Category: Administrative

Didja Miss Me?

Please forgive me my ramble! I have had a rough few months and I just had to make a mark on the internet for the exact moment when I saw the light at the end of the tunnel again!

I hope to get back into the habit of posting film reviews (I have a LOT of them in backlog!) regularly again, and reading other people’s blogs. I do miss catching up with folks!

Whew. 

As it does, Life Got Hectic.

Here is a summary of things that happened in the second half of 2014:

May

  • Laid off from a job I loved. The company wasn’t doing well and still isn’t, and has literally gone from 250 employees in its heyday to about 30. I have made some really awesome friends at that job, and it was like being thrown out of a a family. I am afraid for other friends who are still there.
  • I find another job and, despite my disbelief, manage to land it. I start at a new company downtown, doing something pretty interesting with some intelligent, pleasant people. I mostly keep to myself.

June

  • My car begins to act up.
  • I rent a car and a friend and I head up to Atlanta for my best friend’s baby shower. When we are about to leave and make the drive home, I burst into near-hysterical sobs at the idea of leaving the first place I have been happy in months. My friend warns me that if I am not honest with myself about how I feel at my new job, I will only be more miserable.
  • I decide I want to go back to school, and get a Professional Writing Certificate, which is only 15 hours of Grad School classes. Since I don’t need a GRE score to apply, I go for it.

July

  • July 4th weekend doesn’t go well. I’m in a terrible depressive mood and I’m angry about everything. I take it out on my significant other on our way back from a barbeque. I apologize and he forgives me later, but it still bothers me.
  • My car continues to deteriorate, and my parents offer to loan me money for a down payment on another. Despite my pride, I take them up on it.
  • I get a used 2013 Fiat 500. I love it, but I didn’t negotiate the best finance price. Still, it’s not too much, and I have a reasonable monthly payment.
  • Our dryer acts up, and I try to save some money by fixing it myself. I wind up cutting myself  horribly on the unfinished aluminum that houses the heating element, and nearly maim myself. I still don’t have insurance at my new job, so I fix myself up the best I can. My left  is the worse of my thumbs, and bleeds for twelve hours before it stops. Changing the bandages is awkward and painful, and we wind up paying a guy to fix the dryer in addition to getting me a tetanus shot at the Minute Clinic. The NP at the clinic says I should have gone to the ER for stitches, but as it’s closed up now there’s nothing more she can do. I still have a pretty wicked scar, and it doesn’t quite bend the same.

August

  • I am accepted to UCF, and am incredibly proud.
  • I attend orientation and realize I should have already signed up for classes. I scramble to find one that’s both online and open, and wind up signing up for one that is WAY above my level.
  • A recruiter contacts me for a possible job opening at a company most of my friends work at. I send him my resume, and he says he’ll be in touch.
  • I make an impulse decision and buy tickets for Nine Inch Nails for myself and my significant other. It’s my first time seeing them live, but I’ve been a fan since 1995.
  • At the show, I find out Robin Williams has died. We still have a good time, but I am upset. I haven’t written my feelings out about that because it’s still taking a while for everything to settle down. I see a quote later about the whole thing: “Being lonely isn’t the worst thing in the world; the worst thing in the world is being around people who make you feel alone” and I realize I have been unhappy for some time now.
  • Terrible news: my Aunt has died, very unexpectedly, at the age of 53. Her 21-year-old son found her. She had been there a few days with no air conditioning on, and temperatures in South Georgia were in the high 90s.
  • The family gets together in Waycross to help my cousin make the arrangements and help him clean out his mother’s apartment. She had been hoarding and hadn’t cleaned for years. My other aunt and I do most of the cleaning so my mother and cousin don’t see the worst of it.

