#accounting yay... goodbye education

[nutton-of-tata]

Holy shit I'm turning 22. Where have the years gone

[hermette-historian]

Is the Project Dead? Where Has Wynnie Been? Hello....?

.....they yell into the abyss, and rightfully so, for the Historian waved goodbye and disappeared into the wild blue yonder and has not been seen for quite some time. But lo! she returns and hails you, for she is neither dead nor dying nor, arguably, completely insane...simply missing. And no longer missing. Obviously.

First of all, the project is not dead. We all knew when I started that it was an idea born of pandemic-induced mania, and if it isn't already obvious after nearly a year of destroying my my eyes watching 2013 Hermitcraft nonstop I burned out. Hard. Fizzled, one might say. I will admit with a heavy heart that I haven't watched a single Hermitcraft video since about Christmas. When I eventually resurfaced on Discord about a month ago, I wasn't even sure what season it was. But, my dear friends and fellow time travelers, I miss it so. And now - finally - I believe I may have the motivation to pick up where we left off.... if I can figure out when that is.

So where have I been? Good question and I'm so glad you asked. It's been awhile, would you mind if we had a chat over a cup of tea?

If you're not on my Discord server, you may be wondering what the hell I've been up to. Wynn is a bit of a one-trick pony, right? well....uh, no. Unfortunately. Sometimes I wish I was.

Of course the reality behind the Historian is that she is in fact not a Historian at all, but a scientist. I've been back at university full force as the pandemic winds down, and by the end of next year I expect to have completed my education with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, a Bachelor of Arts in Physics, and some incidental minors in Music Composition and Asian Studies. Of course, that all hinges on completing a handful of summer courses before my senior year....programming is a piece of cake, right? Right? This summer and into the fall that is also coming with sponsored projects in Astronomy (yay data mining -_-) and Neuroscience (for which I'm doing....animation? and theater design? It's a long story I'm not sure how I got here either).

I've also kept my job at the theater! For those of you that remember me mentioning that occasionally. Stage work is the love of my life and I talk about it constantly (considered making an alt account just for quotes and antics from work because I think I'm hilarious but honestly that's what my twitter is for). I'm putting in almost 40 hours a week on average there these days so if you're wondering why I don't have time...heh. It's fun though I recommend it. And I'm not a theater kid.

If anyone was concerned, physically and mentally right now I'm doing fine. Not dead on either front, promise! Just trying to give all of my duckies a stern enough look to keep them in line. I'm beginning to suspect some of them might be blind and/or obstinate.

The project is not dead. The Historian is not dead. Just maybe....slow for awhile. Thank you, my dear friends, for being patient with us.

[calliecat93]

ST: The Next Generation S3 Watchthrough Episodes 14-17

A Matter of Perspective: So we have Riker being accused of murder and Picard and the others having to piece together the events to find the true story. We have a bit of a unique way of accomplishing this as they use the Holodeck to recreate the various accounts… which causes a problem. Not everyone’s accounts line up. They may feel like they’re telling the truth, but may be remembering things wrong, going off second-hand information, misunderstanding wich affects the testimony, and all that fun stuff. Now we know that while Riker can kill if he has to, he likely didn’t commit murder (or do anything like force himself on a woman like the one recreation protrayed), or if he did there would be a reason for it. It sucks to see Riker int his situaiton and Picard wanting to believe his First Officer but having to follow his duty as Captain and with the evidence mounting against Riker… yeah.. So it was fine. Nothing to really complasin about, but nothing to really praise eiher. I guess it shows how messy it can be to get to the truth with so many people believing different things which causes so many muddled up accounts. We never get the true story (though Riker’s is probably the closest to the truth), but we get enough to prove Riker innocent so yay~! Just a solid episode all in all. 3/5.

Yesterday’s Enterprise: YAR! OH MY GOD!!! So in this episode, we end up in an alternate timeline where I guess the Bad Ending of The Undiscovered Country occurred and Starfleet is at war with the Klingons. Only Guinan can tell that something’s out of place. Yar is alive, Troi and Worf are gone, Wesley’s an actual officer, and they have found the believed to be destroyed Enterprise-C. They even bring back the movie-era red uniforms for the Enterprise-C crew. Yar pretty much gets far, far more material to work with than she did in her one season which I guess is how they convinced Denise Crosby to come back for it since I think that’s why she quit in the first place. I still feel very conflicted about her death in Skin of Evil. The senselessness cetianly added to the cruel reality, but left me upset to see her character thrown away like that. Here she will die again no matter what, but this time she decides to let it be on her terms and do something that will at least matter. The whole episode is darker than usual due to the war, allowing them to get away with killing characters and the Enterprise-C’s lose-lose situation is just… it’s just depressing. All while Guinan is trying to convince Picard that this whole reality is wrong, and he’s understandably struggling with being told that what he knows is his reality and life is fake. Guinan watching Yar, knowing that her being alive is wrong, also added ott he unease and lets Yar piece together that she didn’t survive in the true timeline. Seriosuly, Whoppi Goldberg is always awesome, but she was amazing in this episode. The only real downside is because this is an alternate timeline that essentially gets wiped out of existence, the impact is minimal and while Yar got a much better sendoff … it doens’t change that the real Yar is dead and her death was empty (though Guinan asking Geordi about Yar to know more about her was an excellent end note). It holds me back from giving this a perfect score, but this was still an excellent episode and at least shows that even in death, even in another reality, Yar was very much a part of the Enterprise and that she mattered. Clearly the writers realized that they made a mistake and did what they could to make some form of ammends, and I can respect that. 4.5/5.

The Offspring: Data’s a daddy! I thought this sounded kind of silly when I read the description… but Dear Lord this broke my heart. I just wanted to hug Lal through this entire episode. She was just created and experiencing life and already has her own feelings and thoughts, like not liking the other children treating her as different. Data is trying his best and overall I think that he was as good of a parent as he could be. He genuinely wanted to raise Lal, he educated her and even enrolled her in school, went to Crusher for parenting advice, and I think that he truly loved her as any good parent would for their child. It makes the ending just utterly heartbreaking and how the admiral who comes to check things out being just feels so God awful. Hell the fact that they consider taking what is essentially a young child away from her parent without taking her feelings into account just because she’s an android already exceeding Data’s funcitons essentially because of prejudice and claiming to know better than the parent/father who is clealry not abusive or anything like that… yeah, the allegory hits hard. Data having to say goodbye to Lal as she died… yeah that hit me hard. I cried. That was just… God I don’t even know how to describe it, but it hurt. The episode has it’s issues. Like while I do like that Lal was allowed to choose her own gender, it’s a painful reminder that no one could even consider non-binary an option. I also felt like Picard was off in the first half since while he does ultimately defend Data against the admiral and I understand his concerns about Data not telling anyone and how Starfleet will react, him acting like Data even able to fathom wanting a child or if Lal even counts as a child just feels… horribly dickish. At least Troi was on Data’s side, and liek I said Picard did ultimateley defend Data and his and Lal’s rights so that’s good. And while I get that Data views himself as unable to feel… he clearly did love Lal and I need to keep reminding myself that we didn’t have the understanding of neurodivergence or the like back then, but I legit cannot tell what the show is triyng to say concerning Data’s ability to feel. Can he? Or can he not? They only allow one or the other. Still, the episode was sweet in a lot of ways and just brutal/sad in others and just a painful reminder of the prejudice against Data/androids that The Measure of a Man illustrated. Hopefully, happier things for Data are on the horizon. 4/5.

Sins of the Father: So after that heartbreaker, lets do more father-related stuff but time with the Klingons! This time we have a Klingon, Kurn, working on the Enterprise as an acting FIrst Officer and not only does it turn out that he’s Worf’s unknown brother… but that Worf’s father was accused of treason and thus he and his family are facing dishonor, hence why Kurn is there. Until that revelation it looked like we were getting the reverse of A Matter of Honor, but when that twist comes in? Ho boy… As the oldest son, Worf has to face the challenge that will either clear his family or end in his execution and of course Worf feels bound to do so. This certainly was something. We get to see the Klingon homeworld, we plunge straight into Klingon politics, and damn is it intense from the moment we warp to the planet to the very end. While we sort out that Worf's father wasn’t a traitor… unfortunately the one whose family was is in a high position of power who tries everything possible to keep the truth from coming out. It’s a whole conspiracy and Worf is forced to accept the dishonor just to prevent the planet from plunging into Civil War. It’s clear that no one, not even the other Klingons like this and knows that it’s wrong… but they turn their backs on him anyways. Worf even forces Kurn to do so so that he won’t have to suffer the same fate when the truth about his identity becomes known. It reflects on Worf’s character, his honor and devotion to his family despite them being either dead or only just finding out that he had a brother at all. Not to mention to the Klingon Empire since he’s also allowing it to save them from war. But it’s also just so cruel that he and his family got scapegoated all because of one asshole to cover his own family’s dishonor, especially since we’d watched Worf trying so hard to uphold the Klingon ideals and beliefs despite having grown up among humans. Now he’s been shamed by his people and viewed as a non-entity, which may be even worst than mere dishonor. IDK if this plot will continue in TNG or when he joins DS9, but I hope it does because Worf didn’t at all deserve this. It makes me respect his character so much more though and Picard was freakin’ badass as well. At least in the meantime, he has the Enterprise crew standing by him. 4/5.

