Also, I'm not sure how much candy I've eaten recently, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot.
I realized it had been some time since I updated LJ, so here are some things going on with me.
i. Tuesday,
baked_goldfish,
redbrickrose, and I saw Circumstance, which was excellent. Oh man, Internet, being trapped in a situation, and getting out or even just learning to live with it is a favorite narrative framing device of mine, and this was such a great example of one. As a warning, there was more rape than I'd expected, but they weren't gratuitous or exploitative at all -- they were definitely difficult to sit through but were clearly meant to be, which actually is one of the determining factors in how badly I react to something -- and the ending was actually a lot less grim than I had been dreading. Although frankly there came a point where I was just expecting everyone to end up chopped up into tiny pieces in Mehran's freezer, because holy shit how do you make talking about the jasmine trees you want to plant that creepy? All the acting was brilliant, really, and this was just a stunningly gorgeous movie besides. I think I need to see it again, although I may wait for the DVD; the cinematography was used to reinforce the themes in some really fascinating ways and I'd like to be able to watch it again with a more conscious eye towards that. Also I am vaguely face-blind when it comes to dudes and seriously couldn't tell the difference between Mehran and Joey at a couple of points. /o\ I have a lot more thoughts on it but I just keep adding to them, so maybe there will be a longer reaction post later. Only negative I have is probably the way the subtitles were done; they were only white, with no outlining or anything, so when the text showed up against a window you could lose something like half the line, and while you could typically guess what they were saying it was definitely distracting.
ii. Finally talked to one of my managers about going to part-time or contractor status sometime around the end of the year. I'd been sort of job-hunting for awhile, but I realized that honestly, what I want to be doing is writing, and as it is right now I just don't have the werewithal to manage it around another full-time job. And while I might find a full-time job that I enjoy more than the one I've got currently, I'd still have this same problem. So that will probably happen around December or January, knock wood.
iii. I've had a killer sinus headache for the past ten days and finally gave in and went to the doctor today. He basically told me to keep doing the things I was already doing, but also prescribed antibiotics, so I've at least got that going for me.
iv. I came to a pretty intense realization yesterday as the result of something I offhandedly tweeted, so I'm processing that. Again, possibly there will be a longer post later, but I have been absurdly sleepy all day and am pretty emotionally drained lately besides, so tl;dr-ing is not currently on the horizon.
v. I got a call the other day from a recruiting agent about a web developer job! I ended up passing on it, because it wasn't something I thought I'd like that much more than what I'm doing now anyway, and as said above it wouldn't serve my goal of giving me enough time to seriously devote to writing, and the timing of interviews and all was just too stressful (especially given that it wouldn't have been enough of a pay bump to make the other issues worth it). But it was nice to clarify to myself that writing full-time is, indeed, my goal, and I got a bit of phone-interview practice, and it's always a nice ego boost to have someone contact you for a job, especially a nice-sounding one. I'm not completely unemployable, hooray!
vi. I enjoyed the Community premiere, especially now that it looks like they're putting Chang in a position to be a good villain again, along with bringing in a solid villain in the form of John Goodman and a plot point to tie things together in the form of the school being broke. My main problem with last season was that they clearly didn't want to get rid of Ken Jeong -- which, who could blame them -- but didn't really know what to do with Chang, character-wise, and he works best when he has some power over the group. Also I kind of adored the twist on the White Teacher With Lots Of ~Feelings~ Makes Poor Black Urban Kids Care About English with Ex-Con Black Teacher With Lots Of ~Feelings~ Tries To Make Suburbanites Care About Biology. There were a bunch of silly things in the episode, but overall I enjoyed it and am cautiously optimistic that last season, most of which varied from "meh" to "this is fucking terrible, what the fuck", was just sophomore slump. And P&R was fun, but I don't have quite as much yammering to do on it; it was just totally enjoyable. Also I kind of want April/Tammy One.
vi. I'm behind on Ringer and Downton Abbey, but the latter I know is and the former I suspect will be great "it's gloomy and I feel crappy and I want to drink wine and eat ice cream and binge on TV" choices, so I actually don't mind saving up a good backlog.
vii. Still not crazy about last week's Who in terms of story, although again, I think it was a very well-done episode. And I loved that their house was totally a TARDIS, that was wonderful.
viii. Next week I am going to NYC to spend part of the holidays with
fox1013! \o/
UGHHHHHH okay I'm going to finish working on a few batches I brought home with me from work so I wouldn't have to use an entire day of sick time and could instead just use a half-day and scatter the work around to accommodate sleeping/doctor's appointments as necessary. Although possibly I'll take a nap first. And have another beer.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth.
