvel corporate as it is with the writers. My concern is just that Strange has always been white, and he's another white A-tier hero surrounded by people who canonically have way more experience and he just zooms past because he's a prodigy. The Ancient One gets to be white, the antagonist who's also a prodigy is white, the hero is white, and everyone else is a person of color sure, but they're always in subordinate roles. Thor actually pulls pretty much the same thing. There's a subtext of a discussion of colonialism, but the characters of color die or subordinate themselves to another white king savior - it's not a good look, you know?
Sure, I enjoyed it! It was fine, but it wasn't the exceptional film I was told it was. Plus, writing out the bisexual identity of a character - not great.
We're getting into the later end of November, like, the last third. You got your Thanksgiving coming up, and my birthday is at the cusp of November and December. The proximity of the days used to create a big burst of activity carrying on from about now to Thanksgiving when it blew up and there would be all this commotion around the house or wherever we'd go. It'd quiet down a few days and then we'd do a birthday thing at the house because maybe we'd go to Red Lobster or something (my favorite was sea food, hands down) and come back. When my parents gave me presents, which were always a prelude to the December Christmas season, they'd have to remind my brother that his birthday was coming soon and he'd get stuff, too. They'd painstakingly count the number of presents I got and make sure he got as many or more, and I was mostly just glad when he didn't throw a fit.
I'm coming up on 34, which means mid-thirties and in my head this morning I immediately rounded that up to "almost 40." It seems distinctly alien. In my head, the world is very similar to how it was when I was growing up, and I have been working hard to change my conceptions of how the world works from my assumptions to how it functions now, which causes me to lose a little bit of my own memories in the translation. I've lost a fair amount of my past due to intentionally forgetting, trying to move past it, trying to deal with my situation in the present instead of sitting in the past holding onto old injuries. Now I'm able, a little, to go back to periods of my life and remember them now that... I guess emotional scar tissue has formed and I'm able to recall them without falling into a deep depression or anger. Doing this has kind of helped me remember why I'm where I'm at today and that I've actually done okay despite a lot of setbacks and weird circumstances.
November and December are tough months to try to segue into a job environment and because of the holiday season even though places are hiring for corporate positions, I think things slow down a lot. I was told to expect a callback on my first phone interview, which I was told by someone who got a job there earlier that I can likely expect to be called in for an in-person discussion, interview, review of skills. I checked the metrics that tend to be used, like what constitutes "advanced" knowledge of Microsoft Office, for example, and it's well below my personal experience which means I'm strongly positioned to do well. While I wait, I clean and write, and look through want ads online to submit to other positions in case this falls through (or I see something better).
This weekend, we watched three movies - we owned a copy of Silent Running and finally watched it on Saturday and on Sunday we went to the matinee to see Thor: Ragnarok before hitting up Family Video on our errands to rent Dr. Strange on Blue Ray for a buck.
Very mild spoilers for these movies if you haven't seen them, I guess. Only Thor is recent, though.
Silent Running's one of those older sci-fi films that you can't make in the same way today. Check out the pacing on any movie, pre-Top Gun, seriously and you'll notice a huge difference in the way movies are paced. Anyhow, it's really a sad film, but pretty influential and worth seeing in its own right if you're a fan of classic sci-fi. Thor was pretty good - it seems like the culmination of style in Marvel from the galactic angle - full of 70's rock poster aesthetic, color saturated, neon, rock music - a departure from the washed out winter tones of the 00's military espionage action of Captain America 2 and even Civil War, to a degree. People seem to be having a good time even when things are very serious which is probably why some of the very sudden deaths (which go completely undiscussed) read as a huge surprise to me. I definitely have some issues with both Thor and Dr. Strange, and my complaints about Strange actually diverge a little from the brouhaha when it was being released.
Dr. Strange is kind of an inherently problematic film and you can tell that the director and writing staff were consciously aware and trying to move away from its troubled past. I can actually understand very well why they'd cast a white woman in the role of the Ancient One, having seen it, and I think the biggest problem is the writing in that regard; I think their writing essentially shows a lack of creativity and a willingness to take a broader licence on the property - though that's as likely to be an issue with Marvel corporate as it is with the writers. My concern is just that Strange has always been white, and he's another white A-tier hero surrounded by people who canonically have way more experience and he just zooms past because he's a prodigy. The Ancient One gets to be white, the antagonist who's also a prodigy is white, the hero is white, and everyone else is a person of color sure, but they're always in subordinate roles. Thor actually pulls pretty much the same thing. There's a subtext of a discussion of colonialism, but the characters of color die or subordinate themselves to another white king savior - it's not a good look, you know?
Sure, I enjoyed it! It was fine, but it wasn't the exceptional film I was told it was. Plus, writing out the bisexual identity of a character - not great.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject