I am seriously missing my Wacom Tablet. I dropped the stylus about a week ago or so and it stopped working. Since then I've been back using a mouse or just the trackpad (mostly a mouse) and now my hand is buzzing along my pinky and side of my palm, and I'm getting that fatigue along the top of my hand again along with the tightness up my arm. That's seriously so fast I'm amazed. Granted, I'm on the computer almost every waking moment right now, but that's not so unusual. I cannot believe how much my hand is affected and also how distracting it is.

I know I've talked a lot of people into getting these pads and now I have another story to add to the list. I should start working for them.

Buried in Books

my bookshelf
Originally uploaded by cianna.

...uh... can you believe this is my reading right now? And it's only really the latest round of books and none of the journal articles. I feel like I've been getting a large part of some advanced degree... the part after all the foundational lessons that help you to understand what's coming next. And the part that doesn't actually let me get a piece of paper and a related research job.

I'm having conversations with major honchos at CDC, NIH, Pasteur, etc. that I can't believe myself.

Right now as the researcher, I'm in charge of ensuring that the science that we have in the show (which is at the molecular level of 7 different diseases!) is correct. And then as the archival researcher, I find footage for each show. Then, to wrap it all up, I'm annotating our scripts to show where I/we got all the information from.

I'm tired.

Did anyone else hear this story on NPR: Electronic Anklets Track Asylum Seekers in U.S.?? I cannot believe this is happening! I'm getting flashes of the Third Reich, 1984, and the Handmaid's Tale all at once in my head and that is no fun. Electronic anklets are the mark of seriously dangerous criminals. So now we're criminalizing immigrants who legally apply to remain in the states? Yeah. That's a good idea.

I'm getting sick just thinking about this.

I can't believe that I'm living in the land of freedom. The land of truth and justice. The earth is going to open up and swallow the Statue of Liberty. And we'd deserve it.

Snow? Am I in LA?

Snow? Am I in LA?
Originally uploaded by cianna.

I'm thinking that I might have to revise some of my ideas about LA. I mean, people here told me I could be on the slopes in an hour and half, but I didn't really expect to be able to see snow from downtown LA. I confess I don't really expect to see nature at all from down there, but there it was looming in front of me as I drove in the wee hours of the morning to Victorville, a forgotten place of chain restaurants, malls, and a decommissioned air force base where we filmed last week.