On the eighth day of Newton: New Year's Eve!

I think a lot of us felt just like Calvin in 2013. Here's to the new year that is upon us. One love.

Minority report

So, tonight Coco and I used some aging AMC gift cards to go see Personal Tailor, a Mandarin-language comedy (dramedy?) film that portrayed an episodic tale of a Fantasy Island-like company that makes client's dreams come true, at least for a time. Their motto is "Fulfilling you by debasing ourselves." It was pretty good: by turns funny and dark, with frequent clever insights into human nature and current affairs in China.

For some reason, the manager let us cut the line when he saw we had gift cards. As he was processing our tickets for the show, he asked us "You know this movie has sub-titles, right?"

There were about a hundred or so people in the auditorium, and Coco and I were the only non-Chinese there. I casually remarked on this as the lights went down.

During the film, I had to go to the restroom, and I left the auditorium at the same time as a young man. As we journeyed together to the men's room, we had this conversation:

Him: I thought only Chinese people would go to this movie.

Me:  Well, I think we're the only non-Chinese in there.

Him: Did you know this was a Chinese movie before you came?

Me: Oh, yes.

Him: Why did you come?

Me: Well, we saw it on the website, and watched the trailer, and it looked like it was funny.

We talked a little more as we took care of business; he said that many of the situations and set-ups in the film were just funny to Chinese people, even without the dialogue or story. (This likely explained some of the laughter we heard but did not participate in.) He said in response to my question that the sub-titles were pretty good, in his estimation. And we made out way back to our seats.

I'm not sure what to make of any of this. Foreign films are not at all unusual in Seattle, so it seemed like an odd occurrence to us that we would be the only non-Chinese there, but I can't shake the feeling we were the only two who thought it totally normal that we would go see this movie.

On the second day of Newton: Happy Holiday!

My traditional (three years running now!) holiday greeting. One love, everybody.

Getting warmed up

So, I said a little while ago that I wanted to make sure this break was fruitful and didn't just slip on by. To that end, I have dug through a file called "images to play with" and starting tomorrow we'll see a new post every day for a while, on one of the fine blogs in the WalakaNet family of blogs. We're kicking it off with a self-referential shot sent to me some time ago by a buddy, but appropriate right now.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Winter 'scape

So, here in Seattle, we'll get a total of eight hours, twenty-six minutes, and five seconds of daylight today, once the sun actually comes up in a little bit. We're within spitting distance of the shortest day of the year: this Saturday, the 21st, when the daylight will total out to 8:25:24. That will also be the start of calendrical Winter, so, when you think about it, Winter is a season of light: each successive day is longer. It is with that counter-intuitively optimistic thought that I begin Winter break.

Yesterday was Grading Day: finishing off and recording the assessment of all the final projects, presentations, and portfolios from my students. I have a bit of prep to do, but it will not be too onerous, and I'll probably make an event of it with a colleague. So there's pretty much three weeks of free time between now and my next work responsibility. Not quite eighty days of summer, but I'll take it gladly.

I imagine there will be quite a bit of TCB in there, as my whacked schedule over the past quarter has caused several home-base initiatives to falter (i.e., some chores didn't get done) but I hope to get in a lot of reading and a little creativity over this break.

And maybe that's all this relatively content-free post is about: reminding myself of that and publicly committing to not letting these days slip by without intentionality. Hopefully, you'll see some fruits of that commitment on these pages.

In the meantime, here's a picture from Geek Girl Con back in October: on of my former students won "Most in Character" for her Snow White. I think the little bird perched on her hand is what clinched it.