[qlistening]

Marriage: What is it Good For?

Alright I’m going to be 22 in a week and I think I’ve done enough drugs at this point that I’m really starting to get myself, so I am going to go ahead and tackle my feelings on marriage. And instead of journaling, as many mental health professionals have suggested I do, I will continue to post my shit on the internet because you guys are always so nice about it. I think the best way to approach this issue is a Q&A session with myself.

Q1: What are the perks of getting married?

As a woman, I would say perk number one has to be that people don’t ask you dogshit questions about your personal life if you do choose to get married. Questions like “Do you think you never got married because you have trust issues?” or “Wow I don’t know how you stand to be alone all the time like that”. Would you ask a divorced woman “Do you think this whole situation could have been avoided if you weren't so quick to trust him?” or ask a woman in an unhappy marriage “No you think you’d be better off if you just got over your fear of being alone?”. No! Because these questions are obviously disrespectful. Yet I witness middle aged single women like Chelsea Handler have to put up with this shit on the reg. Hopefully society will connect those dots before I reach that age

Another textbook perk to marriage is financial interdependence. “My money + your money = lots of money! YAY!” No bro. My parents have been unhappily married for the last 20ish years strictly due to a poorly thought out financial interdependence set up. And they are certainly not alone on that one. After overthinking their situation for 22 years, I have determined financial interdependence is only advantageous for a woman if she truly feels she has nothing to contribute on her own to society and would rather funnel all of her western educated energy into keeping her man happy so that her name stays on the joint bank account. If you don’t feel that way, then you should probably plan on financially supporting yourself, or else you’re going straight to resentment town. But don’t get too empowered over there. Financially supporting your husband isn’t a super lit move either. Imagine coming home to your husband overcooking the salmon that he bought from Whole Foods after you know he got to spend the whole day playing with the kids you almost died in the process of birthing. Express train to resentment town for sure. 

Sex? This is kind of like the financial thing. You’re committing to give up sex with everybody else for your husband, who is probably not above the 75th percentile of pipe that is available to you. You’re also committing to not have sex at all if their shit malfunctions or the vibes go south between the two of you. Very dark but very real. My guess is only 25% of 50ish year old married couples are still fucin. You sure are optimistic if you’ve convinced yourself you will be in that demographic.

Having someone who completes you? I’ve always been conflicted about this one because it is kind of logically sound to have someone around that can do the things you can’t, but there is also loss of independence that comes with admitting you can’t do something. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m feeling pretty complete at this point in my life. I know I’m about to have a fun career, be rich, and be a better homemaker for myself than any man could. I also have confidence in my adult self to stay hot and cool enough to have friends and get laid. What’s missing? Someone who can fix cars and stuff around the house. Husbands can be a nifty source of free labor for this, but so can contractors and mechanics if porn logic applies and you offer “another form of payment”. 

Wedding. Ain’t got shit to say about this one. Weddings are dope.

Q2: What are the drawbacks of marriage?

Sharing a room with someone else. We all quit that shit after sophomore year for a reason. It is not possible to fully be yourself in a living situation where even in your SLEEP your actions impact someone else. Beyond having to be considerate, you also have to provide an explanation for everything you do. Like if you want to wake up at 4AM, deep clean your bong, and binge watch a garbage show on hulu, suddenly you have to explain this to someone else. Not a great look. Also you can probably kiss your vibrator goodbye, because unless you are railing your husband nonstop, you’ll probably have a weird guilt complex about getting yourself off while he’s around.

