RhaenysBee

So we are still watching this because sister is ill and moody and wanted to watch it. And why not, it should do fine as a background noise while we have dinner. BAD IDEA. Don’t attempt to consume food during this show. Why is gratuitous bodily decay a more elevated creative choice than gratuitous nudity or sex? We both found the episode profoundly boring. I cannot find a hook for my life, there’s virtually nothing in this show to reach my stimulus threshold. It’s a deja vu loop in which everything feels like I’ve seen it before. I especially hate the wigs and hairstyles. The plot is predictable, the characters are flat and bland, the dialogue is poor. The themes are handled and delivered with the grace and subtlety of a T-Rex in New York. Zero thought or logic goes into putting scenes together which manifests in predictability, no payoff and lost opportunity for tension, character development and stakes. Long politically infused monologues won’t make me sympathize with characters I don’t know, it won’t make me know them, it won’t make me like them and it won’t make me care about them. Imagine if Daemon didn’t bring his woman AND his egg to the meeting, for which he had absolutely no motive whatsoever. Especially if he lied about a pregnancy, which he wouldn’t want discovered otherwise why lie in the first place. Who would believe that he brings his allegedly pregnant bride to a meeting with a hostile representative which is believed to easily result in bloodshed - this was after all Rhaenyra’s argument for getting involved - ending up with his bride as collateral. Wouldn’t this be something to bring up in conversation if he did bring his bride to expose Daemon for a less clever leader than he shows himself to be rather than yelling profanities and insults at each other? and if we are at dialogues, Wouldn’t Otto or Viserys question Rhaenyra’s true motive for going and by proxy her maturity, instead of cowering before her strong female badassery? Wouldn’t this support the opinion that she is still young and has a lot to learn better than smug and emptily sexist remarks to shut down her ideas in council? Or is this not something we want to establish for real? Is it only the misconception of old males and Rhaenyra is a ready made ruler who is already better at ruling than Viserys and better at machiavellianism that Otto and better at riding a dragon than Daemon? As for not bringing the egg, an easy resolution couldn’t have happened because you can’t retrieve something that isn’t at hand. You can however certainly bargain and win time if you are necessary to produce a missing object. This is something a clever person would do or point out if a stupid person didn’t. It could have required a bit more finesse or struggle for Rhaenyra to get it which would have given the audience a tangible reason to root for her and which would have made the eventual success all the more valuable and deserved. Maybe, just maybe we would have had the time to get at least a tiny bit emotionally invested in the egg business or learn a bit more about Rhaenyra and Daemon via choices and action in the situation rather than a badly written dialogue. Maybe Rhaenyra could have had losses (literal or figurative) retrieving the egg, so she would have a moment for development. It was probably even clumsier however to have Alicent in the marriage announcement scene. What is the Hand’s daughter, a woman doing in the small council meeting, when even the king’s daughter is only in attendance fulfilling the role of a cup bearer? Wouldn’t everybody ask why she’s there and wouldn’t her presence confirm to herself and to her father that she will be the chosen new queen? If the Hand’s daughter is allowed to randomly hang out at the small council meeting as the most natural thing without raising eyebrows, what are we even talking about marginalized women’s rights in this world? There’s no legitimate reason for Alicent to be in that scene, you can take her reaction shot in a different scene that makes sense and has more meaning for her as a character. And her presence also entirely invalidates the reactions of the other characters. And undermines their alleged values. It was a ridiculous nonsensical unsatisfactory mess. The actors do what they can with what little they are given. The dragons look cool. I really like that there’s a character called Laena. I also enjoyed the 10 second scene of Rhaenyra showing up at dragonstone and dismounting her dragon. Her conversation with the king about her mother was nice. There are valuable small details that build her character, such as asking to sit down while being chastised. Once again not a millimeter above 5 out of 10.

Well how do you pick from the pile? I got some lovely reading done during my little vacations throughout the summer. And it’ll be easy to keep it up because books don’t run on electricity and internet so they will be all we can afford in terms of entertainment *laughs and cries in Eastern European despair* how are you all? Beside the impeding doom. Any nice end of summer experiences or plans for September?

