Another three day weekend. I'll probably post a little something on my latest theme in a bit, I figured I'd just yammer on about life in general first.
Let's see. It's now been two months since I started working from home. The world still seems to have gone crazy, but that's depressing and I'm not sure whether I want to talk about it right now. You'd think we'd have come to some sort of consensus by now, but we still have the dichotomy between people who are taking the pandemic seriously (and still want to lock down) and people who think it's overblown. I do get the people worried about feeding themselves and paying bills, ofc, though right now the problems are mostly showing in the push to get back to work rather than an outright call for improving our system at large. As this continues, I have to wonder if that will change. (I also suspect there's a fair bit of market manipulation going on - you can't have the stock market doing so well during such widespread uncertainty and unemployment without something screwy going on. I generally focus on having the system protect 'the little guy' or 'the common American' because, let's face it. The rich and corporations are pretty darn good at protecting themselves already. And I normally think that most of them have enough resources that they can probably get by on what they have for a long, long, looooong time. But this pressure to open up, and the market manipulation, makes me wonder. Do some powerful people have a lot of money tied up right now? How much are they spending to prop the market up? Most of them seem to have insulated themselves from risk pretty well - which is actually part of the problem since the way they insulate themselves causes problems - but I have to wonder if this is one of the situations where at least a few people will make decisions that they can't mitigate the risks on. But who knows? Idk what's really going on.)
So anyways. Avatar: The Last Airbender is now on Netflix, and I've been binge watching it. I finally got the urge to watch it a couple of years ago (?), because I heard a lot of positive feedback, but by that time it was almost impossible to stream. I'm pretty excited to finally get to see it. It is a children's show, ofc, and the first episode was not exactly compelling, but I rather kind of like it.
I think about the world Aang grew up in (100 years before he got encased in ice), and the grimmer and darker world his new companions grew up in, where war was all they knew. It makes me think of the difference in our own history, before 9/11 and after. Or the history of the Peloponnesian War, and how Athens became - yes, grimmer and darker, and led to the end of the golden age in Greece.
And I think, too, of the difference I saw in my fellow soldiers. How when I went to the Officer Basic Course before 9/11, where the most 'combat' anyone saw was on peacekeeping missions to Bosnia, Kosovo, and maybe some involvement in Somalia or special forces action in remote places, vs. the level of combat experience in the Captain's Career Course, where quite a few of my fellow classmates had already been to Iraq or Afghanistan. And those of us that hadn't all knew our turn would be coming soon.
Ah, well. It's a children's cartoon, and even if I do see deeper topics in it you can watch it without delving into them. (Sometimes I think that's one of the lasting effects of my own deployment experiences. I can still enjoy lighthearted and silly things, but I feel this... I dunno.. weight and depth to my experiences that sometimes feel like such a contrast to civilian life. Makes me feel worried I'll be a bit of a Debbie Downer, so I try not to spoil people's fun by talking about such heavy and serious matters. Hey, sometimes that's what blogging is for.)
I'm also watching episodes of a show called 'The Untamed' on Netflix, which is a Chinese fantasy-type story, with subtitles. The first episode was kind of confusing, but at the same time it's a very pretty show. Gorgeous scenery, and I rather love how their robes swirl around in the fight scenes.
In a weird way, the straight, long hair and flowing robes make me think the cast would be fantastic as Tolkien's elves. Well, dark hair, so not the blonde elves (Vanyar) like Galadriel. More like the Noldor or Teleri.
So anyways. I'm on call next week, so will be working the full week. Then I get the week after that off.
Let's see. It's now been two months since I started working from home. The world still seems to have gone crazy, but that's depressing and I'm not sure whether I want to talk about it right now. You'd think we'd have come to some sort of consensus by now, but we still have the dichotomy between people who are taking the pandemic seriously (and still want to lock down) and people who think it's overblown. I do get the people worried about feeding themselves and paying bills, ofc, though right now the problems are mostly showing in the push to get back to work rather than an outright call for improving our system at large. As this continues, I have to wonder if that will change. (I also suspect there's a fair bit of market manipulation going on - you can't have the stock market doing so well during such widespread uncertainty and unemployment without something screwy going on. I generally focus on having the system protect 'the little guy' or 'the common American' because, let's face it. The rich and corporations are pretty darn good at protecting themselves already. And I normally think that most of them have enough resources that they can probably get by on what they have for a long, long, looooong time. But this pressure to open up, and the market manipulation, makes me wonder. Do some powerful people have a lot of money tied up right now? How much are they spending to prop the market up? Most of them seem to have insulated themselves from risk pretty well - which is actually part of the problem since the way they insulate themselves causes problems - but I have to wonder if this is one of the situations where at least a few people will make decisions that they can't mitigate the risks on. But who knows? Idk what's really going on.)
So anyways. Avatar: The Last Airbender is now on Netflix, and I've been binge watching it. I finally got the urge to watch it a couple of years ago (?), because I heard a lot of positive feedback, but by that time it was almost impossible to stream. I'm pretty excited to finally get to see it. It is a children's show, ofc, and the first episode was not exactly compelling, but I rather kind of like it.
I think about the world Aang grew up in (100 years before he got encased in ice), and the grimmer and darker world his new companions grew up in, where war was all they knew. It makes me think of the difference in our own history, before 9/11 and after. Or the history of the Peloponnesian War, and how Athens became - yes, grimmer and darker, and led to the end of the golden age in Greece.
And I think, too, of the difference I saw in my fellow soldiers. How when I went to the Officer Basic Course before 9/11, where the most 'combat' anyone saw was on peacekeeping missions to Bosnia, Kosovo, and maybe some involvement in Somalia or special forces action in remote places, vs. the level of combat experience in the Captain's Career Course, where quite a few of my fellow classmates had already been to Iraq or Afghanistan. And those of us that hadn't all knew our turn would be coming soon.
Ah, well. It's a children's cartoon, and even if I do see deeper topics in it you can watch it without delving into them. (Sometimes I think that's one of the lasting effects of my own deployment experiences. I can still enjoy lighthearted and silly things, but I feel this... I dunno.. weight and depth to my experiences that sometimes feel like such a contrast to civilian life. Makes me feel worried I'll be a bit of a Debbie Downer, so I try not to spoil people's fun by talking about such heavy and serious matters. Hey, sometimes that's what blogging is for.)
I'm also watching episodes of a show called 'The Untamed' on Netflix, which is a Chinese fantasy-type story, with subtitles. The first episode was kind of confusing, but at the same time it's a very pretty show. Gorgeous scenery, and I rather love how their robes swirl around in the fight scenes.
In a weird way, the straight, long hair and flowing robes make me think the cast would be fantastic as Tolkien's elves. Well, dark hair, so not the blonde elves (Vanyar) like Galadriel. More like the Noldor or Teleri.
So anyways. I'm on call next week, so will be working the full week. Then I get the week after that off.
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