Joss Whedon

I got reminded of firefly today, the wonderful TV show I love and that got canceled after one season by the evil empire of Murdoch, that gray wily orange animal with foxlike tendencies.
Did you know Firefly is rated at 15 in the top 25 best scifi TV shows and movies, in the whole wide world? makes me want to go back and watch those last 4 episodes which I have left off watching because I don't want the season to end.

Also seems that Joss Whedon's next project is a scifi thriller called Goners which I hope won't have a lot of horror. Ok maybe it doesn't mean much based on the other movies on the list. However it is interesting that Heroes has had so much support. I saw the first episode and somehow never watched any other other ones. Maybe that was a mistake. But it seems that all the episodes are available free on the internet. You know having access to the old episodes is actually a really smart idea - people can catch up to the season any time they want.
Darn... Whedon should be making a new TV show - I would watch it, wouldn't you?

Medical Disasters

what a potential disaster with my health insurance coverage .... AGAIN!!

So last time i had been told that health insurance open enrollment was between 1-20th May - so I had been on the watch out for the emails in this regard for the past week. But no such email - finally today i dropped by the office and asked about it and was told enrollement ended on friday!! seems that was 12th not the 20th. And enrollment is I believe only once a year? anyway I was about to have a heart attack - it was bad enough as it was when my insurance got canceled last March due to a missed payment - My funding source was changing and they missed one payment. Anyway we managed to fix it by backdating it and then sending it saying it had actually been sent last friday. I found out that I was actually not on the mailing list which yes, can cause the problem. But what a brush with disaster... I am so happy I am once again covered. Well starting July 1st anyway.

I seriously don't understand this open enrollment period of insurance companies in the US - why is it that people can only enroll in insurance at only certain times?? I was once told because of the added costs associated with having an enrollment period all year long - but surely it is not just me that has been a victim of this limited time opportunity?!! In Australia, we had all year long enrollment I believe. It is so much more user-friendly.

I was talking to a health insurance economist on the weekend when I was in the airport (that was one weird conversation!!) and I thought of a fundamental question: the concept of health insurance for all is to a large extent an extension of socialist ideals - so can a strictly capitalistic country have a good health insurance?

Tandia

A novel that I love is The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. I can't remember if I wrote about it before, but it is a lovely novel about a young white English boy Peekay growing up in South Africa. Courtenay himself was born in South Africa and then immigrated to Australia. The Power of One was his first novel and it won lots of awards - I think they adapted it to film as well.
The sequel to The Power of One is called Tandia which was impossible to find in US. I had already read it a long time ago and I really wanted to reread it. Anyway I finally managed to get it on eBay from this Australian bookshop. The book is finally in my hands and i am reading it slowly to enjoy it. [Side Note: I do that sometimes, do something slowly to elongate the pleasure. The funniest one is my Firefly first season which I still haven't seen the last 3 episodes because I don't want them to finish!! Of course it's been so long since I last watched them that I have forgotten what was happening!!! :-P ]
Ok back to Tandia. While I was trying to find the book I read more about the life of Courtenay and the critiques of Tandia - I found out that Tandia was not as well received as The Power of One, even though there was a lot of expectations. It seems that almost immediate after The Power of One was published, Courtenay's family found out that his son was diagnosed with AIDS due to a blood transfusion and he died within a year or so. Meanwhile the publishers were pushing Courtenay to meet his deadline for Tandia and so... well that might be a definite reason why Tandia is not up to the same caliber as the earlier novel. So now while I read Tandia I keep thinking about the hell that Courtenay must have been going thru as he was writing Tandia. How can you be creative when something like this is going on? I don't know.
As a final aside, Courtenay has a bunch of other books which I have bought maybe 5 of. One of them is called April Fool's Day and is about the son who contracted AIDS and the days leading up to his death. The son died on April Fool's Day. what a day.
That is not a good day for anyone.

Yann Martel

On my last visit to the library, I saw Life of Pi by Yann Martel on the bookshelves. I picked it up and sat down and reread the last 40 pages of the story - it is such a wonderful book and all the emotions that I went through went I first read it came upon me again. It was so sad and so hopeful and so.. I am not sure. Last time I had decided i would believe the story of the animals but this time, I don't why but I believed the story of the humans. Does that say something about my frame of mind?

I went in search of other books by Martel and I found a collection of 4 short stories entitled The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, which is actually the name of the first novella. I read that story on the plane on Friday and it is another extremely well written, emotional and insightful story. There were a couple of passages which really hit home for me, some expressions which were beautiful to read.