September

  • The first weekend in September, a week after she passed, we bury her. Because of her condition, it is a closed casket. Despite how upset I am, I am a pallbearer, and I am proud to say I was able to carry my share of the burden. We bury her on September 5th, which happens to be my mother’s birthday. The rest of the weekend is difficult, but the family does its best.
  • The rest of September is busy, yet a blur. I have things written down on my calendar and I know I was busy, but unless I look it up I have no idea what happened during that month.
  • As I am doing my coursework, I realize that I am really in over my head in the course, and that my heart isn’t in pursuing the professional writing certificate. I decide I will do my best to finish the semester and then bow out. Realizing this is liberating for me – I am glad I took the course and had the experiences I did, and want to pursue my MA in Creative Writing, but not now.
  • At work, my lead writes me a heartfelt email about how much he appreciates my efforts on our project. Other people express how much they like me and appreciate my work. I appreciate it, but I still feel hollow.

October

  • Life moves forward. I do things with friends, and try to get out more. I try to make an effort to work on my novel.
  • I see some movies with friends, including a special midnight showing of Aliens at our local art/revival theater, the Enzian. It’s a great time and I feel appreciated.
  • My job has an employee appreciation day at Wonderworks, an Orlando attraction that is part-fun center, part science museum. We do laser tag, and there is a ROPES course on the top floor that is 30 feet high. It dredges up memories of a ROPES course I took in high school over the summer.
  • I volunteer at Central Florida VegFest, a huge vegetarian/vegan festival. It’s fascinating, and educational, but I am not inspired to give up meat or dairy. Just to eat from more humane sources.
  • Halloween at work is fun – I go as the Winter Soldier from the recent Captain America movie. I wear it to my friend’s huge yearly Halloween party and it’s a big hit.
  • I try to get back into working out regularly, since Tough Mudder 2014 is coming up and I don’t want to embarrass myself.

November

  • My parents come for the TM, and it’s a lot of fun. Some of my former coworkers are there, and we run into each other at various obstacles. I carry someone’s brother during the Wounded Warrior carry, and I’m surprised I’m able to do it. I’m not as sore afterward as I thought I would be, although I get stuck in the mud on the last obstacle.
  • I take all of us to see Gone With the Wind at the Enzian for a belated birthday event for my Mom, as she is a “Southern Bell” and her actual birthday was a dreary affair because of the funeral. It is a big hit – although it was my first time seeing it and I had Opinions, I keep them to myself (mostly) so as not to spoil our time.
  • I get contacted by the recruiter again, and I finally interview at the company where all my friends work. I don’t expect anything to come of it deep down, and when I get the offer I am shocked… I’m so surprised I can’t even think how I feel. They want me to start the following week, but I insist on putting in a full two weeks’ notice where I am. I tell my coworkers and bosses first thing in the morning rather than agonize over it all day.
  • I stay home for Thanksgiving, and make a meal for my significant other and I since he has to work. I am hugely thankful for how well I am doing in life, and spend most of the holiday alone, mentally recharging.

December

  • Day two of my new job, and I’m happier than I’ve been in months. I’m getting a little pay raise, I work ten minutes from my house, and best of all, I’m working with almost two dozen people from my old job, several of which I count among my close friends.
  • Just now, I wrote my final paper for my class. I’m thrilled to be done with it, and haven’t felt this free or happy in a long time.
  • I have Big Plans for Xmas presents, my boyfriend is graduating with his BS, and I feel like I am getting back to a regular workout regimen again. I can finally appreciate how good life is again.

TL;DR:

Please forgive me my ramble! I have had a rough few months and I just had to make a mark on the internet for the exact moment when I saw the light at the end of the tunnel again!

I hope to get back into the habit of posting film reviews (I have a LOT of them in backlog!) regularly again, and reading other people’s blogs. I do miss catching up with folks!

Have a wonderful rest of your day! I hope we can catch up soon!

Real Life News Bulletin

My last day at work will be the 9th. It’s nothing to do with performance, and in fact they would have me back once things get better in the industry, but unfortunately there’s just not enough work right now. I work for a government contractor and we don’t have as much to do as we’d like, so there have been a LOT of cuts. I’m not the only one, either.

