Was it a good day, was it a bad day?
Nov. 28th, 2007 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
minxyOn the one hand, I made it to dinnertime before even the first hints of pain in my head. I call that a win.
As a result--full day of work! With experiments! And stuff!
A good workout this morning that may have contributed extra to the delay of pain onset since there was such nice deep breathing with exercise. *mental note to work out more if need be*
Ate properly. Well, and I had some pumpkin pie, but somebody really needs to eat that soon. Srsly.
On the other hand, one of my minions (from the lab next door) got shafted by his boss. I've been advising and helping him through his qualifying exam, which he passed with full marks, by the way. The committee met with his advisor to express concern that the minion wouldn't have enough support for his ambitious project, nor enough experience in the lab for him to draw on. The advisor saw this as a sign he should remove support entirely. Poor little woobie was fired and I had to strip off my gloves and lab coat in the hall so I could properly hug him when I found out, and he was so sad. I'm beginning to think he's well clear of it; who wants to work for that guy? I don't even want to work next door to that guy.
I am disturbed, though. It's one kind of asshattery to threaten to fire your people as motivating tactic; it's quite another to actually do it. A mentor, when he takes on a graduate student, takes on the responsibility of teaching them and guiding them. A failure at any point after that is joint failure at best. I've worked with N, he takes criticism like it's air and learns and adapts so fast it's hard to keep up with.
This right here, is a failure to mentor.
So, I'm still advising N, but I'm advising him now to seek a place one of the members of his qualifying exam committee who were so impressed with his oral exam on Monday.
MONDAY. Seriously, I'm really disturbed by this turn of events next door.
I think the only solution is to stare at Ben Browder. My housemate brought me oodles of fannishness from China when she got home last week, so I checked out the Farscape VCDs she brought. There is no English on the box besides FARSCAPE and Ben's name, so I was kind of surprised to find the first season inside! Yay first season! I rewatched the pilot and everyone looks so different.... D'aw...
Course, everyone was also sub- and supertitled in Chinese, which was wacky (and not something I could turn off on my computer) and there was no higher menu than simply playing the episodes. I'm pretty sure these are effectively tapes off of the T.V. or something.
[L also brought me Seasons 1-9 of Stargate (though the internet fairy had already supplied me with most of these. *smootches Taselby*) and the blurbs on the back are HILARIOUSLY BAD.
Listen:
"Narrated a group the international exploration troop which is composedby the scientist and the serviceman, discovers one kind of interspacegate in the Pegasus Milky Way galaxy System, when they passed through this "the gate", discoveredfrom has had to face the might formidable new outside starheterogeneous type** the risk Experience"
All grammer, punctuation and lack thereof maintained! STARHETEROGENEOUS TYPE!!! *ahem* I'm going to properly watch all episodes from Supernatural's first two seasons here soon too.]
Okay, so anyway, I was up to Farscape season 4, eps 2-3, What Was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice and Part II: Resurrection.
Part I: Sacrifice.
This doesn't bode well, this title. I'm just saying.
Okay, so where were we? Right, John was little and alone in the white death pod, then we met Sikozu, and the old Pilot and Leviathan. Scorpy got fired and John got sober. Previously on Farscape! Chiana and Rygel came back and iirc, Chiana had a rough time of it.
Chi doesn't want to be alone. Don't leave her 'lone, 'kay John? Her hair even looks sad lately.
D'ARGO, BABY! JOOL!
Look! Jool's so happy to see Chiana; don't that just beat all?
Ooooh, good looking alien bug crawling up the wall while John's looking all pensive. Let's see the bug again, guys! That was a cool bug! Awww, thank's Farscape guys. *loves the bug*
Wow, that underwater clownfish alien is Really Colorful.
God, that shot of Aeryn is just gorgeous.
Everyone's so happy to see each other, it's really cute. Then again, they're also kind of clingy, so maybe they're all having feelings.
Fierce teacher doesn't see a lot of value in anything but her own obsession, does she?
How is LoLah short for LoLan? D'Argo, buddy, you aren't fooling anyone.
Scorpius is protecting information about John as leverage, I guess. If someone were trying to shove a glow stick in my noggin', I'd hold back too.
Grandma is... yup, she's still wierd. I think perhaps you might want to listen to Grandma's voices, John. I don't know why she just crushed the bug I LOVED, GRANDMA, but she's making some Ophelia-like sense, you know.