Having a husband is tough from a PR standpoint. What if he’s ugly? You love him for a lot of super valid reasons, but unless someone knows you pretty well, they’re going to see y’all together and think “that’s the best she could do”. Maybe I’m shallow but that feeling would almost definitely eat away at me until I had to chat on him to prove to myself that it wasn’t true. Flip side, my husband is the hot one. He’s got motive to do the same.

Monotony is kind of inherent to the arrangement. Same house, same dude just about every day. Be real about this one. Imagine coming home to that continuously for about 3X the total amount of time you have been alive so far. That’s what you’re patting the cute old couple who have been married 60 years on the back for doing. Big ups to them for sure, but is that really what you want for yourself?

Q3: Ava would you still get married after making all of these valid points?

Yes but only with the following unrealistic stipulations:

Husband is perfectly equal in hotness to me and gives me best sex I’ve ever had.

Our money can never touch. No joint anything. No resentment. Clean divorce.

He’s chill with us not sleeping together all the time.

He’s chill with getting divorced if the vibes go south.

He doesn’t wan’t kids

He has some tangible and intangible qualities that make me better off with him than without him.

I’m sure not many men are coming to mind that check all of these boxes, but that’s okay because according to Q1:A4, I’m already a decently complete person. I also don’t have a biological clock to answer to and I will have more time to travel the world and hang out with my lovely friends if mister right never comes along. 

Finished reading and want to tackle your own qualms with marriage? Make sure to follow in my footsteps and smoke some CBD for a warm and fuzzy conclusion. 

[withabackpackandcamera]

November 9th, 2018

Day 7: A Slow and Lazy Last Day in Yangon

Whoa, what a sleep last night! I was in such a deep sleep that I had a ridiculously vivid dream that I can no longer remember. Hopefully there was no sleep talking involved... else the quiet dorm room would’ve been quite disturbed.

This morning, I had to wake up early to finish packing, eat breakfast, and take my taxi to Heho Airport for my flight back to Yangon. I had a chance to say goodbye to Christian, Sebastian, and Marion before thanking my great hostel hosts Amy, Erica, and Fiona, all of whom did an awesome job of taking care of us and our needs and always remembering our names! What great people!

An hour after I left the hostel, I was at the airport, and a little more than an hour after that, I was back in Yangon. The first stop of the day after a quick break at the house was some lunch at Rangoon Tea House. Because I wanted to use today as a day to try certain well-known dishes in Myanmar knowing it was my last day to do so, I asked my two new friends Kyi and Sandar where I should go for mohinga, the national dish of Myanmar; they recommended Rangoon Tea House, a more upscale restaurant for food, known to be a little pricier and more conducive to foreigners, but still authentic. Originally, when I had made this plan to try mohinga, I heard from Jack in Nyaungshwe that Lucky Seven Teahouse had great mohinga but decided that going with the local recommendation would probably be more authentic. So I went to Rangoon Teahouse, which was actually super crowded, mostly with tourists. I ordered the Four Fish Mohinga, Pote Man Si Lone La Phey Yay (traditional Burmese tea with different proportions of evaporated and condensed milk), and No-Bake Chai Tea Cheesecake, which was black chai infused cheesecake with a sour cream topping. The food was so delicious! The mohinga was so yummy and so full of flavor and fragrance. A great meal to start my last day! And the tea was super good as well, a bit like Thai tea. After just the main meal, I was so uncomfortably full haha. Dessert was not such a great idea… but it was good nevertheless!

After stuffing myself, my next mission was gift/souvenir shopping. For this, I went to Bogyoke Market. My goal was to buy something that I could use to decorate the apartment back home (especially since I wasn’t able to buy something in Morocco last time); in this case, I was looking for a nice painting that Cynthia and I could add to our wall space. After searching the market at lightning speed, I finally found a couple of stalls selling the paintings I was hoping to buy. At first, I took a look at my different options and gauged pricing. I also looked through some samples to determine what style of painting I liked the best. And finally, after probably an hour of looking, I finally found a stall with enough options of a particular artist’s work to pick from (the artist was Ko Khine Thin Tar). After looking through all of the stall’s options, I finally settled on two 11x15 paintings for 27000 kyat after bargaining down from his asking price of 31000 kyat. Sadly, I couldn’t get it any lower, but that’s ok since it was still really cheap.