Howdy folks!

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is, I’ll be posting more frequently.

The bad news is, I’ll be posting more frequently because I am getting laid off.

*sad trumpet sound*

My last day at work will be the 9th. It’s nothing to do with performance, and in fact they would have me back once things get better in the industry, but unfortunately there’s just not enough work right now. I work for a government contractor and we don’t have as much to do as we’d like, so there have been a LOT of cuts. I’m not the only one, either.

But I’ve got several years’ experience in this industry behind me, plenty of resumes out floating around, and most importantly, an emergency fund saved up to see me through. And of course, there’s unemployment.

So I am worried, but not really worried. I have to say I’ve been planning for this since January. And while I had a new job and disposable income and such, I never REALLY forgot what being unemployed, broke, and desperate felt like. I don’t think anyone who’s felt it ever really does. So I tried to make sure my boyfriend and I live somewhat frugal lifestyles. I don’t go out for meals TOO much, rarely shop for anything but essentials, and try to save money where I can. I do treat myself once in a while, and even then it tends to be a single item.

So don’t worry for me! I’m fine, there are jobs out there, I’m smart and experienced and very professional. All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

(Although if you have any leads on instructional design or copywriting jobs in the Orlando area, send me an email!)

In a Nutshell: Tywin Lannister Entering Rooms in Game of Thrones

Anyhoodle, I just love Charles Dance in this role. His elegance, his grace, and his arrogance are all perfect. Most poignant of all his is use of stillness in the role. He is a patient man, a still man. He does not fidget. He masters himself like he masters his surroundings. He knows that the victor is not always the biggest, fastest, or strongest, but the one who can endure. As I mentioned above, everyone else is on HIS time. He comes across as inhuman at times…but he most assuredly isn’t.

Not pictured: comedy relief

When I was much younger, I used to go through phases where I would have a crush on an actor. I suppose this behavior counts as “fangirling,” but since it was before the internet I didn’t know that term. Anyhoo, one of those crushes was Charles Dance.

I know. Don’t judge.

I loved him for his portrayal as Eric in a TV-version of Phantom of the Opera, and for his role as Sardal Numspa in The Golden Child, which is another delightful film you should totally check out. I have no explanation of why I liked him so much, other than it was a phase and I am strange.

With that said, there is literally no one else on this planet I could see in the role of Tywin Lannister. Charles Dance is perfect. 

If you haven’t seen the show, then everything you need know is summed up in this mnemonic device I used to help me remember his name when I first started watching:

Ty(rant) + Win = Tywin Lannister, the Tyrant Who Wins

If I had more time and less employment, I would create a Tumblog dedicated just to scenes of him entering rooms like a badass. Because there are copious scenes of him entering rooms and just filling them with his magnificent presence. Alas, some other person shall have to come up with it.

The reason they love to show him entering rooms/scenes like a badass is multifold:

  • His physical presence – Charles Dance is tall and elegant, and the camera loves his long, stately stride. he enters rooms and then WORKS. THEM.
  • His abstract presence – TL just walking into a room changes what’s going on in it. People stop what they’re doing, conversations end, and everyone basically waits for him to dictate what’s going on next; as the (arguably, to be explained below) most powerful man in Westeros, they are on his time, he is not on theirs
  • For the purposes of filmmaking, it’s easier to begin a scene with a character entering or leaving a room/scene than in the middle of a conversation or situation, especially with as many characters and situations as GoT has.

Look how the man works that horse.

Makes me think of Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China, except the exact opposite: “Everyone stop relaxing, I’m  here now.”

Incidentally, this is a scene in the second season where Tywin’s arrival saved the day – by displacing the former acting lord of Harrenhal, Tywin exercises some much needed order over the ruinous castle and its ruinous garrison. The acting commander at Harrenhal was the psychotic and terrifying Gregor Clegane, aka The Mountain That Rides, aka the 8-ft tall guy who cut off a horse’s head with a single blow in the first season during the tournament. Tywin arrives and ends the random killing of captives, and puts them to work in the castle.

