Sidious, Snoke and Salacious B Crumb’s Sarcastic and Sassy Situation Saloon (Fanfic Social Thread)

At least I will be one of the last in my age group I guess, so still it might be June or July. I'm not too eager about the entire vaccination thing for my own sake. In general I'm pro-vaccination but I'm more sceptic to vaccines that are rapidly developed. However, my area is getting the Pfizer vaccine which seems to be one of the safest. If they had offered me the AZ I would have refused. I would stand a better chance with Covid than with blood clotting... My blood has been messy enough through the years as it is.

 

*randomly leaves this here and cartwheels away*



@CaraJinn COVID can also give you blood clotting so it's pretty much a pick-your-poison situation but given the opportunity and by accessing my own risks, I would take Pfizer as well.

 

I’m very lucky that when I worried about the vaccines, my scientist best friend explained to me how they worked, answered my questions, and then checked in on me before and after the vaccinations to let me know what to expect and what might help. I asked her some very “this is great, but I haven’t taken a science course since 12th grade” questions and appreciated her patience with me.

 

I am booked! 18 May for the 1st dose, 04 August for the second. I didn't even ask which vaccine it was. I was on the pill for nearly 30 years while being a chain smoker and I'm still alive, so I'll take my chances with the vaccine, thank you very much

 

I’m going to a concert next week as a reviewer and I’m on good terms with the orchestra conductor, so he was interested in doing a pre-concert interview. Transcribing it and cleaning up the sentences to make more sense and publishing it on the site took almost 3 hours and now I can’t sleep and it’s almost 5 a.m. I have a friend coming over in 6 hours and tickets to the symphony in 12.5 hours. I need sleep.

The more fun part of that story is that the conductor was about to sign off when he asked if I wanted to try getting an interview with one of the soloists. It’s Jenny Oaks Baker, who is a Juilliard-trained violinist and a Grammy nominee, not to mention my friend’s favorite musician. So I said sure and texted Jenny on Thursday to see if she would be willing to talk. Did not expect her to be so approachable, but she laughed at herself having time management issues and having her dog interrupting in the background. She’s performing with two of her daughters, since it’s a Beethoven program and they’re doing the triple concerto by him. Definitely looking forward to seeing the concert and I’m glad that the fangirl friend didn’t have a conflict for May 7 so when I called and said I had tickets for that concert, she could come.

 

It absolutely is based on the landing at Gallipoli. Basically we commemorate a giant mistake by the British Army in which a young Winston Churchill sent us to one of the more heavily armed beaches by mistake OR he sent us there to distract the Turks while the English landed somewhere safer OR we were supposed to land there but the army intelligence (oxymoron) was wrong and it was more heavily fortified then it was supposed to be. It all depends on which sources you read, or which nationalistic politician is trying to spruik a sense of pride. Either way we commemorate a lot of young men getting killed trying to invade another country.

The only good thing about Gallipoli is the fact that it's one of the only retreats in the entire history of warfare in which not a single life was lost. Basically when they realised they weren't going to get anywhere they withdrew 150 000 troops plus supplies, horses, mules and everything else they could carry at night over a couple of weeks. Not a single person was killed and it took the Turks a while to realise they'd left because the troops had created rifles that would only fire occasionally (weights and strings) which meant it looked and sounded like there were still people there.

It kind of made Australia. It wasn't the first war we were involved in, but it was the first as a country separate from England (there's the Boer war too, but that gets forgotten). So ANZAC day became a way of commemorating our contribution to the war effort in WW1 that was separate from the 'mother country'. There are a lot of myths about the whole thing though, patriotism and propaganda by some of our early war correspondents sometimes makes it difficult as a history teacher to work out what's fact and what is fiction.

Ahem. Anyway...that's the Australian history lesson for this year. If you want a good movie I'd recommend the 1981 Gallipoli movie. The middle is boring but the last act will break your heart (I literally clicked the link so I could share it and now I have tears in my eyes).

On a completely unrelated note, I'm kind of jealous of you guys getting your vaccine. Our government has stuffed it up so royally that I'm probably not going to get mine until next year, maybe even the year after. We're an island on the bottom of the world, so we're pretty safe but we've also got a half baked pudding for a Prime Minister who thinks that just because he's vaccinated we should open our borders and stuff with the consequences.

 

Thanks for all that @Kit'. We learn quite a bit about the Battle of Gallipoli here in Greece because it's in our back yard, so to speak, but we don't discuss much its impact on Australian collective memory. We're also usually told that Churchill used the Australians and New Zealanders as cannon fodder, but that may be because we don't hold Churchill in very high esteem around here Other than the movie you mentioned I saw another one a few years ago that starred Russell Crowe. A lot of it was historically debatable, but it really conveyed this sense of young men going to die in a country they knew nothing about. It also had those gorgeous vistas of Istanbul, which is my favourite city in the world, so for that alone it was a pleasure to watch.

 

Ouch, I had a nice walk of 10km with a friend and her dog today. I'm possibly going to regret it tomorrow. Parts of the path were rather steep and my right knee is not fond of steep ups or downs.