The number of times I said I wasn’t going to watch this… oh well, it rained all evening and what else are you going to do in a boring vacation village while holed up in a disappointing Airbnb? So we watched House of the Dragon. I found it way too long and way too boring. There was no character, plot, stakes or general vibe that I would want to watch the next episode for. The story didn’t make me like Rhaenyra enough, or dislike Daemon enough or sympathize with political problems enough to make me care about what comes next. The general problem of this show is that it cannot offer anything Game of Thrones hadn’t done bigger and better at some point throughout its unfortunate lifecycle. The costumes are fine, but nothing special, the sets are fine, the actors are doing a good enough job, the dragons are fine. But we have seen very similar costumes before - I personally don’t see the fashion evolution of 170 years or anything that sets Targaryens in particular apart, the wigs are downright terrible and so are hairstyles. We have seen very similar sets before though I do like the jazzed up Iron Throne. We have seen better actors on Game of Thrones as well as better casting choices and we have also seen dragon cgi before. And as much as HBO seems to have a checklist for mandatory game of thrones tropes too, we have seen plenty brothel sex, butts and torture scenes too. There’s just absolutely nothing that has even the chance to tickle my stimulus threshold. So it’s all bound to fall on the shoulders of the characters. Rhaenyra has the potential to become interesting, as mentioned in the comments, she has that edge, but it’s really early to tell if the writers are going to let that edge out to play. I’m curious where HBO in 2022 is going to take her relationship with Alicent. Viserys is surprisingly well acted but quite mediocre as a character, which may prove otherwise further down the road. Hightower was quickly set up to be the guy you’re really going to hate but it seems like HBO can’t decide how much of a jackass they are allowed to make Daemon in today’s social climate so they are trying to write him both ways (or is this a preplanned inner conflict the character is going to face and resolve throughout the story?). The c-section scene was more disturbing that any of GoT’s “big controversial” moments, which is I’m sure another checkbox objective they were told to meet. I don’t know a whole lot about medieval c-sections, but based on other film references, this felt awfully unrealistic and unnecessarily inhumane. (And no, sorry the mEsSaGe didn’t justify it either and it was out of character for Viserys to allow it to go down in the manner it did) overall, to me it was a paint by numbers copy of Game of Thrones thus far and I wouldn’t rate it one inch above 5/10.

So there’s hope for me yet and thank you for listening.

- Being told to follow a different direction on the same set of tasks or process every week. - Working on top down goals that make no sense and provide no real customer need but having to conjure up measurements to reassure the top that the goal was both met and a good idea (even though the reality is the opposite) - all the while listening to how empowered, progressive and agile *shudder* we all are - trying to jam several thousand people into one-size-fits-all solutions that serve no real value for any of them - having no time or space for running a project I actually believe in or customers actually ask for because I need to deliver on one or more of the above - making magic happen for unrealistic and self-serving deadlines which results in poor quality magic - working long and tedious hours for barely valuable results that have the lifespan of a mayfly and starting over - the word agile (and gamification) In a perfect world I would become a writer or open a coffee&pie shop or probably both. In a less than perfect but still optimal world I could get into interior design to perhaps one day afford that coffee&pie shop and maybe write freelance or as a hobby. Or I could open a thrift shop chain that sells old rustic/retro/vintage home goods. In the real world, I have no clue.

I feel nearly as demotivated and unaccomplished as I did at my fresh grad job. I’m not sure what age, place or employment my set of genetics was put together for, but it’s certainly not multinational corporation material. I had a meet up with former colleagues and dang I miss my previous job so much. (Which is different from regretting my resignation there, no regrets, it was probably the best moment of my feeble character, I only ever felt conviction and pride about that decision) well the lesson here is that I need to do something significantly different. Or pursue a private life. I suppose pushing change in one area will ultimately catalyze change in the other. If only I had any damn idea what I want to do with my life career-wise. (And the guts to actually make a move) Otherwise there’s really no point in getting another corporate job that will ultimately have the same issues as the current one but perhaps pay €300 more. Man, to think that my entire career choice was based on the false concept that it would provide a well paying career… no, better not think about that.

That’s really nice though, the perfect kind of tiredness. Hope you get to rest your legs a little on the train ride home. Ah right, that makes sense. I remember you had been to the shithole city before my brain just never connected it to the PhD. Only lakeside staycations. It’s just way too hot and way too expensive to go on a two-week seaside holiday. There’s also the funny thing of a euro costing 400 huf now. You know, funny in the sense that we cry, drink and joke about it all at the same time. I do want to go on a weekend trip for my birthday in December though, and sister has vague plans for a Prague or Krakow weekend some time during the autumn. You have anything special lined up for the rest of the summer?

Manager says he wants to talk about how I am. Ah the smell of fear and manipulation… So what am I even supposed to say? That I’m casually looking for an international work from home job which pays me in euros, because at this rate my current salary won’t allow me to afford groceries in three months? Everybody is… [at varying degrees of casually looking for a job which allows them to afford luxuries like food, gas an electricity]. I do feel some level of sorry for him, it must be a shit feeling that even the shit team you have is falling apart. At the same time, we are all out for ourselves and this is not the time when anybody is willing to take one for the team. or you know maybe he will fire me

Aw that sounds nice! Have a lovely lovely holiday! And glad to hear you’re leaving the shithole city. Weather got a little better here, which is some improvement because you are able to cool it back down to 25C overnight. Much better than sleeping in 28C. What are you working on in the library these days? Oh and how’s your PhD coming along? tons of covid everywhere indeed. Couple family members already had it twice. I’m shocked that I still haven’t had a second round of it. But it’d be great to avoid it throughout the remainder of summer because I have already been ill twice and cancelled too many plans. the wildfires everywhere is frightening. Really sorry about Slovenia. I suppose the world will really burn to ashes both figuratively and literally in our lifetime….