While he does employ psychotic and terrifying people like the Mountain, he considers them only useful in battle.  “Meet your enemies with fire and sword, but help a kneeling man to his feet” is one of his axioms. And he does do this – there’s not much TL takes personally, when it comes to the other lords and people of Westeros, unless someone tries to start some shit with his family. THAT he does not put up with. Granted, he usually turns things to his advantage when dealing with his former enemies, but while he can be duplicitous, he is at least generally in the open about things and you usually know where you stand. His first loyalty is to his name and his family: but whatever threatens the realm, like instability, threatens his family.

I think something a lot of people overlook with his character is the fact that he spends most of the War of the Five Kings cleaning up other people’s messes. To wit:

  • He goes to war with the North after his son is taken prisoner by Catlyn Stark. Granted, he could have ransomed Tyrion or something, but anyone who knows him know he doesn’t do things half-assed nor suffer fools. But he’s also upholding the stability of Westeros – there are a lot of highborn lords out wandering around, and if people start getting the idea they can just grab somebody and demand terms, well, there would be a LOT of problems. People need to see what happens in such cases.
  • He continues the war of the Five Kings because of the actions of Cersei and Joffrey; Cersei, who blows her nose with the will of her DEAD KING, and Joffrey, who beheads his own Warden of the North. They wrote some checks they couldn’t cash and TL WILL NOT allow the honor of his house to be sullied by their actions. You don’t become the (arguably) most powerful man in Westeros by shrugging and “just going with it.” I wish we could have seen his reaction when he heard about what the queen and Joff did, although it would hvae been best viewed from a safe distance; the surface of Mars, say.
  • He arrives in King’s Landing just in time to save the day and rout Stannis’s army, but also to salvage the wreckage of Joffrey’s actions – this is after he’s been acting as Battle Commander for a few months in the West and Riverlands, losing several battles to a sixteen year old. True, it is INCREDIBLY shitty that he takes up the position of Hand and relegates Tyrion to some crappy darkened room to heal up. That’s a dick move, hands down (HURRR). So he loses cool points there, but he didn’t get where he is by worrying about whether people like him or not. Lannister can read between the lines of Westerosi history: a weak king requires a strong Hand, and he knows that better than anyone.

This is all doubly interesting if you consider that cleaning up family messes was how he started his life: his father was a weak man, who loaned out money freely without demanding repayment. He was disrespected by his bannermen when they were drunk, and generally thought of as The Local Softy. When some nearby families started some shit, he backed down. Eventually, the widowed Tytos brought a common woman into his bed, and gave her run of Casterly Rock. The situation was sort of like if the Kennedys (Lannisport sounds a LOT like Hyannisport to me) replaced Jackie Kennedy with Britney Spears. After his father died, Tywin Lannister became the lord of Casterly Rock and he had had ENOUGH. He threw the woman out and made her do the Westerosi version of the walk of shame – naked as a jaybird, right through the middle of town. Then when the Reynes started some shit, he marched on them and eradicated the entire family, and burned down their seat. “The Rains of Castemere” is like the Lannister Fight Song.

“…and then you shall die.”

Then he had to serve Mad King Aerys, who went all sideways on him. The twenty years he served as Hand are remembered fondly by the common people as a time of peace and plenty.

Anyhoodle, I just love Charles Dance in this role. His elegance, his grace, and his arrogance are all perfect. Most poignant of all his is use of stillness in the role. He is a patient man, a still man. He does not fidget. He masters himself like he masters his surroundings. He knows that the victor is not always the biggest, fastest, or strongest, but the one who can endure. As I mentioned above, everyone else is on HIS time. He comes across as inhuman at times…but he most assuredly isn’t.

And just to show that Mr. Dance can be silly too, here he is in a scene from Da Ali G show, shaking that thang:

You’re Welcome

Thanks for reading my long rambling love letter to Tywin Lannister. Have a great day!