College, Spiderman and a couple more books.
Today we took MiniPlu back to college. The only bright spot was that there was pretty much zero traffic all the way down or back (about 210 miles/338km each way), including across the GW Bridge in New York, so that was a downright miracle! Unless the fall, when we knew we'd see her in a month for parent's weekend, and then Thanksgiving, and then Christmas (plus she came home mid-late Sept, for a weekend), right now we're not sure when we'll next see her. She doesn't have any long weekends, only spring break in mid-March. The problem is, that's exactly when MY spring break (for grad school) is, and we were thinking of going back to OR then so I wouldn't have to juggle school and house at the same time (like I did in October). But then we wouldn't see her at all.
As with many colleges, MHC has made the decision to hold virtual classes for the first two weeks. But, honestly, the decision is kind of dumb because, unlike last Jan when classes were virtual and everything else was closed (or virtual) as well, so students were basically isolated in their rooms all the time (except when they picked up their takeout food from the dining hall), right now the only thing is that classes are virtual and the dining hall is takeout like before - but the gym is open, the library is open, some of the academic buildings are open, students are allowed to visit each other in their dorms - I mean, what's the point of having virtual classes if students can gather everywhere else?? Masks are required indoors, regardless.
Whatever. At least MiniPlu isn't alone this January - she has her roommate and they get along great. And she can go to the gym to burn off steam, too.
My grad school classes started this past Tues, the day after Two's birthday. It looks like I didn't get the HS job (which I'm honestly ok with) - the middle school librarian told me yesterday that they'd readvertised the job - so I don't have to worry about needing to drop one of the classes in order to make it work with a f/t job. And I honestly wasn't sure I was ready to quit subbing yet, so I can keep doing that for a bit longer.
Oh, and speaking of Two's birthday, here's my review of the movie we saw that day: Spiderman: No Way Home. Like I said before, overall, I thought the movie was great. What I did not like: most of the moviegoers failed to wear masks. :P This was the first time we'd gone to the movies in nearly 2 years ... and it feels like it might be another long while before I feel it's safe to go back.
Most of the movie was well done, I thought. The interactions with Dr. Strange were good, and I also liked that Ned had a chance to shine as a baby!magician (and the cloak even adopted him!). Ned's grandma was adorable, too. I loved seeing all the old villains (I hadn't actually seen all of them, having missed McGuire's 3rd movie and Garfield's 2nd) and having the TV version of Matt Murdoch was a nice surprise (although I actually like Ben Affleck's Daredevil better - sorry.) Having all three Spidermen learning to work together, comparing their life stories - that was great. Super happy they brought both prior actors (and their villains) back.
But I did have one big objection with the whole "make everyone forget" premise: if the goal was to make everyone forget Peter Parker was Spiderman, why on earth couldn't they just forget the association? That was the whole point, right? Why did everyone have to forget Peter existed at all?? That made no sense at ALL. Why not simply do the spell, Peter tells Ned and MJ over again, and pretty much leaves it at that? The Avengers appear to be over, so he doesn't need to tell any of them. Why not just have him go back to school, a perfectly ordinary kid as far as everyone else is concerned, he can reapply to MIT as a private citizen, etc etc. Just ... WTF?
I've seen the "invoked amnesia in exchange for something more important" plot twist before but usually only ONE character forgets everything - like, say, Simon in the Shadowhunter series. Surely Dr. Strange could have cast the spell any way he wanted to, so why not in a way that made sense for what Peter's need actually WAS??? At most, Strange could have made everyone forget they KNEW Peter (more than as just "that random kid at school"), so he'd have to rebuild relationships, and that would have served the purpose, too. But - to have him essentially cease to exist?? Why was that the only possible solution? Nope. Not buying it.
So, yeah, there's my rant. Loved most of the movie. Hated the entire premise of the "solution."