Hiiiiii! Nice to see you around here! How has life been treating you? how is your Summer going? Virtually no coverage on either here, public places even removed hand sanitizer machines. Which is ironic because cases and sewer samples are very much on the rise and a lot of people have covid again. Oh well. we are too wrapped up in the economic crisis to care. yeah, we have had another heatwave since. Can’t wait to get a new AC.

Heatwave knocked the doggos out. I let everybody in, because it’s gotten really bad outside after midday. It’s 26ishC in the house now and I’ll probably turn on the AC at some point as the outside temp gets even worse . I might also prepare some wet towels for them. Morning sprinkling in the garden did absolutely nothing and the ground was bone dry by 10am, water in their dishes becomes soup temp in an hour in the shade, so I don’t really see the point in making puddles for them. It’s just going to be a couple of indoor days. Chubbs is really suffering. I’m hoping it’s only the combo of heat, her age and her physique, but we will get her checked out next week nonetheless. Not sure if I should press going for an early walk tomorrow, the experience might cheer her and it’s only 20ish around 6am. Then again, days and days of extreme heat is really a strain physically, so maybe it’s a bad idea.

No, I wouldn’t say so at all. I work in three other groups that are quite okay with no or few and minor dysfunctionalities. They must (have at some point), as we all voluntarily applied to be in this project. That said, this is the third/fourth/fifth extra thing we do beside our “main jobs”, and it certainly doesn’t get the priority it needs or deserves. There certainly is nobody with authority, because the PO never claimed it, and nobody poached it either. And no, I don’t agree with her approach or methods and it’s a general unsaid understanding that she’s not great at it. That’s perfectly understandable for a whole baggage of reasons and context, but the point is, nobody will put it on the table, not even the project sponsors because it’s unsupportive. And nobody, including me, would ever usurp the PO role and look in the mirror the next day for the same reason (the group wouldn’t tolerate it either). I would consider myself stronger at the project management side of things than she is, though this group is quite a challenge, I’ve experienced that every time I ended up taking charge at a meeting. The last effort I can and will do to fix it is volunteer as a default facilitator. If they agree to give that responsibility to me, I can take over all meetings and introduce some structure and see if that takes us anywhere at all. It should at least take some pressure off her, which may give her room to breathe and build on her strengths. That said, the role of vigorous meeting facilitator doesn’t come naturally to me either, I can do it, but it’s quite draining for me. So you know, where’s the cost benefit balance?

Yeah, we did this twice or three times already and keep slipping back into the same patterns. Just an example, we agreed that we would always write memos to keep agreements, tasks&owners in written form, bring absentees up to speed and we would rotate the role because writing memos is tedious. I wrote 3-4 memos and when I was absent or said I couldn’t take notes today, nobody else did. They recorded the meeting, so I could listen to 2 hours of unstructured rambling and still have no idea what happened or what would be next. Then they even forgot to push the record button. And I entirely gave up note taking last week when we had a good half hour with decisions and a plan, and the next day the PO said she wanted to do the exact opposite and three more things after wasting a full hour on having four people read through a pdf in real time. I’ll stop ranting, I could fill books with all the shit that’s not working. That said, we never assigned ownership to the things we wanted to improve, that’s certainly a takeaway. And yes, you’re correct, there’s a fair measure of passive aggression as well, because everybody is frustrated to hell and back. As for tracking accountability and enforcing even the gentlest, most modest agreement, it would be the holy grail, and I think it’s not unreasonable that we would expect the PO to do this, but we are all drowning in this fake-feel-good, fake-consensus, laissez-faire sub-culture. It drives me nuts even though I’m both “I” and “F”, if I want to keep abusing MBTI labels. anyway, thanks for your response, it was both helpful and supportive.

So I have this, let’s say project team, because agile terminology makes my skin crawl. It’s a complete disaster in terms of both productivity and cooperation. I’m sort of at my wit’s end about what else I could do to harness the mess without stepping on other people’s toes and forcing my ideas, rules and way of working on others. It’s a general problem that there are 6 overly nice women on this team, we are in desperate need of some ExTJ brains and direct, blunt communicators. Whenever my task orientation button switches on, I can and will dominate the scene to kick them through a meeting and show some results, but it does make me feel like I’m the unkind, pushy bad guy who doesn’t consider the others and oversteps her own role. I keep discussing this with the others and my manager, and I still can’t decide if I should keep pushing or recognize that pouring effort into something without result is a waste of resources and just let go. Most unsuccessful and unpleasant project of my working life.

