wanderingstelle

[wanderingstelle]

i saw an ad for the new robin hood series on mgm+ today and wondered who the older woman was on the show. she is playing eleanor of aquitaine.

i kind of recognized her but then wasn't sure. it is connie nielsen, who i recognized from law and order svu (6 episodes). she was also in the good wife (4 episodes).

two interesting things from wikipedia - 1) she was raised mormon in denmark. i didn't know there were mormons in denmark. 2) she speaks a ton of languages: Danish, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish. very impressive!

[wanderingstelle]

baseball learning update

i have been following more sports related topics in the past couple years. i find that the themes of resilience are very useful and inspiring for me even though i myself am not particularly athletic.

i am part japanese and many of the athletes i enjoy following also have asian heritage. i became a dodgers fan last year. here are some things that i learned about baseball today. third base is called the "hot corner" because it requires quick reflexes and exceptional agility (go max muncy!)

"hot stove" season = off season ("The term comes from the old image of baseball fans sitting around a hot stove in winter, talking about baseball news and speculating about trades or player moves while waiting for spring training to begin.")

the "posting system" is how japanese players sign with mlb teams. it allows all 30 mlb teams to negotiate during a 45 day window. japanese team receives a transfer fee if player signs (essentially a release fee for transferring before free agency eligibility in japan.)

another term i learned during this post season is "crooked number" is when a team scores at least 2 runs in an inning. aka not a 0 or 1. this means that the offense did well during that inning. highlights a rally or momentum shift.

i have been wanting to learn more about baseball in japan (or yakyuu in Japan) and I believe i found a great source today from an mlb article - a baseball writer named Yuri Karasawa. he runs a site called Yakyu Cosmopolitan that has lots of stats from Nippon Professional Baseball - blog: https://www.yakyucosmo.com/blog/ and a great resource page: https://www.yakyucosmo.com/resources/

i am looking forward to reading and learning more

[wanderingstelle]

i saw that the president of syria is coming to the white house.

for some reason that prompted a visit to wikipedia and there i discovered the president's wife Latifa al-Droubi has a master's degree in Arabic language and literature (perhaps finished earlier this year according to what i could find online).

apparently it has been very controversial that she has appeared on stage with her husband.

i read that her grandfather was the prime minister of syria for one month before he was assassinated. i hope very much that such a fate does not await her and/or her husband.

valuing women and education is something we need everywhere.

I have tried learning Arabic along with my other languages and it has genuinely been the most confusing and difficult for me to catch on to. but i do hope to make some progress at some point.

[wanderingstelle]

learning latin for romance languages

i learned spanish in school from age 10-18.

in the past couple years, i have enjoyed learning multiple languages at the same time on duolingo.

this was, at first, just an entertaining thing to do for my adhd. however, over time it became more serious.

serious meaning, i realized there was a pattern to the languages. the transition from spanish to italian and to portuguese were relatively easy, easier than to french.

all of romance languages are derived from latin. i feel like i knew this from school growing up, but had forgotten. this discovery led me to purchase wheelock's latin.

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i have every confidence that wheelock's latin will be a useful resource, however, disciplining myself in order to maximize the use of this resource will be the difficult part.

i am now in my mid-30s. i am much more resilient that i was as a youth, but i am definitely slower.

one of the nice things about wheelock's latin is that the website includes pronunciations for free. for example all of the chapter one vocab words are here: http://www.wheelockslatin.com/chapters/one/index.html

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as i was writing this, it occurred to me that there may be something useful on youtube - of someone explaining wheelock's latin.

sure enough - pastorcurtis12341234 of Wittenberg Academy has a whole playlist of online lectures, going over the textbook. this definitely seems like a great resource. here is the link:

Wittenberg Academy: Wheelock's Latin

his lectures seem approachable, not too dry, and practical. just what i was looking for so that i don't have to slog through this technical book alone.

[wanderingstelle]

the west wing, the diplomat, high stakes illusions

when i was growing up, i watched the west wing. often times, i had no idea what was going on because i was too young to understand. but i liked the community. i liked martin sheen of course. but my favorite characters were toby, josh and donna. let's not forget dulé hill.

the diplomat reminds me a lot of the west wing. the pace of the show is intense and you get a sense that you are always behind. the stakes are high of course. thats the deal with international politics.

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however, having gone to therapy and read a lot of therapy books. there is something a bit toxic and traumatic about the continual stress that comes with these high stakes political jobs.

as a viewer, you see them as heroes, both in fiction and in real life on the news. speaking for myself, i almost majored in poli sci because international politics seemed so exciting and important.

it seems there is little room for people who are politically ambitious to take a breath.

and i think that part of me while watching such shows gets caught up in the excitement - but it is the adrenaline rush of an addiction. it seems many political people have this addiction.

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certainly the prime minister in the diplomat is extremely concerned with not appearing as "wobbling" on the international stage. this would paint him as a likely narcissist, addicted to what people think about him and his own previous public image.

the prime minister is not interested in doing what is right or fair, but rather what makes him look good.

i remember hearing about a book on the radio a couple years ago called How Not to be a Politician, and the author said (Rory Stewart) that essentially even if you have good intentions going into politics, the machine of politics kind of destroys your morals and you end up becoming corrupt anyways.

the beauty of the diplomat and kate wyler as a character is that she seems to be able to navigate the shady waters of politics in a way that ends up being positive for everyone without our nation sacrificing too much. however, her own personal sacrifices seem to be quite a lot. and that is exactly why i did not end up going into poli sci.

[wanderingstelle]

thoughts on the diplomat

i have been watching the diplomat on and off.

the one on netflix with keri russell, aka felicity from back in the day.

today's episode was the dogcatcher. i am still on season 1.

it is difficult for me to not get upset about the marriage between hal and kate wyler.

however, in this episode there was some surprising introspection from hal.

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to start though, there was a mention of purple martins (a type of bird) as an excuse for going off wandering the grounds with binoculars for hal when he is meeting with the uk foreign secretary's sister to smoke and drink.

i am not a full-on birder but a bird enthusiast. so i looked it up.

the purple martin is native to north american and south america, but not the uk or europe. there was one sighting in the outer hebrides in 2004, according to my research. and this lone bird was likely blown off course during migration.

this to me seems symbolic of kate wyler herself.

she had charted a course to a job in the middle east, but has been blown off course to a different location as us ambassador to the uk. often she does look like a disheveled bird who finds herself not where she wants to be.

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with regard to hal, i was impressed by his realization that he is only drawn to mopey women. as well as his refusal to speak up, which would have been usurping kate's authority if he did speak, when the prime minister asked for his opinion on russia. these definitely seem to show growth for his character.

i dont think i would call kate wyler mopey. if anyone is mopey, i think it's hal. but according to jung, our partner is a reflection of our own inner male/female. so perhaps his own inner feminine is mopey?

that being said, when he said "i think i bring it out in them" that seemed a revelation. but anytime any one goes too deep with introspection, there can be a tendency to still stay self-absorbed.

sometimes self-knowledge is not actually possible through introspection. instead, you just forget about yourself and you can have spontaneous insight into yourself.

perhaps this is the difference between thinking hard and allowing your intuition to speak in the stillness.