bearshorty | Monday, January 18, 2016

Movie
Mad Max: The Fury Road.

I never watched the other Mad Max movies. I know that they exist and that they take place in apocalyptic world. And that Mel Gibson was in them. But that was the extent of my knowledge. And all I knew about the new one was that all the people who wrote about it liked it and that it was just nominated for an Oscar.

I'm really happy that I knew nothing, not even an inkling of the plot. It was a lot of fun to just get immersed in that world cold. And what a strange, weird world too. I liked having to piece it together, to take familiar mythology and understand how it applied to this world. We watched the movie over two nights this weekend. I think I also liked having a break. I looked forward to finishing it, which is a good sign.

This action scenes were very intense and there was high death count but it also made sense. The cinematography was beautiful. The movie was stylistically gorgeous. I love Furiosa, she was really the main character - her actions drive the film. Max was just along for the ride.

It is a rare action movie that passes the Bechdel test. I loved that there was no romance. It was surprising and I can see why it is so acclaimed. I giggled at the couple of lines in Russian, from the first attackers. That was actual Russian too, by native speakers.

Overall: great movie

I had to look up who played Nux (he plays Hank/Beast in X-Men and he was the kid in About a Boy).

TV
Downton Abbey S6E2
Continues to be fun. I'm glad Anna is catching a break - her crying and not believing Bates when he says they will be fine was getting repetitive. Nice to have a glimpse of happy Anna. Otherwise, just nice time watching all the plots. I feel sorry for Thomas. And I want Edith to be happy.

Sherlock Special
That was fun. The ending with his solution was a bit ridiculous since cults are weird and who is going to start murdering in revenge in order to give votes to women - I get that the show was trying to set up "Moriarty's followers exist in reality" but it just ended up a bit awkward. I did like the mystery until that point, though. Like why call Sherlock if you plan to murder your husband? For witnesses?

I loved Mary as usual and the exchange "I'm taking Mary home. -You're what? -Mary's taking me home." was hilarious. And how she was just cracking government files. "What about MI5 security? -You should get some".

I think Cumberbatch was dashing in Victorian clothes.

I spend most of last week at my parents with Tanya since I had work orientation for two days. We only got home on Saturday morning. The week itself was pretty nice and orientation ended up being very helpful, despite being over two long days. I'm just going to do a short recap of the week. I should really just post more often.

Monday In the morning, Tanya and I went to Tanya's doctor for her last vaccines for a while. The visit actually went very well, no drama. Hopefully, no more visits, fingers crossed, until August. My Mom came over early to cook some soup and pack and as we neared our place, we saw that she was already outside, ready to go. We did have to come back as my Mom forgot her purse but still came to my parents's house pretty quickly.

Tuesday - Tanya started using declensions in Russian! She said, 'idyem babe' 'let's go to grandma' and not just nominitive 'baba' or 'grandma'. She said 'k mame' (to mama) too. I'm continuing to be amazed by how she is learning the language. She repeats after us a lot, and uses both English and Russian. It's really fascinating.

Wednesday - Day 1 of orientation. My Dad drove me in early. I was in the building by 7am (orientation was at 10). So I found an empty classroom, turned on my computer, ate my breakfast while finishing watching the Sherlock special. Then I worked on my syllabi and the online site. The orientation itself was more useful than I thought it would be. It was a recap of pedagogy of the course but the refresher was nice. I got some nice new idea for discussion day and for peer review day. I wanted to shake up my discussion class this semester; last year I felt I was talking too much and needed to get the students to participate more.

Thursday - on Thursday morning, I turned on my phone to watch the Oscar nomination, and as I was setting that up I saw the news bulletin that Alan Rickman died. My first reaction was refusal to believe it, hoping I misread or that it was a prank. I didn't have an emotional connection with David Bowie - I didn't grow up with his music or the movie - so Monday's news wasn't personal, but Alan Rickman was one of my favorite actors. I own Sense and Sensibility, Galaxy Quest, Dogma and Love Actually DVDs and Bear had all Harry Potters. My Dad has Die Hard. Alan Rickman was just such a presence. I kerp getting sad every time I catch my Snape mug with his image on my bookshelf.

On Thursday I also got myself some new slippers on sale, more food for Tanya at baby R US and some more milk for her.

Friday - Day 2 of orientation. I had to work on Assignment questions in the morning and also turned on my contract. We also worked on the grading criteria and later practice graded some papers to make sure everyone was grading on the same rubric. The best part of orientation was seeing some of my work friends, like Rosemary, and meeting new teachers too. There was lovely conversation at lunch about both work stuff and just regular TV, books, politics, life stuff. I'm also turning into one of those parents apparently who offers advice to expectant parents. I should stop that.

Saturday - back home, mostly a quiet day. I did take a walk to the library in the afternoon, for the first time in years (I've mostly been using their ebook feature and borrowing books for my Kindle) so I could renew my library card. And as soon as I stepped outside once I renewed the card, I took out my phone and put the 3rd Robert Galbraith book on hold. Technology is awesome. I then walked quite a way to the playground to join Bear and Tanya. So I ended up getting some walking exercise too.

In the evening, Bear and I started watching "Mad Max". I'm savoring this sudden ability in the last month to have free time in the evening and watching movies or reading. Tanya is finally staying asleep, most of the time after she falls asleep. Now that the semester is starting that time will be spent grading but still, time I will have. Yay. Why is my body and brain telling me to have another baby again and have erratic sleep again? (We are still thinking about having another but I'm starting to get a bit of baby fever -which I did not have when we were planning Tanya, but appently I do now. Still, brain, think of sleeping).

Sunday - I made pea soup in the morning and then walked to the local kosher butcher store to get some hot dogs and buns (I made them for dinner). I also went to a bunch of little stores including a Chinese bakery and a regular bakery. We got the first real snow of the winter in the afternoon. So quiet day. We finished the movie in the evening.

We are visiting Bear's parents today since it's a work holiday. Tanya is napping and I can finally catch up on the blog. I'm also reading three books now (Bechdel, 9th Tomek book and Purgatory), so I will probably read one of those now. It's really cold outside, 25F or -4 C, and it snowed a little this morning. There is finally winter. Some tea and a book sound just about right.