"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
This had been floating on the Netflix recommendations and looked oddly familiar, even though it's been 20 years since I read anything remotely connected to Chinese mythology.
The animation isn't bad, the story is very heartwarming, the humor and the action are very refreshing. But this thing bothered the hell out of me throughout the week-end so I did some digging - instead of digging for a PhD topic- and FINALLY found something pretty old and deeply buried in my head, on purpose I think.
That was a time where I was still fooled by the animation style, and the assumptions over the medium's thematic. And I remember this now as the first traumatic experience watching animation. The story was heartbreaking and the way it was tackled and the sort of events it depicted were nothing I had ever read or watched before. This adaptation is different from the latest one, and the others that are available. There are different takes on the story but the character and the mythology stay the same.
I could never borrow that VHS again, and tried to forget it. It's not so bad right now though. In fact, Chinese animation stands on its own and is its own league, much like its pioneering directors and humor. There is no translating such stories to Western audiences, not as far as I see and in the shape and substance they are.
Even though the Netflix adaptation is much more mellow, it's still pretty heavy and is only here due to its established status in Asia. Still, I am happy that Netflix would bring such narratives to other countries.
And perhaps through this mellowed medium, people would be interested enough in approaching other works.
I really should focus on the dissertation scouring >.<
On Racism in America,
This needs to be assimilated, every goddamn line.
Bruh.
I am sorting through them to give some and store some and donate most.
But bruh.
To throw all this away lest someone takes them off.
Wow wow wow, people be tripping.
This is a fucking fortune to a Moroccan, any Moroccan really.
Meanwhile here, no one wants children's books in great condition
Bru. Amurica
That was an unpredictable one, fresh air with a twist
Lovebirds
Simple movie with little chuckles. It's all about that Kumail/Issa chemistry!
The killing of a sacred deer
Was about time to catch with this one, given my appreciation of the director
Maquia
Same thing: I like Okada's stuff and this was a great change of narrative, got me thinking on different levels
Insecure Season 4
FINALLY! I was eagerly waiting for this one and I haven't been disappointed so far. The growth and the female friendships are finally getting to that realistic standpoint and it is unraveling nicely. I really hope it will keep up the great writing, the amazing venues and wardrobe. Issa is just an inspiration and is slowly becoming a favorite of mine
I was NOT expecting the great moments I got to share with these people. Now that I think aobut it, this semester had been the one filled with the most fun so far, the many nice encounters and the people who just ask you gullibly to tag along to the bar the club and the Twin Peaks.
5/14/20
“Believe me, it’s better to produce the balance-sheet of your own
life than that of the grain market.”
—SENECA, ON THE BREVITY OF LIFE, 18.3b
On that note,I am finally done with the balance sheet of my coursework requirements for the PhD.
I am done with the exams, just had my last one today.
Done with homework and assignments and projects and class time and dealing with the peculiarities of every professor and class.
Now, now that I am free, I can focus on the main reason why I went for a PhD in the first place: After four years, I am allowed to do the part that got me all riled up for this shit in the first place.
I can't be grateful enough that this chapter is concluded.
I'm not going to do anything today, just watch Aggretsuko
Last semester of classes, last final exams, last time you embark on shit like that.
One more week, two exams to push through, one infernal final where I don't even know what I am supposed to know from what I am not supposed to know anymore.
Keeping it together for now, just focusing on keeping it together and not feeling uselessly about the fact that:
-I specified ahead of time that I don't know relativistic mechanics to start with, nor have I taken this class (which turned out to be the case for all the fucking physics students in that class but they pushed for it anyway because fuck knows why), and so I don't understand exactly how the quantum version of it comes into play (correction: Can't spare the time to investigate the question).
-I made it clear I was not versed in particle physics and can't for the life of me just embark on beta-decay vs deep inelastic scattering vs weak interactions vs neutronization and just know the difference to the extent of utilizing quantum practices ( I see you time dependent perturbation theory) to assess quantized collisions.
-Unless I was taking some radically different class with someone else, we didn't study scattering theory. Yet I can't find any other pointer as to starting to understand how to perform certain required tasks without any knowledge of scattering theory.
This is the last time I will have to take classes inside a school setting with high stakes.
This is the last time I am taking classes where the foundations aren't sturdy and developed enough to be able to debate with a professor over the so classic statement "You should know this from a previous class" to justify every wrong turn.
This is the last time grades will be the main reason I am pushing insanity to have a complete hold of shit I used to read in sci-fi books before tackling it in class.
