Some "Five Things" answers
I've been scattered and nonproductive all week. It's frustrating, but at least I've got tomorrow off and a few days to refresh myself. Tonight I am mostly resting and catching up on some overdue post answers.
From nomadicwriter: Five Conversations Jack and Arvin Had About Laura
1) When they were first getting to know each other, Arvin asked Jack if he had a girlfriend, fairly sure the answer would be no. Jack was too guarded, too careful, to get involved in anything serious at his age. But Jack turned out to be engaged. Arvin then assumed that "Laura" was probably some high-school sweetheart, plain but safe, devoted to Jack utterly. He believed this right up until he walked into their apartment for that first dinner and met a woman who was beautiful beyond belief, the object of devotion rather than the giver of it, and anything but safe.
2) Jack asked Arvin one day if he and Emily were planning a family. Though it was a personal question, Jack didn't consider it an overly intimate one; in those days, when few married couples chose not to reproduce, it was almost rhetorical. Arvin quietly said that Emily had suffered her fourth miscarriage the month before. Mortified, Jack hurriedly started talking about the first subject that came to mind: Laura's odd academic hobby, studying this medieval Italian mystic. In retrospect, he often thought he should've just let Arvin express himself.
3) The week after Arvin slept with Laura for the first time, he and Jack went on assignment to Egypt. As they were biding their time in a Giza alleyway, Arvin asked Jack if he trusted Laura. Jack said yes, and proved it by not asking Arvin why he wanted to know. Arvin never knew if that was a relief or not.
4) Jack was told that Laura had not been Laura, that she had been someone named Irina Derevko, many times. Different agents told him in different ways: quiet and suspicious, angry and loud, sneering and contemptuous. He refused to believe it -- refused to believe the evidence they showed him, knowing how well such things could be faked -- until the day that Arvin came in and told him gently. When he said, "I'm sorry," Jack could deny the truth no longer.
5) Arvin had always kept the secret of Irina Derevko's survival, believing that he was doing Jack a kindness. When Jack finally discovered the truth for himself, and demanded to know why Arvin hadn't shared it with him, kindness was the only motive Jack wouldn't believe. Sometimes Jack overcomplicated things -- though, Arvin knew, he had no room to complain.
From amilyn: Five Times Brennan Had to Take a Break From the Case to Avoid Crying on the Job
1) The day after Max's arrest, they got a call about a young woman's body that had turned up in the trunk of an abandoned car. Booth tracked the plate, which led to a rental place, to a receipt, and to a father who had killed his adult daughter and wouldn't say why. Brennan went outside during the questioning to cry about all the distance between fathers and daughters. Nobody saw or noticed, she thought.
2) Not long after she and Hodgins had blasted their way out of the Gravedigger's trap, Brennan and Booth had to examine a skeleton found in a West Virginia mine. Booth kept glancing at her in concern the whole way out there, which she didn't understand until they started walking down into the mine. The ground overhead seemed so heavy now, so oppressive. When she saw the narrow tunnel they'd have to walk through, she quietly asked for a minute, and Booth distracted the mine operator for five minutes (by talking about football) so she could step aside, have a quick cry and pull herself together.
3) Once, in the field, Brennan said, "We'll have to send this in so Zach can take a look at it," and only then remembered what had become of Zach. Her eyes met Booth's, and this time he walked with her out to the car and even supplied the Kleenex.
4) The trail behind a child's mandible in a vacant field led back to a child missing from foster care, claimed as a runaway years before. The ultimate cause of death turned out to be scalding. That was the only time Booth cried with her.
5) It wasn't that she couldn't work without Booth -- she'd been a forensic anthropologist for years before they met. And it wasn't that she expected his amnesia to be permanent; it rarely was, particularly when the subject had retained as much memory as Booth. But that month without him felt so empty, and she would go into her office to "review charts" and simply stare at them, tears blurring the writing until she saw nothing but blank pages.
From kangeiko: Five Languages Uhura Learned in Less-Than-Ideal Circumstances
1) French, when she was six. It was the main language spoken by the woman that her father now preferred to her mother. This new woman wanted to teach Nyota, to show off how well they could get on together. Nyota learned just enough to know how to insult her beautifully -- then realized she liked French, and liked learning how to speak another language. She kept up her French, but with a new teacher.
2) Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew, when she was 12. Her mother had enrolled her in an advanced languages course in Riyadh, which had sounded like the most exciting thing ever and a good way to spend her summer vacation. But the Riyadh heat was punishing, even to a native of Kenya, and all the other students were at least three years older than her. They invariably seemed to want to spend the summer making out rather than studying, and Nyota was just young enough not to get it. She sat alone in her room, going over her recordings and feeling extremely left out.
3) Centaurian, when she was 15. Nyota chose that as her first language class in secondary school, proud to be able to tackle an offworld language and show off what she could do now that she was at the best academy on the continent. What she hadn't reckoned on was the enormous leap between learning Earth languages -- all of which had been developed by and for one species -- and learning a language created by another species, with another biology, a wholly different mechanics of grammar and utterly foreign brains. The other kids in the class were all planet-hoppers, born on moon bases or trader ships or colony worlds, and used to such things. So for the first six weeks, Nyota found out what it was like to be in the bottom of the class, studying desperately and trying to twist her brain into new kinds of thoughts altogether.
She finished the first semester with a B -- the only one she would ever make -- and won the prize in Centaurian at the end of the year.
4) Vulcan, specifically the mi'hahl dialect of the southern mountains, the one most distinct from all the rest. Learning a new dialect of a language with which she was familiar normally didn't take her very long -- and it didn't this time either -- but she learned it on the Enterprise as they shuttled survivors away from the dust that had been Vulcan. The first questions Nyota asked in mi'hahl dialect were about the appearance of missing children, for whom she searched the entire ship. Not one of the children turned out to be on board.
5) Ancient Greek, which she learned on a planet that somehow had developed exactly like Earth, except that it was Greece all over and perpetually about 300 BC, plus the Spartans were giant lizards. Apparently the landing party was expected to go to war as footsoldiers or be killed, and the universal translator was on the fritz, and while Kirk acted like he knew everything about hoplite fighting, a silent poll taken via worried glances indicated that the rest of the landing party doubted this. So Nyota got her Ancient Greek on, well enough for jazz, and talked them through the maneuvers they needed to stay alive until they got back, to once again wonder just why they chose this line of work.
Must tidy up before bed. Definitely have to get more sleep tonight, that's for sure -- I've been up late the past couple of evenings, and I'm feeling it.
From nomadicwriter: Five Conversations Jack and Arvin Had About Laura
1) When they were first getting to know each other, Arvin asked Jack if he had a girlfriend, fairly sure the answer would be no. Jack was too guarded, too careful, to get involved in anything serious at his age. But Jack turned out to be engaged. Arvin then assumed that "Laura" was probably some high-school sweetheart, plain but safe, devoted to Jack utterly. He believed this right up until he walked into their apartment for that first dinner and met a woman who was beautiful beyond belief, the object of devotion rather than the giver of it, and anything but safe.
2) Jack asked Arvin one day if he and Emily were planning a family. Though it was a personal question, Jack didn't consider it an overly intimate one; in those days, when few married couples chose not to reproduce, it was almost rhetorical. Arvin quietly said that Emily had suffered her fourth miscarriage the month before. Mortified, Jack hurriedly started talking about the first subject that came to mind: Laura's odd academic hobby, studying this medieval Italian mystic. In retrospect, he often thought he should've just let Arvin express himself.
3) The week after Arvin slept with Laura for the first time, he and Jack went on assignment to Egypt. As they were biding their time in a Giza alleyway, Arvin asked Jack if he trusted Laura. Jack said yes, and proved it by not asking Arvin why he wanted to know. Arvin never knew if that was a relief or not.
4) Jack was told that Laura had not been Laura, that she had been someone named Irina Derevko, many times. Different agents told him in different ways: quiet and suspicious, angry and loud, sneering and contemptuous. He refused to believe it -- refused to believe the evidence they showed him, knowing how well such things could be faked -- until the day that Arvin came in and told him gently. When he said, "I'm sorry," Jack could deny the truth no longer.
5) Arvin had always kept the secret of Irina Derevko's survival, believing that he was doing Jack a kindness. When Jack finally discovered the truth for himself, and demanded to know why Arvin hadn't shared it with him, kindness was the only motive Jack wouldn't believe. Sometimes Jack overcomplicated things -- though, Arvin knew, he had no room to complain.
