Puzzles, a Job Offer, and a Hive Mind of Sea Pigs (among other matters)

This past week has picked up considerably from the week before. Most importantly, I've accepted a job offer, so my job search is thankfully over! It's worth noting that it took about 3 weeks of dedicated searching, with an average of about 2-4 applications per day. I accepted the offer on Wednesday, January 23, and the current projected start date is February 10.

The most interesting thing about this job is that I received the lead from a friend of mine at the canasta group that I attend some Fridays at Panera. I'm looking forward to going there again, maybe next week, to let her know that we're going to be colleagues now!

A few things are also exciting in the creative realm: I've finally landed on what kind of YouTube series I'll do (I've long had an interest in vlogging): I'm going to try out doing a jigsaw puzzle time lapse series, where I show my process of categorizing pieces and assembling them. I see other videos like it have done well, and I figure it will be both educational (for people who want to get into jigsaw puzzlery) and soothing to watch the puzzle come together - kind of like those addicting videos on Facebook where it shows a recipe being prepared, sped-up.

In any case, below is the first video I've done so far. I'm going to try to come out with new updates weekly, and I'll probably record the assembly footage for the next puzzle today!

The other fun thing that happened this week was that I went to Maryland to visit Nathan, the same day that I accepted the job. It was a good way to celebrate and I haven't seen Nathan for some time (since before the holidays) so it was great to catch up with him as well. Below is what we got up to:

• We went to Rinconcito Mexicano (one of our favorite restaurants in his area and the only Mexican restaurant in these parts that even remotely compares to Pancho Villa's).
• After we had indulged our gluttony, we returned to his house and played several rounds of his very wholesome video game "Dead at Daylight." I'm so terrible at it that my one gameplay as the killer brought down his ranking :D 
• He showed me an episode of "Hazbin Hotel." It was an interesting idea but I ultimately do not think that it is my jam.
• We slept and I had an interesting dream that I'll share more about momentarily.
• We lazed about in the morning until we both got really hungry and then we went to the General House (where it turns out that you cannot eat real generals, but you can partake in all-you-can-eat sushi).
• We went next door to Great Clips so that Nathan could get his hair cut.
• We watched the new Star Wars movie
• Later that evening, I went ahead and packed up and headed home since he would have to get up early the next morning for work anyway.

Now, regarding the wacky dream I had: I was at some kind of resort or apartment complex and my dad's family was nearby (they came in later in the dream, but I don't remember what all we got up to). Outside, it was nighttime. It had just rained a lot and the sidewalks and concrete stairs were flooded. I saw these weird little pinkish creatures drifting through the water and I felt revulsion. They looked like sea pigs.

This is a sea pig

I tried to avoid brushing against them, treating them with the same aversion as seaweed. I sloshed through water up to my ankles until I made it to the swimming pool, which was, of course, overflowing.

My boyfriend sat in the swimming pool, reclining in the corner with his elbows resting on the curb of the pool. I went over to talk to him (I am unsure now about what) and while we were speaking, a naked woman (there were several of them in the pool) came over and swam all up in his personal space, very suggestively (though I think it would have been hard to do it any other way in her current state).

My boyfriend was (understandably) distracted from our conversation, and I was irritable. I wanted to say, "Hey, lady! Can't you see me trying to have a conversation here?" I also felt jealous in the dream, so I ended up storming away at some point, at which time I reunited with my dad's family for the part of the dream that I no longer remember...

So I woke up and told this dream to Nathan, and the funny part was his response to it:

Nathan: Why didn't I get naked ladies?
Me: Maybe you were somewhere else in the pool and I just didn't talk to you.
Nathan: Maybe I was underwater the whole time and I died.
[After a moment]
Nathan: I was the sea pigs.
All of them.
A hive mind of sea pigs, drinking deep of the images of naked ladies.

Now that moment and a few others during my visit have led me to decide to keep a text/photo journal of amusing moments, both with Nathan and others. I think I'll probably ultimately store that on here, as a blog draft, so I can go look at it and get a giggle occasionally. Nathan shared that his friend Brent does the same thing. He has several Nathan quotations stored on his phone, some of them with context that is no longer remembered by either of them. After we talked about my dream, we actually called Brent so that Brent could share the quotes with me. I told Nathan that Brent is my favorite out of his friends (I like how he appreciates Nathan's humor as much as I do, and he seems like a very supportive, cool friend in general) - but I told him not to tell Brent that so it doesn't go to his head.

Finally, as I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to talk a little more about something I've started to call "film poetry," but that post was getting a little long so I figured I'd touch on it again here! What do I mean when I say film poetry? Well, here's how I tried to explain it in the last post:

Occasionally there will be a moment in a film that just comes across perfectly - sometimes it's the acting, sometimes it's timing, and other times it's a perfect synchronization of what is being shown onscreen and the music. Sometimes it's not even a very significant moment.

 In the last post, I described several such moments (at least from my aesthetic perspective) in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Here, I want to touch on one moment in The Ring, my favorite horror film and a film which happens to be full of film poetry. The reason I want to treat this one moment specifically is because of how insignificant it is in the scheme of the whole plot - yet at the same time, it underscores the pathos that the majority of the film is striving toward.

In this scene, Rachel is watching a recorded therapy session where the child antagonist, Samara, is explaining how she feels that her father doesn't love her. About 17 seconds in, after Samara says this, Rachel makes this sympathy noise, almost a clucking of her tongue. I've always really loved this gesture from Naomi Watts.

To me, it is a perfect expression of the essence of her character. While she is a busy mother, a mother who is not always there, the film underscores her maternal role nonetheless, both in her attempt to protect her son from the curse and in her sympathy toward Samara. Here, the noise she makes feels like a mingled frustration and sadness - she is sad that a child would feel that way, unloved by her father, and frustrated that her parents made her feel that way.

You almost feel her, in this scene, yearning to make it right herself - just as she later tries to tell the corpse of Samara that everything is OK before the latter decomposes before her eyes.