 

That's cool that you guys learn about it too, it's an interesting battle from both sides and I'm glad both Governments now work together to preserve the site. My Grandfather fought in Greece against the Nazis in WWII. He often talked fondly of how lovely the local people were even though it was the middle of a war! It definitely wasn't one of the finest campaigns of the war, and most decidedly a reason to not particularly like Winston Churchill!

 

Roasted goat and potatoes - check
Kokoretsi - check
Misc. grilled meat - check
Stuffed vine leaves - check
Manti - check
Homemade focaccia - check
Salad (yeah, we made some of that) - check
Tsoureki - check

Operation Cholesterol ready to launch!

Happy Easter if you're celebrating today, and even if you're not

 

May the Fourth Be With You All.

 

And with you!

We completed Operation Cholesterol successfully (we were so focused on the cholesterol that we forgot to serve the salad ) and engaged the recovery mode.

This morning we planted all manners of cactus and succulent seeds that need heat to grow. Saguaro, desert roses, astrophytum, you name it. Oh, and one of the Malagasy baobabs germinated. Now there are two of them [insert Nute Gunray emoji here].

I also got the second novel of the new Thrawn trilogy and I'll start reading it in the bathtub tonight, but first I'm off to watch the Bad Batch premiere with Chyntuquita and my niece. I hope Ahsoka doesn't make an appearance in there. Chyntuquita seems to have forgotten about becoming Ahsoka and stopped doing yoga with me, and I'd like to keep it that way.

 

I decided to watch all the of the Pink 5 movies and The Bad Batch, not remembering that Admiral Tarkin in TBB plays Obi-Wan AND the Emperor in P5. So it’s fun to see the range.

 

I'm going to feel dumb, but... what game did everyone win to get colors?

Edit... never mind. I see it now. (Like I said... I was going to feel dumb, might as well ask.)

 

I see the colors, read the descriptions, and still go “when did I stop having time for fun games here?”

 

May 4 remembrance day and May 5 liberation day. No festivities thanks to Covid.

 

So last week we learned at work that government funding to the project I was assigned to was being reduced and so the team needed to be slimmed down. While an effort was made to reassign everyone to other projects, unfortunately there just wasn't room for an intern anywhere and so I am being laid off effective May 21, which will be my last day.

I'm happy to have had the very rewarding experience of working for this company, as now my two internships together give me experience at both ends of the spectrum, from a very small startup company last summer to a large Fortune 500 company this year. I learned a lot about development processes and teamwork in a large company. I spent two months working with a new testing tool before the full-timers on the team began shifting gears to working with it, so I had the opportunity to take the role of a teacher and teach them how to use the tool and guide them through working with it.

I'm meeting with my vocational counselor Monday to discuss options for the remainder of summer, including whether to attempt to pursue a new internship in the time remaining this summer (knowing that most internships are already filled), or just take the experience I have and enjoy my last ever summer break before going into the full-time job hunt in fall semester. It would be nice to relax a bit before my final semester.

 

Sad to hear

 

I’m sorry you’re getting laid off and I hope you can enjoy life this summer while, if needs be, working a bit.

I have worked all week, went to a friend’s son’s party on Thursday, the symphony on Friday, and the opera tonight. I’m very tired right now.

 

I'm sorry you are losing your internship, JC, but it sounds like you got a lot of great experience! If you can, I'd take the time to enjoy your summer as that's something that doesn't really get to happen (at least in the US) after your join the workforce. But certainly get your vocational councilors opinion, they might know more about how that could affect your future job prospects.


My boss has a huge last minute meeting in another city with all of the regional managers and above, along with HR. We're all thinking they are going to do layoffs. To be honest, my job has changed so much since I was hired and in ways I don't like, I might be willing to voluntarily take a severance package if that ends up on offer. (I have no idea if it would happen or if that's even what's happening, but it's crossed my mind.)

 

Yes, the latter is the main reason I need to talk to my vocational counselor. However, I'm strongly leaning toward taking the summer "off", and by the "scare quotes" I mean spending a lot of time doing career development activities like job market research, interview prep, and maybe a certification or two, the kind of things that there won't be time for after fall semester gets underway.

 

Man I am sad I haven’t seen any Bad Batch fanfiction yet. I think the show definitely deserves some

 

That sucks JC, but I agree with your idea to take the summer "off" and working on useful skills. I wish I had spent some time one summer learning Exel!

That also sucks Mav. But I completely understand where you are coming from in terms of changing duties. And taking severance when it's offered - especially if you liking the direction - isn't the worst thing.

I was hired to do community outreach and engagement stuff, but my role has quickly transitioned into volunteer coordinating, IT, social media, and grant writing and I'm enjoying three of those things (social media sucks!). BUT NOW I have to take on much more of the administrative role (which I was kinda already doing with the volunteers). Last week my co-worker had his 2nd concussion in two weeks and it's bad. So he's out for the next month and I agreed to bump up my hours temporarily. However with him out of the office, I can go in much more often, which does make life so much easier. We are also getting summer interns in beginning next week, so while some of my time will be eaten up instructing them... I can also make them take all the stupid stuff off my plate (like social media).

I'm now going to be working 5 days a week (which isnt something I ever wanted to do, but I'm willing to for the next month. It'll make my life easier actually), so I spent my weekend doing a ton of cleaning and laundry so I wont have to worry about that over the next few weeks.

 

I want to write some, but want more character to observe before taking the plunge.