comments; reply here or there with your DW username or OpenID.
i. Tuesday,
baked_goldfish,
redbrickrose, and I saw Circumstance, which was excellent. Oh man, Internet, being trapped in a situation, and getting out or even just learning to live with it is a favorite narrative framing device of mine, and this was such a great example of one. As a warning, there was more rape than I'd expected, but they weren't gratuitous or exploitative at all -- they were definitely difficult to sit through but were clearly meant to be, which actually is one of the determining factors in how badly I react to something -- and the ending was actually a lot less grim than I had been dreading. Although frankly there came a point where I was just expecting everyone to end up chopped up into tiny pieces in Mehran's freezer, because holy shit how do you make talking about the jasmine trees you want to plant that creepy? All the acting was brilliant, really, and this was just a stunningly gorgeous movie besides. I think I need to see it again, although I may wait for the DVD; the cinematography was used to reinforce the themes in some really fascinating ways and I'd like to be able to watch it again with a more conscious eye towards that. Also I am vaguely face-blind when it comes to dudes and seriously couldn't tell the difference between Mehran and Joey at a couple of points. /o\ I have a lot more thoughts on it but I just keep adding to them, so maybe there will be a longer reaction post later. Only negative I have is probably the way the subtitles were done; they were only white, with no outlining or anything, so when the text showed up against a window you could lose something like half the line, and while you could typically guess what they were saying it was definitely distracting.
ii. Finally talked to one of my managers about going to part-time or contractor status sometime around the end of the year. I'd been sort of job-hunting for awhile, but I realized that honestly, what I want to be doing is writing, and as it is right now I just don't have the werewithal to manage it around another full-time job. And while I might find a full-time job that I enjoy more than the one I've got currently, I'd still have this same problem. So that will probably happen around December or January, knock wood.
iii. I've had a killer sinus headache for the past ten days and finally gave in and went to the doctor today. He basically told me to keep doing the things I was already doing, but also prescribed antibiotics, so I've at least got that going for me.
iv. I came to a pretty intense realization yesterday as the result of something I offhandedly tweeted, so I'm processing that. Again, possibly there will be a longer post later, but I have been absurdly sleepy all day and am pretty emotionally drained lately besides, so tl;dr-ing is not currently on the horizon.
v. I got a call the other day from a recruiting agent about a web developer job! I ended up passing on it, because it wasn't something I thought I'd like that much more than what I'm doing now anyway, and as said above it wouldn't serve my goal of giving me enough time to seriously devote to writing, and the timing of interviews and all was just too stressful (especially given that it wouldn't have been enough of a pay bump to make the other issues worth it). But it was nice to clarify to myself that writing full-time is, indeed, my goal, and I got a bit of phone-interview practice, and it's always a nice ego boost to have someone contact you for a job, especially a nice-sounding one. I'm not completely unemployable, hooray!
vi. I enjoyed the Community premiere, especially now that it looks like they're putting Chang in a position to be a good villain again, along with bringing in a solid villain in the form of John Goodman and a plot point to tie things together in the form of the school being broke. My main problem with last season was that they clearly didn't want to get rid of Ken Jeong -- which, who could blame them -- but didn't really know what to do with Chang, character-wise, and he works best when he has some power over the group. Also I kind of adored the twist on the White Teacher With Lots Of ~Feelings~ Makes Poor Black Urban Kids Care About English with Ex-Con Black Teacher With Lots Of ~Feelings~ Tries To Make Suburbanites Care About Biology. There were a bunch of silly things in the episode, but overall I enjoyed it and am cautiously optimistic that last season, most of which varied from "meh" to "this is fucking terrible, what the fuck", was just sophomore slump. And P&R was fun, but I don't have quite as much yammering to do on it; it was just totally enjoyable. Also I kind of want April/Tammy One.
vi. I'm behind on Ringer and Downton Abbey, but the latter I know is and the former I suspect will be great "it's gloomy and I feel crappy and I want to drink wine and eat ice cream and binge on TV" choices, so I actually don't mind saving up a good backlog.
vii. Still not crazy about last week's Who in terms of story, although again, I think it was a very well-done episode. And I loved that their house was totally a TARDIS, that was wonderful.
viii. Next week I am going to NYC to spend part of the holidays with
fox1013! \o/
UGHHHHHH okay I'm going to finish working on a few batches I brought home with me from work so I wouldn't have to use an entire day of sick time and could instead just use a half-day and scatter the work around to accommodate sleeping/doctor's appointments as necessary. Although possibly I'll take a nap first. And have another beer.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth.
comments; reply here or there with your DW username or OpenID.