Ooooo fair enough. Sorry, I’m terrible at remembering where board members are from here the pandemic is old news, nobody cares anymore and luckily the stats also don’t indicate that we should. Well it’s certainly a good thing that you are keeping safe. Any indoor activities you’ve been enjoying? Ah the end of the school year is the sweetest time of the whole year. Hope you have a great trip! awww that’s really romantic! Enjoy the dreamy seaside date! ehh. My flat is not tiny, but it’s 25C inside now, because, well, the building just won’t cool down when the minimum night temp is 20C. I guess I can’t keep postponing to spend hundreds of thousands on fixing the AC…

True, true. I’m sure June is not done with unpleasant surprises. Glad to hear your vacation approaches though. Have a lovely time with as little work as possible! oh that sounds good, summer shouldn’t be a busy time. How come you aren’t going anywhere? Is it a preference or some circumstance? Well my exhaustion and emotional burnout are a lot better than it was yesterday, so I suppose there’s hope for me yet. Today was a good workday and a good food day.

*wind blows empty plastic bag across the street* June passed by without my noticing and having any sense of time. So passes life by too. Nah, I’m getting out of the stress frenzy of the past couple weeks. But yeah, it will take at least another week to feel human again. how is everyone? Or anyone who might still be around here

I would simply tell him that I’m not able to help and point him to this or that assistant/intern who always supports me with these tasks. Or to the person who can tell him which other colleague can assist him with the copies. It’s everybody’s own responsibility to find the answer or the right person to help them when they need assistance. Casually delegating something to someone whose job is not assisting you, because you can’t do it yourself/ask the right person is just lazy, and that doesn’t reflect well on someone at a workplace.

Am I old enough to become my mother by buying the exact same scent she used to wear when I was a child? There’s just something weird about it but I also always liked that scent. I have the same creepy attachment to my late grandmother’s special occasion perfume. Or maybe I shouldn’t buy a perfume and be glad I can still afford food. *insert hide the pain Harold*

When does your school year end? also, did you have a mini November over the weekend too? We had 3 days of 15C and it was kinda weird squeezed between 28-30C weeks. I officially have a staycation booked for summer! what else happened? I skipped my 10-year school reunion. No regrets though it was admittedly skipped for the wrong reasons. I’ll go next time. Maybe… There’s also an upcoming two-day team building which has been giving me anxiety for weeks. Not one cell in my body is looking forward to spending 48 hours with my colleagues and sleep in a vacation house with them. To counterbalance this level of antisocial introversion, I had a nice chatty lunch with some girl friends over the weekend, which was amazing and we are fixing a uni friend group reunion for the summer as well. Quite hyped about that one because I haven’t seen half these friends since before covid.

I really want to invite friends over for wine and cold tapas, but I’m a perfectionist and I feel the need to buy a fancy cutting board and a cheese knife set to make my future charcuterie board ~perfect~ so I’m putting it off until I have the ~perfect~ fancy equipment because I’m a nut case.

I opened a bottle of wine and it proved to be necessary. So pat on the shoulder for me in retrospect. I could 100% drink the full bottle but I have work tomorrow. So maybe I’ll switch to gummy candy and self-destruct in a different way.

I used to feel the same and then something clicked and it became one of my favorite summer drinks knocking Cuba Libre out off the top 5. The ratio and the type of Prosecco really matter. It’s curious to look back on the shift in my taste of booze in my mid-twenties.

O I could do with some rain. The air is sooooo dry and dusty, it’s killing me. Well, I also need an allergy test, but it’d be very nice have the relief of some rain. Ah yeah, I have similar experience with my buildings. Previous flat was in a 1910s building with thick brick walls but drafty windows. It heated up in a minute but cooled down just as quickly at night. Aw that sounds sweet. Being attached to your kids and caring about them so much. I’m sure they appreciate that a lot! And parents… I have a feeling they can be more trouble than the kids themselves so good luck and fingers crossed no serious problems come your way for some time! 100% good thing Had a nice much needed country weekend. Too short as always, but what are you gonna do? I’ll try to squeeze in as many rural weekends into this summer as possible, because I can already tell it’ll be unbearable in the city.

Not a lot, but still annoying. At the current ridiculous exchange rate around €20. Thanks I noticed that my legs are ghost white so I will have to get a bit of tan going this weekend. Nice that at least some part of your building stays cool. I’m on the 7th floor of a full glass office and it’s pretty much a greenhouse for half the day. The worse part is the artificial ventilation though. Class teacher, wow! I didn’t know you had your “own” class. That’s really cool! Are you enjoying it? I suppose it’ll be quite the accomplishment when they graduate in the next couple years.