My reading has slowed way down since we came home, a fact that I find concerning given the punishing pace required by the YA Lit class (3 books per week, although each week one of them is either a graphic novel or a novel in verse, so it's a quicker read). Although I missed my kids and pets like crazy, I did really like having just ONE sole task to work on - paint - rather than being pulled in a million directions like I am at home. OR made it much easier to get reading done, either at night, or while I was listening/painting.
I have, at least, managed to read "The Witch Owl Parliament" aka "The Clockwork Cuandera Book 1" - a YA graphic novel that didn't do ANYTHING for me at all. I like the idea of a graphic novel that incorporates Hispanic legends, and I have no objection to alternative versions of the US (rather like Flora Segunda) but I found the plot confusing at first, and the black and red illustrations just didn't remotely appeal to me. It made everything and everyone seem kind of villainous (which is partly why it was hard for me to figure out what was going on, plotwise). So, this was a definite "meh" and my least favorite for that week's reading.
I also finished Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo by a combination of Kindle (I had heard good things about this book so had snapped it up as a Kindle DotD about a month ago) and Audible (half price since I already owned the book) so that I could switch back and forth depending on whether I had time to read, vs driving a car. I admit, it's pretty miraculous the way Kindle and Audible track each other, and automatically send you to the most current point, no matter which version you were last using. As for the book itself - I liked it, and I didn't. The book is largely set in San Francisco from Sept 1954-Jan 1955, although there are some flashbacks for a couple of the "adult" characters and also a "one year later" epilogue. Lily Hu, a Chinese-American high school senior, is the main character. She, along with all her Chinatown friends (and pretty much all her friends are Chinese) are American-born, along with some of her family members. Her dad's a doctor and her mom a nurse at the local Chinese hospital, and she has 2 little brothers. Although she attends a mixed-race high school in the North Beach area, her life is otherwise pretty well centered in Chinatown.
At the beginning of the book, Lily sees a newspaper ad for a male impersonator/singer at a local club, and it catches her attention, so she tears out the ad and keeps it with her. It's the first (and immediate) inkling we have that Lily might not be straight. She's interested in the f/f pulp novels at the drugstore, too, but doesn't really understand why she feels a certain pull toward these things. At school, she begins to connect with a white girl in her advanced math class - they're the only two girls still taking math at their level - and when the white girl - Kath - accidentally discovers Lily's interest in the male impersonator - who performs at the Telegraph Club - she mentions that she's been. It's strongly implied that it's a lesbian club/bar, although Kath is careful never to phrase it that way. Eventually, Lily asks to go, so they sneak off one night together. Lily feels very awkward and out of place as the only Asian there, plus she's naturally more shy, and the casual period-appropriate racism - even among people who aren't TRYING to be overtly jackasses - can kind of take your breath away. But she also likes it there. She and Kath go a few more times, and eventually admit their feelings for each other. But one night, the club is raided by the cops (for being "obscene" aka gay) and Lily's world falls apart.
The writing is nice, and you really feel what Lily is thinking and feeling (side note: teen girl "friend drama" was clearly a thing in 1950s Chinatown just as it is today) and you also get a nice glimpse into the 1950s Chinese-American culture (including the aforementioned incidences of casual racism, and McCarthyism threats), as well as the emerging lesbian culture of the same era. However, there were some side plots that never really get resolved or even properly developed. The flashbacks (which are provided for Lily's father, mother and aunt) seem to serve no real purpose to the plot or character development as a whole, really, or at least, not in terms of demonstrating why they act as they do later on. So, while those snippets were interesting for what they were on their own, I didn't really see the point of them, as far as the story overall.
The one thing I really liked was Lily's integrity. Once the club gets raided and a Chinatown boy sees her escape, Lily tells her parents straight out that she was there, before rumor gets to them first. They want her to say she made a mistake - or that the boy made a mistake and she wasn't there at all - but Lily refuses to do either one, even though she knows that's going to cut her parents the deepest. It would be so much easier to lie - but she won't back down from who she knows herself to be - gay - nor will she insult Kath by agreeing to the insinuation that Kath somehow brainwashed Lily into going to the club (which would have made Lily innocent in her family's eyes). She refuses point blank to lie, to pretend, to put herself back in the closet, or to throw anyone under the bus. This is who she is. Like it or not, it's not going to change anything. As emotionally hard as all that was to read listen to, I was super proud of that integrity.
