Want a Cool Little Website?
This is a cool little website.
Edit: “Let’s Settle This” lets you pick between two options and then see what the majority prefers. 58% of people are monsters.
WORMZ
Look at this freaking monstrous worm! My foot for scale.
That is all.
Drawers
Now that I have a semester off, I’m deep cleaning the condo ‘cause it’s super gross and dusty and full of all the empty boxes/envelopes from our random online purchases over the past year.
Super fun!
Today’s task was re-organizing a few of my drawers of nonsense. Here’s some fun stuff I found:
Here’s the plaque from the writing award I won in 6th grade. I was going to be given it during our graduation ceremony, but I was too busy GETTING APPENDICITIS so they just gave me this thing afterward.
Here are my abysmal GRE scores from when I was first applying to grad school for psych. That “quantitative” score is so horrible. But I did okay in the “analytical writing” section, though. I remember the two essay topics were things I was super passionate about, so I just went off on them, haha.
More test results! This is from the Iowa Test of Basic Skills that I took in 5th grade. I’m surprised my spelling score was so low; I was a pretty good speller in elementary school. I don’t remember what the “social studies” category actually was testing, but I clearly didn’t know the stuff.
Here are my notes from 2018 when I tried to re-write Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” to apply to the 30 years I’d been alive.
Supa fun!
More Fun Ways for the Earth to End
My brain specializes in disturbing end-of-the-world scenarios that are just far enough on the plausible side to be extra terrifying.
As an example, I present last night’s dream:
In the dream, I’m out on our balcony looking at the stars on a clear night. I notice very quickly, however, that not only can I see the stars but I can also see the International Space Station. But it’s not a little dot like it usually is; rather, it’s SUPER CLOSE and I can see it in detail. Then I realize that I can see all sorts of space debris, like old discarded pieces of space crafts, random satellites, etc.
I think this is super cool and a product of Calgary’s skies being so clear, so I take a picture of it and send it to my mom. She responds by saying that something bad is happening and that I should turn on the news.
It turns out that the US government, in an effort to do…something (probably strengthen the military), has messed up one of the outer layers of the earth’s atmosphere (I’m not sure which, but I’m gonna say the ionosphere because that makes the most sense). Specifically, they accidentally made it way more magnetic than it should be. The result? All of the relatively close metal-based space debris is being drawn towards earth and is all starting to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere. As I’m listening to this news, I can actually see all of these pieces of debris get closer and closer in the sky, with one piece turning bright red as it falls into the upper atmosphere. The news anchor is telling people to be prepared for mass destruction* and to get underground if possible.
This is, of course, terrifying. In addition, the news says, the increased magnetic nature of the ionosphere is messing with all the electronics on earth. Sure enough, soon my phone no longer works and my conversation with my mom is cut off. My computer monitor, too, starts to dim and then eventually dies as well.
At this point I’m panicking, because I know I have to get Nate (who is nowhere to be found in the dream), Jazzy, and all our important stuff together and out of the condo as fast as possible. I’m also worried about my mom. She, however, shows up in the condo a few minutes later (hooray dream logic) and we both start to scramble to get things together to evacuate the building.
By this point, the power grid is starting to fail and the lights flicker and go out entirely. Now it’s dark (it’s still nighttime) and I can’t find a flashlight or Jazzy or her carrier or any of the other important stuff we need to keep with us (passports, etc.). Meanwhile, more and more pieces of debris are breaking through the atmosphere and crashing all around us, with some of the neighboring buildings going up in flames as burning pieces of metal collide with them.
It’s just this overall feeling of helpless panic.
Then I wake up.
Ugh.
I guess the takeaway from these nightly “here’s how you might die!” dreams is that this is the third one in the past week where in the dream, I’ve regretted the fact that I did not have things prepared for a quick evacuation (emergency bag + important stuff ready to be quickly gathered and taken with me). I’m assuming this is the universe telling me to get that stuff ready just in case.
Because you never know.
*In reality, most of these objects are probably small enough that they would just burn up before hitting the earth, but still…terrifying, right?
Book Review: Fathers and Sons (Turgenev)
Have I read this before: I…I don’t recall, actually. Which either means a) I’ve never read it, or b) I read it when I was like 13 and it went way over my head.
Review: The general interactions of Arkady, Bazarov, and Nikolay really remind me of another book I’ve read at some point, but I can’t place it. Hell, maybe it’s this one, haha, and I just can’t remember reading this book in the past. But I feel like I’ve read another story recently where a son comes home with a friend and the friend has influenced the son’s views enough so that his parents are quite upset about it.