The story is told by a young man in college, whose friend is diagnosed with AIDS. The story describes the last few months of the friend's life that the story teller shares.
Here are some passages from the book which I loved:

"He puffs out his story weakly. I feel each breath against my cheek. I have so much energy compared to him, so much good health. It feels arrogant. To atone, I do the equivalent of what people are very tall do: I go about with stooped health."

Another passage describes the act of walking a dog as "giving purpose to aimlessness".

Finally, the last is a long passage which I will write later. It is long and I feel offers so much insight and reflects my feelings. It is interesting that Yann Martel has only three books out. I would really like to read more of his stuff. If you read his bio as well, he seems like a very interesting and well traveled man - he has even been to Iran!! Anyway I really recommend everyone to read his books :-)

What I am Listening to Now

Btw I thought maybe I should quickly write what I have been listening to in the past couple of weeks.
First off, Pink Martini have their new album called Hey Eugene! You can listen to the actual song Hey Eugene! here. Pretty funny. Not as good an effort as their previous work, but still pretty fun. There is one song called Dosvedanya Mio Bombino which gets me going - pretty cool. I love Russian names! Hmm I loved the concert of this group, they were so cool!! Here is another song - damn she is HOT!! :-P

Ok the next album is Bjork's new one called Volta. It is similar to her other ones, very weird and interesting. Not sure if it is easy listening, but is is definitely her voice and her rhythm and then there is the one song about suicide bombers!
Finally I am listening to the new Michael Buble album, Call Me Irresistible. This was after Chris mentioned him in relation to the song Sway. Btw I finally found the Dean Martin version of Sway which is pretty damn good. I can upload that if you want. Love It! :-)
alright that's about it. I can't wait till I listen to the new Aussie compilation that Chris is making for me :-) Oh and I am also listening to the new Shajarian cd, called Saaze Khamoosh, meaning Silent Instrument. Now that I think about what I have listed above, it is so diverse!! No wonder i never finish anything, I am all over the place!!!

Girls Girls Girls!!

I was talking to two good friends today at lunch, lets call them B and S. They are both smart and very nice girls and very good friends. We started talking about the difference between girls and guys, specifically with respect to their PhD studies. B was saying how after talking to a lot of people, it seems that it is generally girls that never feel they are ready to graduate or propose (PhD proposals), that they know enough. They feel that they are imposters, somehow having tricked everyone and there is always the fear that they will be revealed. Why is it we feel that way? B mentioned maybe it is to do with the fact that we talk and analyze things too much. I wonder if that is why. Does this insecurity have any good affects? Maybe it does and maybe it does too much damage.

It is funny, a lot of what she described are exactly my feelings. My confidence level with regards to my studies is very low. Maybe that is because I haven't had the best graduate studies experience (actually it is definitely related) but I also think that the lack of confidence is a girl thing. It is especially worst, when you think about the fact that I am in a male dominated field and it is generally these males that have over sized egos and inflated confidences.

I do other dumb girl things: the other night I said something at the dance class, where I was joking. Later on I kept thinking about it and thinking what if no one realized that i was joking? Oh they must think i am such a bad person. You wouldn't believe, this went on for literally half the night. I couldn't stop myself from thinking of this and I was so worried and by 3am and I was still awake, I knew I had to stop. Is it just me or do other people worry about dumb things as well. You analyze everything you say and then reanalyze.

Today

I feel like it has been a long time since I wrote anything meaningful in my blog. And there has been a lot of different things going on. Well, maybe not a lot, but enough.

First of all, I am pretty disappointed that I will have to miss two of my high school friends wedding - they're getting married to each other and we have been waiting such a long time for these two to finally decide the timing is right. I don't know, for me the timing was right a long time ago!! Wouldn't you say so Chris? :-) My friends J and D are so well suited to each other it is crazy - one of those couples that you see and think ok this is the way it should be. Unfortunately (fortunately??!) i have to go to a conference in England at that time and well the distance from Aus to England is too much for the one day between the wedding and the conference start date. Isn't that funny? well not funny ha ha, but crazy that the distance is still too far. And then salt on my wounds, I find out that a bunch of our other friends from Smithy will be there as well, and I would have loved to catch up with them... As time passes, the more I want to hang on to the threads of my past. The more I value them.

Have to run - the other things will be said later alligator!