From amilyn: Five Times Brennan Had to Take a Break From the Case to Avoid Crying on the Job
1) The day after Max's arrest, they got a call about a young woman's body that had turned up in the trunk of an abandoned car. Booth tracked the plate, which led to a rental place, to a receipt, and to a father who had killed his adult daughter and wouldn't say why. Brennan went outside during the questioning to cry about all the distance between fathers and daughters. Nobody saw or noticed, she thought.
2) Not long after she and Hodgins had blasted their way out of the Gravedigger's trap, Brennan and Booth had to examine a skeleton found in a West Virginia mine. Booth kept glancing at her in concern the whole way out there, which she didn't understand until they started walking down into the mine. The ground overhead seemed so heavy now, so oppressive. When she saw the narrow tunnel they'd have to walk through, she quietly asked for a minute, and Booth distracted the mine operator for five minutes (by talking about football) so she could step aside, have a quick cry and pull herself together.
3) Once, in the field, Brennan said, "We'll have to send this in so Zach can take a look at it," and only then remembered what had become of Zach. Her eyes met Booth's, and this time he walked with her out to the car and even supplied the Kleenex.
4) The trail behind a child's mandible in a vacant field led back to a child missing from foster care, claimed as a runaway years before. The ultimate cause of death turned out to be scalding. That was the only time Booth cried with her.
5) It wasn't that she couldn't work without Booth -- she'd been a forensic anthropologist for years before they met. And it wasn't that she expected his amnesia to be permanent; it rarely was, particularly when the subject had retained as much memory as Booth. But that month without him felt so empty, and she would go into her office to "review charts" and simply stare at them, tears blurring the writing until she saw nothing but blank pages.
From kangeiko: Five Languages Uhura Learned in Less-Than-Ideal Circumstances
1) French, when she was six. It was the main language spoken by the woman that her father now preferred to her mother. This new woman wanted to teach Nyota, to show off how well they could get on together. Nyota learned just enough to know how to insult her beautifully -- then realized she liked French, and liked learning how to speak another language. She kept up her French, but with a new teacher.
2) Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew, when she was 12. Her mother had enrolled her in an advanced languages course in Riyadh, which had sounded like the most exciting thing ever and a good way to spend her summer vacation. But the Riyadh heat was punishing, even to a native of Kenya, and all the other students were at least three years older than her. They invariably seemed to want to spend the summer making out rather than studying, and Nyota was just young enough not to get it. She sat alone in her room, going over her recordings and feeling extremely left out.
3) Centaurian, when she was 15. Nyota chose that as her first language class in secondary school, proud to be able to tackle an offworld language and show off what she could do now that she was at the best academy on the continent. What she hadn't reckoned on was the enormous leap between learning Earth languages -- all of which had been developed by and for one species -- and learning a language created by another species, with another biology, a wholly different mechanics of grammar and utterly foreign brains. The other kids in the class were all planet-hoppers, born on moon bases or trader ships or colony worlds, and used to such things. So for the first six weeks, Nyota found out what it was like to be in the bottom of the class, studying desperately and trying to twist her brain into new kinds of thoughts altogether.
She finished the first semester with a B -- the only one she would ever make -- and won the prize in Centaurian at the end of the year.
4) Vulcan, specifically the mi'hahl dialect of the southern mountains, the one most distinct from all the rest. Learning a new dialect of a language with which she was familiar normally didn't take her very long -- and it didn't this time either -- but she learned it on the Enterprise as they shuttled survivors away from the dust that had been Vulcan. The first questions Nyota asked in mi'hahl dialect were about the appearance of missing children, for whom she searched the entire ship. Not one of the children turned out to be on board.
5) Ancient Greek, which she learned on a planet that somehow had developed exactly like Earth, except that it was Greece all over and perpetually about 300 BC, plus the Spartans were giant lizards. Apparently the landing party was expected to go to war as footsoldiers or be killed, and the universal translator was on the fritz, and while Kirk acted like he knew everything about hoplite fighting, a silent poll taken via worried glances indicated that the rest of the landing party doubted this. So Nyota got her Ancient Greek on, well enough for jazz, and talked them through the maneuvers they needed to stay alive until they got back, to once again wonder just why they chose this line of work.
Must tidy up before bed. Definitely have to get more sleep tonight, that's for sure -- I've been up late the past couple of evenings, and I'm feeling it.