I could be wrong, though.
Favorite Part: this quote from Bazarov: “while I think that here I am lying under a haystack…the tiny area I occupy is so minute by comparison with the rest of space, where I don’t exist, which doesn’t bother with me. And the span of time I’ll be able to live out is so insignificant before he eternity where I haven’t been and where I will not be…yet in this atom, in this mathematical dot blood is circulating, a brain is functioning and wanting something too…what a monstrous state of affairs! What nonsense!”
Rating: 5/10
Book review: East of Eden (Steinbeck)
Have I read this before: Nope. It’s Steinbeck, who I had avoided up until just recently.
Review: This is a fantastic book. There are a decent number of characters and they’re all very interwoven in their lives and stories. There’s obviously a lot of Biblical analogies and references, but it’s not obnoxious about it. There’s also a lot of depth to the story as a whole and it has a lot of moving parts.
Favorite Part: I liked this interesting conversation amongst Adam, Samuel, and Lee when Adam was trying to name his two sons:
Samuel: “Have you thought of your own name?”
“Mine?”
“Of course. Your first-born – Cain and Abel.”
Adam said, “Oh, no. No, we can’t do that.”
“I know we can’t. That would be tempting whatever fate there is. But isn’t it odd that Cain is maybe the best-known name in the whole world and as far as I know only one man has ever borne it?”
Lee said, “Maybe that’s why the name has never changed its emphasis.”
Just an interesting take.
Rating: 6/10
I am tremendously, inexplicably, irreparably sad.
How are you doing?
One thing can be said about Calgary’s weather:
It’s never a half-assed attempt.
Is it winter? A WHOLE WEEK OF -30 DEGREE TEMPS!
Is it a snowstorm? A WHOLE FOOT OF SNOW PLUS SNOW DRIFTS!
Is it a windstorm? JUST KIDDING, TORNADO, BITCHES!
So today it rained, which means it rained like this:
The video doesn’t really capture the intensity. This also went on for like half an hour. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it rain so much for so long.
I don’t mind rain if I don’t have to be out in it. I didn’t have to be out in this, so HOORAY RAIN!
GET UP, BITCHES
IT’S LEIBNIZ DAY
PRAISE HIM
OKAY I’M TOO HYPER FOR THIS BYE
Hey Pacific and Inland Northwest!
Y’all enjoying this heatwave? Are you having a super good time trying not to die?
Well, get used to it. This is our future. Summers will be this hot or hotter, these heatwaves will become so normal they won’t even call them “heatwaves” anymore, there will be droughts and general water shortages, and everything will be on fire.
Exciting, huh? I can’t wait!!!!!!
F-F-F-FIRE!
So British Columbia is on fire. Lytton, BC was actually literally engulfed in flames and everyone had to (without a lot of warning) evacuate.
That’s terrifying.
I also found a bunny hiding out under a car in the parking lot when I came home from my walk. It was obviously a domestic bunny – it was black and super small and did not look at all like the gargantuan hares we have around here – and seemed very timid and unsure of what to do. Which probably means that someone dumped him. Because what else are you going to do to a poor animal during the worst heat wave western Canada has ever seen?
I hate people and I hate the heat and I hate that this is going to be our future.
Does this count as doomscrolling?
Yes, I’m reading about structural collapse/disasters that have occurred throughout history because I’m TERRIFIED of that kind of thing.
So naturally I want to read about it.
Ever since the Surfside collapse a few days ago, I’ve been thinking about collapse disasters a lot. And it’s been SUPAH FUN!!!!
Edit: did you know that the Surfside collapse is now tied as the third deadliest structural engineering failure in the US?
This heat wave can already go die now, k?
Our condo was approximately 200 degrees this evening, so once the sun was mostly down we just went out and sat on the balcony and played Jeopardy! on the iPad.
Check out how creepy the cancer center looks.
Scary River Fun
So today I had to call 911 for some rafters who ran into trouble on the Bow River.
Technically I wasn’t the only one who called 911 – people further up the river who had witnessed the raft capsize had called first, as I learned later – but the people who had been dumped by the raft were moving REALLY FAST down the river and were yelling for help as they were passing where I was walking, so I called 911 just in case no one had done it yet.
Bystander effect, right?
Anyway, I think I was able to help a little bit, because I was able to tell the operator approximately where the people were in the river (based on the street I was by) and give an idea of how fast they were moving so that rescue could possibly intercept them.
And completely unrelated: I was perhaps the most dehydrated I’ve ever been by the end of my walk today. I didn’t bring enough water and our heat wave is starting to pick up today, so that was fun.