With my mission complete, I started my walk home, with a quick detour to the air-conditioned modern shopping center that was located right across the street from the market. And it was like any other big, major shopping center and provided a stark contrast to the market I had just come from. I strolled through briefly, took a look around, and left for home as the sun was starting to go down. It wasn’t a far walk until I reached home and once I was comfortable, I just chilled and took a quick nap until it was time to be picked up by Sandar for dinner with her and Kyi. By the time I was picked up, I was so tired that I wasn’t even hungry.

After sitting with Sandar in the car and driving through traffic to a part of town I hadn’t been to yet, we eventually made it to a restaurant called Jing Hpaw Myay, where we ate traditional Kachin food that originated from a region in northern Myanmar. Sandar ordered everything (it’s much easier to let the locals order for you) so I only have an idea of what we got (chicken, beef tongue, pork soup, stringy beef thing, another vegetarian dish, banana sprouts, quince juice) but overall, it was different compared to other foods I had had in Burma. I would describe the food, in general, as a bit more sour-y in taste. Not really my preference but it was a unique experience nevertheless. And it was nice to get a chance to see and eat with these two again and tell them a little bit about my week’s worth of travel stories in Bagan and Inle Lake.

With our plates cleaned and stomachs full, we parted ways with plans to meet up in the morning for breakfast before my flight to Taiwan. Again, Kyi was nice enough to drop me off back at the house. After cleaning up and packing up, I took the opportunity of a free evening to catch up with Cynthia, my family, and the world. Before long, it was late and I was pooped and ready for sleep. What a tiring and slightly uneventful travel day hahaha. But sometimes you need lazy days like this.

5 Things I Learned Today:

1. Mohinga is so delicious!!! It’s like a southeastern version of soup curry in Japan! Because of the fishy taste that is more characteristic of southeast Asian food. So very flavorful, so delicious! And in this case, it was a four-fish-based soup with vermicelli noodles. The soup base is from 4 fishies (at least at this restaurant, they were butterfish, sturgeon, catfish, and daggertooth), with lemongrass, coriander, fish sauce, and fresh chickpeas. My soup additionally had a clay pot duck egg, pea fritters, fish cake, gourd, and onion fritter. So freaking good!!! Highly recommended!

2. Si Lone tea, which is sweet black tea with evaporated and condensed milk, tastes like a mix between milk tea and Thai tea. Delicious!

3. Supposedly, when Kyi was in the later stages of his education, right before he entered university, there were university students strikes against the military-run government in 1996.

Essentially, the strike was to try and get the military government to step down. Unfortunately, it didn’t work and as a result of the strike, universities were closed for at least two years. As a result, many Burmese kids at that time who were seeking to pursue further education were unable to do so and had to leave the country to seek those missing opportunities. After a period of time, the universities were opened again. But because so many people weren’t able to go to university during those closed years, a ton of people applied leading to a huge logjam of students who needed education. To account for the huge influx of students, the schools just fast-tracked a ton of people through school, for good or for bad. Luckily, during this time, the medical school was able to remain open and operational.

4. The Rohinga Crisis from the perspective of a Burmese local: The conflict between the Burmese Buddhists in northwestern Myanmar and the Rohinga has been ongoing for decades, since the 1960s. Supposedly, the locals feel that the conflict has been blown a bit out of proportion to what is really going on, though it is true that there has been a recent escalation in violence. The local who I spoke with said that the Rohinga in northwestern Myanmar have not been good citizens of Myanmar and have not positively contributed to the Burmese community. Per the local, they were being extremely aggressive with their spread of Islam. For example, supposedly, they were selling off local lands to those with Islamic ties as a way to increase Islamic influence in the area and to push the local Buddhists out of the area. Because of those aggressive actions and behaviors, the local Buddhists, with backing from the government, lost their patience and decided to retaliate. As a result, the crisis was born. And unfortunately, it sounds like both sides are contributing to the violence and deaths of many innocent people.

5. The restricted areas all throughout Myanmar are mostly related to violence (the Rohinga crisis) or due to the drug-smuggling scene (opium, etc).