D'Argo, hon, you might want to control those hormones, bub. Also, Vela, or whatever her name is, is morbid, has something against Luxans and is wont to exposit. She also smushed one of the cute bugs.
"That's right! Hit him again! Like this, see?" Hee! Go Grandma.
Crichton, I feel like you need to use some eyedrops or something if Grandma's going to keep blowing dirt in your eyes. The Very Colorful Clownfish Alien is kind of funny. Good sense of the irony.
The Peacekeepers already have them, and Sikozu is smart enough to realize D'Argo is an ally. Oh, poor Chiana, though.
Has the crazy woman got drugged skin or something? There's some crazy talk going on. And, you know, as if Scorpius wasn't already totally BDSM; he was just never the sub. And Crichton is nelly-whipped, as Chiana says.
Wow, this show will totally go there, won't it? Even to drugged, dubious-consent sex.
Of course, you never know when Grandma is going to blow dust in your face and try to talk you into walking off a cliff. Or jumping, if you're John and you kind of do things extravagantly or not at all.
Part II, Resurrection.
And thank goodness for that. If John's the sacrifice then by all means let's either not kill him or resurrect him at least.
Oh. Good. He's not quite dead. Just hangin' with the Really Colorful Alien Guy. Who's kinda pissed off, looks like. Oops.
"John, EVERYONE KNOWS." Har, D'Argo. D'Argo wants you to take one for the team! (and apparently John's been through a couple of rounds already.) HEY, the D'Argo tongue thing! I just watched him do that in the pilot. D'awww..... Wacky explanation for the wierd oils that What'sherface is using.
You know. I think I really like Sikozu. She's really very cute and she has few scruples.
It's hard to blame crazy oil-skin lady for throwing Crichton down on a table and talking him out of his shirt.
Scorpius is... not dead? And he's talking to Sikozu and passing on command codes?
AW, John's going to kill one of my neat little bugs, isn't he.
And that conversation between the girls moved really, really fast.
Oh, way to block your sense of smell, John. "Does my ass look big in these pants?" John, what kind of negotiating tactic is that? Unless one would want to, say, slash Braca and Crichton, because then that tactic would totally make sense.
Har, John just threw another pulse pistol that was out of oil and it totally boomeranged. Australia ftw! \o/
Aw. Rest well other leviathan. Good night.
Soooooo...... Grandma's going to stay and hang out with the Really Colorful Alien guy. And I guess everyone else is back too.
Ooops, Really Colorful Alien guy wants the probes for some reason. Oh, money. John's doing a lot of really impressing throwing himself around on rocks. And then again there's been a lot of cliff jumping too. And Granny, with the tossing of Winona. That was harsh, Grandma.
Leave it to boys to tussle over a gun, though. Actually Ben has done some really nice floating this episode too. Way to get the gun and the probe John, and way to have really spectacular timing, Chi.
Someone has an icon of Sikozu making that face when the probes are launched.
D'you suppose there's any chance that Scorpius might *not* survive?
I love this show. How much canon sexing was going on in those two episodes? And the subtext was everywhere too. Awesome. I think this might be the first episode I watched that I came out of thinking 'oh, bring on the fanfic.'
Yay show! Yay!
As a result--full day of work! With experiments! And stuff!
A good workout this morning that may have contributed extra to the delay of pain onset since there was such nice deep breathing with exercise. *mental note to work out more if need be*
Ate properly. Well, and I had some pumpkin pie, but somebody really needs to eat that soon. Srsly.
On the other hand, one of my minions (from the lab next door) got shafted by his boss. I've been advising and helping him through his qualifying exam, which he passed with full marks, by the way. The committee met with his advisor to express concern that the minion wouldn't have enough support for his ambitious project, nor enough experience in the lab for him to draw on. The advisor saw this as a sign he should remove support entirely. Poor little woobie was fired and I had to strip off my gloves and lab coat in the hall so I could properly hug him when I found out, and he was so sad. I'm beginning to think he's well clear of it; who wants to work for that guy? I don't even want to work next door to that guy.
I am disturbed, though. It's one kind of asshattery to threaten to fire your people as motivating tactic; it's quite another to actually do it. A mentor, when he takes on a graduate student, takes on the responsibility of teaching them and guiding them. A failure at any point after that is joint failure at best. I've worked with N, he takes criticism like it's air and learns and adapts so fast it's hard to keep up with.
This right here, is a failure to mentor.