Ugh, I swear it was just 11p a little bit ago. How did it get so late? Again? Argh.
As with many colleges, MHC has made the decision to hold virtual classes for the first two weeks. But, honestly, the decision is kind of dumb because, unlike last Jan when classes were virtual and everything else was closed (or virtual) as well, so students were basically isolated in their rooms all the time (except when they picked up their takeout food from the dining hall), right now the only thing is that classes are virtual and the dining hall is takeout like before - but the gym is open, the library is open, some of the academic buildings are open, students are allowed to visit each other in their dorms - I mean, what's the point of having virtual classes if students can gather everywhere else?? Masks are required indoors, regardless.
Whatever. At least MiniPlu isn't alone this January - she has her roommate and they get along great. And she can go to the gym to burn off steam, too.
My grad school classes started this past Tues, the day after Two's birthday. It looks like I didn't get the HS job (which I'm honestly ok with) - the middle school librarian told me yesterday that they'd readvertised the job - so I don't have to worry about needing to drop one of the classes in order to make it work with a f/t job. And I honestly wasn't sure I was ready to quit subbing yet, so I can keep doing that for a bit longer.
Oh, and speaking of Two's birthday, here's my review of the movie we saw that day: Spiderman: No Way Home. Like I said before, overall, I thought the movie was great. What I did not like: most of the moviegoers failed to wear masks. :P This was the first time we'd gone to the movies in nearly 2 years ... and it feels like it might be another long while before I feel it's safe to go back.
Most of the movie was well done, I thought. The interactions with Dr. Strange were good, and I also liked that Ned had a chance to shine as a baby!magician (and the cloak even adopted him!). Ned's grandma was adorable, too. I loved seeing all the old villains (I hadn't actually seen all of them, having missed McGuire's 3rd movie and Garfield's 2nd) and having the TV version of Matt Murdoch was a nice surprise (although I actually like Ben Affleck's Daredevil better - sorry.) Having all three Spidermen learning to work together, comparing their life stories - that was great. Super happy they brought both prior actors (and their villains) back.
But I did have one big objection with the whole "make everyone forget" premise: if the goal was to make everyone forget Peter Parker was Spiderman, why on earth couldn't they just forget the association? That was the whole point, right? Why did everyone have to forget Peter existed at all?? That made no sense at ALL. Why not simply do the spell, Peter tells Ned and MJ over again, and pretty much leaves it at that? The Avengers appear to be over, so he doesn't need to tell any of them. Why not just have him go back to school, a perfectly ordinary kid as far as everyone else is concerned, he can reapply to MIT as a private citizen, etc etc. Just ... WTF?
I've seen the "invoked amnesia in exchange for something more important" plot twist before but usually only ONE character forgets everything - like, say, Simon in the Shadowhunter series. Surely Dr. Strange could have cast the spell any way he wanted to, so why not in a way that made sense for what Peter's need actually WAS??? At most, Strange could have made everyone forget they KNEW Peter (more than as just "that random kid at school"), so he'd have to rebuild relationships, and that would have served the purpose, too. But - to have him essentially cease to exist?? Why was that the only possible solution? Nope. Not buying it.
So, yeah, there's my rant. Loved most of the movie. Hated the entire premise of the "solution."
My reading has slowed way down since we came home, a fact that I find concerning given the punishing pace required by the YA Lit class (3 books per week, although each week one of them is either a graphic novel or a novel in verse, so it's a quicker read). Although I missed my kids and pets like crazy, I did really like having just ONE sole task to work on - paint - rather than being pulled in a million directions like I am at home. OR made it much easier to get reading done, either at night, or while I was listening/painting.