Edit: pic of the raft that had caught on the bridge by Edworthy Park. It doesn’t show up very well in the pic, but the water was REALLY moving.
I Love Calgary
So because I felt like death after my shot the other day, I forgot to post some pics I took of downtown. So here ya go!
WELL, THERE WERE SIDE EFFECTS
So unlike the first COVID shot where I had basically no side effects, I definitely had some after the second shot.
Let’s rewind to yesterday. I was actually feeling fine for several hours after I got the shot. I walked home without incident (though my arm was just a little bit sore by the time I got back), cleaned the kitchen a little bit, did dishes, went grocery shopping, all that fun stuff.
Normal.
But then around 9:00-ish or so, I started to feel a little off. All my muscles started to get really sore. Then they all started to feel like they were on fire. Nate and I played a Jeopardy! on the couch and I was having trouble concentrating because ALL MUSCLES WERE BURNING.
Then I started to feel cold.
Really cold.
Like, I’m always kinda cold because I’m basically a lizard with poor blood circulation, but I could NOT get warm. Despite the fact that this was one of the warmer days we’ve had this summer so far, I had to huddle under my heavy blanket on the other couch and even then I was shivering uncontrollably.
I fell asleep under the blanket for a good while and when Nate finally woke me up I guess I was super hot. I have a very vague memory of giving Jazzy her night meds and saying goodnight to Nate and then sitting at my computer and just staring at the screen for like three hours. I took my temperature and it was 103, which is well above my usual temp of 96.
Eventually I made it to bed (somehow) and when I woke up this morning I was feeling a lot better. My muscles were still a little sore, but not nearly as sore as yesterday. And instead of being smart and taking it easy by doing my walk on the treadmill in case I started feeling worse, I decided to be the idiot that I usually am and went running instead. It was probably one of the hardest runs I’ve ever had and my legs were SUPER SORE afterward, but mileage comes first.
Anyway. Party hard. Apart from my throbbing legs, I still feel a lot better than yesterday.
Shot: Part II
So today I walked downtown to get my second COVID shot!
Annnnd…done!
I’m not feeling anything yet, so hopefully any side effects I eventually get (if I get them) won’t be too bad.
Yay science!
Outline
Story update: I took a break of a few weeks from it after hitting 150,000 words. This was mainly because I had the end of the spring semester to deal with, but also to get a bit of separation from it so that I could look at it with fresher eyes for outlining purposes.
But now it’s been a long enough absence and I have to start outlining.
I am totally not looking forward to it; I don’t think I’ll enjoy that process. But I guess we’ll see. I tried to write the sections mostly in order, but without doing some more work, I don’t know exactly how close I am to being done OR how ordered things actually are.
Woo?
Jazz
Jazzy’s got some bumps on her.
There’s a small and somewhat soft one on her back near her spine and there’s another pointier one on the back of one of her legs.
This is obviously concerning because there’s like a 99% chance she has cancer, so who knows if these bumps are from cancer or from something else.
We’re hoping that they’re just a side effect from all the steroids she’s been having to take to try to suppress the cancer, but who knows.
I hate it all.
LOL I HATE MYSELF
GO AWAY
JABBY JABBY PART II: MODERNA’S REVENGE
So guess who’s suddenly eligible to sign up for their second COVID shot?
THIS LOSER RIGHT HERE!
Time to get in the virtual queue….
…oh. Okay, so time to sit in the virtual queue for three hours.
Edit: Booked!
Beautiful
I love VOCES8, yo. This is such a pretty song.
That is all.
Book Review: Death Comes for the Archbishop (Cather)
Have I read this before: Yup. Back in 2014 I think.
Review: It’s alright. It’s one of the many books that I’ve read on my list that doesn’t really stand out in either the “god this is bad” direction or the “GOD THIS IS FANTASTIC” direction. It’s…there. I do like Cather’s writing style, though.
Favorite Part: This beautiful description of the ride back to Santa Fe:
“The sky was full of brilliant sunlight. The sky was as full of motion and change as the desert beneath it was monotonous and still – and there was so much sky, more than at sea, more than anywhere else in the world. The plain was there, under one’s feet, but what one saw when one looked about was that brilliant blue world of stinging air and moving cloud. Even the mountains were mere anthills underneath it. Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.”
Rating: 5/10
GET IT, CANADA
Go, Canada, go!
We got off to a very slow start up here, but things ramped up quickly. Now we’re one of the top countries when it comes to the percent of the population with at least one shot. Hopefully our rate of second shots will start increasing at the same rate.
WOO THERE MIGHT BE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE YET
Eigenblogger 