So, I'm still advising N, but I'm advising him now to seek a place one of the members of his qualifying exam committee who were so impressed with his oral exam on Monday.
MONDAY. Seriously, I'm really disturbed by this turn of events next door.
I think the only solution is to stare at Ben Browder. My housemate brought me oodles of fannishness from China when she got home last week, so I checked out the Farscape VCDs she brought. There is no English on the box besides FARSCAPE and Ben's name, so I was kind of surprised to find the first season inside! Yay first season! I rewatched the pilot and everyone looks so different.... D'aw...
Course, everyone was also sub- and supertitled in Chinese, which was wacky (and not something I could turn off on my computer) and there was no higher menu than simply playing the episodes. I'm pretty sure these are effectively tapes off of the T.V. or something.
[L also brought me Seasons 1-9 of Stargate (though the internet fairy had already supplied me with most of these. *smootches Taselby*) and the blurbs on the back are HILARIOUSLY BAD.
Listen:
"Narrated a group the international exploration troop which is composedby the scientist and the serviceman, discovers one kind of interspacegate in the Pegasus Milky Way galaxy System, when they passed through this "the gate", discoveredfrom has had to face the might formidable new outside starheterogeneous type** the risk Experience"
All grammer, punctuation and lack thereof maintained! STARHETEROGENEOUS TYPE!!! *ahem* I'm going to properly watch all episodes from Supernatural's first two seasons here soon too.]
Okay, so anyway, I was up to Farscape season 4, eps 2-3, What Was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice and Part II: Resurrection.
Part I: Sacrifice.
This doesn't bode well, this title. I'm just saying.
Okay, so where were we? Right, John was little and alone in the white death pod, then we met Sikozu, and the old Pilot and Leviathan. Scorpy got fired and John got sober. Previously on Farscape! Chiana and Rygel came back and iirc, Chiana had a rough time of it.
Chi doesn't want to be alone. Don't leave her 'lone, 'kay John? Her hair even looks sad lately.
D'ARGO, BABY! JOOL!
Look! Jool's so happy to see Chiana; don't that just beat all?
Ooooh, good looking alien bug crawling up the wall while John's looking all pensive. Let's see the bug again, guys! That was a cool bug! Awww, thank's Farscape guys. *loves the bug*
Wow, that underwater clownfish alien is Really Colorful.
God, that shot of Aeryn is just gorgeous.
Everyone's so happy to see each other, it's really cute. Then again, they're also kind of clingy, so maybe they're all having feelings.
Fierce teacher doesn't see a lot of value in anything but her own obsession, does she?
How is LoLah short for LoLan? D'Argo, buddy, you aren't fooling anyone.
Scorpius is protecting information about John as leverage, I guess. If someone were trying to shove a glow stick in my noggin', I'd hold back too.
Grandma is... yup, she's still wierd. I think perhaps you might want to listen to Grandma's voices, John. I don't know why she just crushed the bug I LOVED, GRANDMA, but she's making some Ophelia-like sense, you know.
D'Argo, hon, you might want to control those hormones, bub. Also, Vela, or whatever her name is, is morbid, has something against Luxans and is wont to exposit. She also smushed one of the cute bugs.
"That's right! Hit him again! Like this, see?" Hee! Go Grandma.
Crichton, I feel like you need to use some eyedrops or something if Grandma's going to keep blowing dirt in your eyes. The Very Colorful Clownfish Alien is kind of funny. Good sense of the irony.
The Peacekeepers already have them, and Sikozu is smart enough to realize D'Argo is an ally. Oh, poor Chiana, though.
Has the crazy woman got drugged skin or something? There's some crazy talk going on. And, you know, as if Scorpius wasn't already totally BDSM; he was just never the sub. And Crichton is nelly-whipped, as Chiana says.
Wow, this show will totally go there, won't it? Even to drugged, dubious-consent sex.
Of course, you never know when Grandma is going to blow dust in your face and try to talk you into walking off a cliff. Or jumping, if you're John and you kind of do things extravagantly or not at all.
Part II, Resurrection.
And thank goodness for that. If John's the sacrifice then by all means let's either not kill him or resurrect him at least.
Oh. Good. He's not quite dead. Just hangin' with the Really Colorful Alien Guy. Who's kinda pissed off, looks like. Oops.