Cherry on top is the ways my neighbors are coping with the exams' period:
-Doing laundry at 2h00 am (laundry is right below my bedroom)
-Moving furniture and disposing of heavy items at 3h00 am
-Stealing packages
-Dancing and doing cardio in the garden facing the building (thus facing my living room)
-Blasting David Guetta
Last one was a good one though, and if I wasn't entangled in my head and stress right now, even the cardio in the garden would have been a positive inspiration to move my body in my place.
Not there yet though.
But hey, I forgot how Guetta used to make good music!
What is your connection to black people?
Do you have black friends?
Do you understand how black people live?
Or is it just the stuff you see on TV?
It's not the job of a black person to fucking educate you on what you can google.
Embracing cultural diversity like a healthy balanced diet. You can't rely on mayonnaise and be healthy
You are not a missionary, you don't need to actively look for a black friend to give you a zoo insight. You need to try and go through the experience. You need to be part of the community, be part of the struggle, not be the tourist of the goddamn experience.
You want everything except the struggle : Cultural Appropriation.
They think they are not racist because:
-They have a black friend.
-They don't attend a kkk meeting.
-They watch Tyler Perry or like Beyonce.
A lot think they are fine and not racist, but then when it comes to a black man telling a white person you are not following the rules, the response is much different from what they would give to another white person. Black people in different professions are spoken to by whites like they are less of a person, and these white people firmly believe they are not racist when they are constantly acting on built up cultural and social biases towards black folks.
Shout out to white folks who suddenly have access to some minority within a controlled environment, where they are in charge and in control, and think of them as amusing and some exotic animal in a zoo.
White supremacy is a spectrum. There are biases and features that you should actively fight.
This is not an overraction. The anger is not misplaced. The pain is not misplaced. People seem more worried about a fucking window than a broken neck. Surprised that this country didn't burn any sooner.
Whomever is willing to listen to me is not part of the problem. I am preaching to the choir. It boils down to the white people posting, the ones that are linked to racist ass aunties and grandmas and friends. That's where they should start, the white people that are problematic in other white people's lives. Speak up, black folks can't do it, they will be fired or arrested. But if you are the white person sitting next to them, you pipe up you speak up. They will listen to you.
Educate yourself on the laws and the system that was set to keep black folks under the foot, educate yourself, educate yourself, EDU-CATE YOUR-SELF
Posting it Again because fuck
5/2/20
Around 15:00-17:00 lies a peaceful tomb for my mind. There, the are the fleeting talbo moments that summarize the amount of affection I have for this creator.
Fasting abroad brings its own strangeness to the table. I got used to it since India, but with corona and the knowledge that everyone is keeping off the streets and the mosques and the exceptional Ramadanic night life, I can't help but reminisce on some moments of my last Ramadan in Morocco.
An hour or so before the sunset, everything starts coming to an emptiness and stillness, so much that fifteen minutes before the sunset and the call to prayer, the landscapes are deserted metropolis from some eerie sci-fi.
In my days in Casablanca, I would go by the corniche in Ain Diab around those times, back when people didn't think of taking the iftar by the sea and still thought it ridiculous to pay 120 MAD to break the fast in a low quality buffet just to avoid cooking, to be at the coffee shop as early as possible or to get the sunset by the sea experience along with the iftar.
So the corniche would be empty, and the place would be eerie. On both sides, closed and quiet nightclubs and restaurants, coffee shops with settled and exhausted people just waiting to eat and/or smoke. Then as I would go beyond the known area, I would arrive to the empty side of the corniche that extends to the small island of Sidi Abderahmane, the land of magic and voodoo and cards reading and few sex workers.
And that was the place that drove the eeriness to the penultimate level. The uneasiness and crippling melancholy mixed with some sort of resigned fear settled. And I know people from the island could discern a solitary figure hesitating to walk through the connecting bridge and shyly going few first steps, before giving up because of the deep conviction that it was a very stupid if not bad idea.
I don't know why but right now, I feel like everyone cooped up inside for Ramadan and keeping away from the streets is sharing in some sort of eeriness, and maybe it's that brand I used to feel by the empty corniche near that island, and maybe it's the one I would have felt if I had dared to walk to that place.
Damn, just thinking about it gives me chills, eventhough I am pretty far away from that land.
First and last time I get in a colease with a stranger. Last time I am taking a roommate unless it's absolutely necessary, also will do anything to not end up in a situation where I would have to get a roommate in the first place.
She wasn't the worst. The attitude was bad enough, and to actually bother me when I am barely in the house to start with, ouf ouf ouf
But then with Corona happening, her severely compromised immune system, her obvious unwillingness to do something about it and stay in a colease with someone still going outside, I had to put the money and "not my issue" aside and actually move out.
It's funny how her attitude was always "not my problem" but somehow, every one of his problems became mine.
I am so relieved I am getting away from this chick that it doesn't hurt as much to pay rent in two places for two months at this point.