I have, at least, managed to read "The Witch Owl Parliament" aka "The Clockwork Cuandera Book 1" - a YA graphic novel that didn't do ANYTHING for me at all. I like the idea of a graphic novel that incorporates Hispanic legends, and I have no objection to alternative versions of the US (rather like Flora Segunda) but I found the plot confusing at first, and the black and red illustrations just didn't remotely appeal to me. It made everything and everyone seem kind of villainous (which is partly why it was hard for me to figure out what was going on, plotwise). So, this was a definite "meh" and my least favorite for that week's reading.
I also finished Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo by a combination of Kindle (I had heard good things about this book so had snapped it up as a Kindle DotD about a month ago) and Audible (half price since I already owned the book) so that I could switch back and forth depending on whether I had time to read, vs driving a car. I admit, it's pretty miraculous the way Kindle and Audible track each other, and automatically send you to the most current point, no matter which version you were last using. As for the book itself - I liked it, and I didn't. The book is largely set in San Francisco from Sept 1954-Jan 1955, although there are some flashbacks for a couple of the "adult" characters and also a "one year later" epilogue. Lily Hu, a Chinese-American high school senior, is the main character. She, along with all her Chinatown friends (and pretty much all her friends are Chinese) are American-born, along with some of her family members. Her dad's a doctor and her mom a nurse at the local Chinese hospital, and she has 2 little brothers. Although she attends a mixed-race high school in the North Beach area, her life is otherwise pretty well centered in Chinatown.
At the beginning of the book, Lily sees a newspaper ad for a male impersonator/singer at a local club, and it catches her attention, so she tears out the ad and keeps it with her. It's the first (and immediate) inkling we have that Lily might not be straight. She's interested in the f/f pulp novels at the drugstore, too, but doesn't really understand why she feels a certain pull toward these things. At school, she begins to connect with a white girl in her advanced math class - they're the only two girls still taking math at their level - and when the white girl - Kath - accidentally discovers Lily's interest in the male impersonator - who performs at the Telegraph Club - she mentions that she's been. It's strongly implied that it's a lesbian club/bar, although Kath is careful never to phrase it that way. Eventually, Lily asks to go, so they sneak off one night together. Lily feels very awkward and out of place as the only Asian there, plus she's naturally more shy, and the casual period-appropriate racism - even among people who aren't TRYING to be overtly jackasses - can kind of take your breath away. But she also likes it there. She and Kath go a few more times, and eventually admit their feelings for each other. But one night, the club is raided by the cops (for being "obscene" aka gay) and Lily's world falls apart.
The writing is nice, and you really feel what Lily is thinking and feeling (side note: teen girl "friend drama" was clearly a thing in 1950s Chinatown just as it is today) and you also get a nice glimpse into the 1950s Chinese-American culture (including the aforementioned incidences of casual racism, and McCarthyism threats), as well as the emerging lesbian culture of the same era. However, there were some side plots that never really get resolved or even properly developed. The flashbacks (which are provided for Lily's father, mother and aunt) seem to serve no real purpose to the plot or character development as a whole, really, or at least, not in terms of demonstrating why they act as they do later on. So, while those snippets were interesting for what they were on their own, I didn't really see the point of them, as far as the story overall.
The one thing I really liked was Lily's integrity. Once the club gets raided and a Chinatown boy sees her escape, Lily tells her parents straight out that she was there, before rumor gets to them first. They want her to say she made a mistake - or that the boy made a mistake and she wasn't there at all - but Lily refuses to do either one, even though she knows that's going to cut her parents the deepest. It would be so much easier to lie - but she won't back down from who she knows herself to be - gay - nor will she insult Kath by agreeing to the insinuation that Kath somehow brainwashed Lily into going to the club (which would have made Lily innocent in her family's eyes). She refuses point blank to lie, to pretend, to put herself back in the closet, or to throw anyone under the bus. This is who she is. Like it or not, it's not going to change anything. As emotionally hard as all that was to read listen to, I was super proud of that integrity.
Ugh, I swear it was just 11p a little bit ago. How did it get so late? Again? Argh.