"John, EVERYONE KNOWS." Har, D'Argo. D'Argo wants you to take one for the team! (and apparently John's been through a couple of rounds already.) HEY, the D'Argo tongue thing! I just watched him do that in the pilot. D'awww..... Wacky explanation for the wierd oils that What'sherface is using.
You know. I think I really like Sikozu. She's really very cute and she has few scruples.
It's hard to blame crazy oil-skin lady for throwing Crichton down on a table and talking him out of his shirt.
Scorpius is... not dead? And he's talking to Sikozu and passing on command codes?
AW, John's going to kill one of my neat little bugs, isn't he.
And that conversation between the girls moved really, really fast.
Oh, way to block your sense of smell, John. "Does my ass look big in these pants?" John, what kind of negotiating tactic is that? Unless one would want to, say, slash Braca and Crichton, because then that tactic would totally make sense.
Har, John just threw another pulse pistol that was out of oil and it totally boomeranged. Australia ftw! \o/
Aw. Rest well other leviathan. Good night.
Soooooo...... Grandma's going to stay and hang out with the Really Colorful Alien guy. And I guess everyone else is back too.
Ooops, Really Colorful Alien guy wants the probes for some reason. Oh, money. John's doing a lot of really impressing throwing himself around on rocks. And then again there's been a lot of cliff jumping too. And Granny, with the tossing of Winona. That was harsh, Grandma.
Leave it to boys to tussle over a gun, though. Actually Ben has done some really nice floating this episode too. Way to get the gun and the probe John, and way to have really spectacular timing, Chi.
Someone has an icon of Sikozu making that face when the probes are launched.
D'you suppose there's any chance that Scorpius might *not* survive?
I love this show. How much canon sexing was going on in those two episodes? And the subtext was everywhere too. Awesome. I think this might be the first episode I watched that I came out of thinking 'oh, bring on the fanfic.'
Yay show! Yay!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 06:35 am (UTC)So, yeah, John actually got raped, making literal and physical what up until now had been "merely" metaphorical.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 07:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 11:41 am (UTC)And oh yes indeed for those two episodes of Farscape. The imagery alone, the way they frame the scenes...just utterly gorgeous. And so many rich layers of interaction and characer.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 12:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 01:26 pm (UTC)STARHETEROGENEOUS TYPE! is the Best Thing Ever. That should be a fic genre somehow. I'm just....not sure how.
Also, that mentor prof research guy should be smacked. Hard. With many, many fish. You have a grad student who's dedicated, who passed his oral really well, who cares about his research enough to choose an ambitious project and...you fire him because the project is too ambitious? There is so much bullshit there.
I really hope some other professor snaps him up and realizes how lucky he is to get him. Gah! Stupid academia!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 02:34 pm (UTC)The WIP Of Doom is totally starheterogenous type. Really. I mean, you can't get much more heterogenous than my Esteemed Protagonists.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 02:48 pm (UTC)But yay, you're watching S4 now! I tend to write more fic in this season because... well, you'll see.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 04:16 pm (UTC)Is this just vapor!fic? ::peers suspiciously at you::
(kidding!)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 04:20 pm (UTC)Well, okay, obviously I am making it up, but Not Like That.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 08:01 pm (UTC)Otherwise you'd have a situation that starts hopeful, then gets sorta bad... then definitely bad. Before you know it, things are really bad, and then shockingly bad, then, oh-dear-God-how-are-they-getting-up-in-the morning-this-is-bad bad. I'm not sure Stargate's big shiny reset button is the best answer, but it's one answer.
Over ten years you have to cut your characters a little slack, I suppose. Anyone else would go mental one month in. Or maybe one year in, in the case of Crichton. So, obviously, another answer is letting things get that bad, letting your characters register it, and then letting them fall apart exquisitely beautifully.
I wouldn't recommend it unless you have Browder in the lead, though.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 08:03 pm (UTC)Stargate characters present as normal, but clearly are absolutely batshit insane.
Farscape characters are crazy, and they'll be happy to show you all about it.
*g*
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 08:54 pm (UTC)Don't you think I'm not watching that word count reach almost-the-point-where-it-gets-sent-to-me-via-email-whee!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 08:58 pm (UTC)There was a powerful sense of 'MUST WATCH FARSCAPE' yesterday. Now I must wait for Netflix to send me more discs, woe.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 01:44 am (UTC)*sigh*
I'm really hoping if this grad school attempt #2 works I can manage to land one of the good ones.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 12:37 am (UTC)Exactly! I figure I can get my hit of that from fic.