Whiteout

I am typing this by my bedroom window, and I cannot see to the other side of the park because of all the snow falling.  It is a harsh, angry, blowing snow.  However, it is a nice change from the past few weeks, where rain and mild weather have made the snow that fell back in December all but vanish.  The only troubling part is that I am sure I'll need to do some shovelling of the driveway later on.  My back and shoulders are not in the best of shape, so it can be a bit of a challenge for me.  But I suppose it is a worthy price to pay, in order to see a field of solid white behind the house, rather than the usual vomitous collection of spotty browns, pale greens, and mysterious yellows.

I am starting to learn more about customizing this blog.  You may notice on the side I have added a twitter feed, where you can see all of my latest tweets.  My tweets are not all that interesting, but feel free to follow me if you are into that kind of thing.

More changes will come over time.  I am hoping to learn enough one day to completely redesign the site, so that it has more of a personal look, rather than just using a stock template.

Perhaps I should talk about what my day was like yesterday.

For the past two and a half weeks, up until yesterday, I had been working once more at my old job, which was as a casting assistant for a company that casts movies and television shows.  I had left the job in September, feeling that casting just wasn't right for me, and that I wanted to move on to different things.  However, in December the person who replaced me (though it's more complicated than that) asked if I could cover for her while she went on vacation in January.  I agreed.

It felt good to be back on the job, and thankfully it wasn't too crazy while I was there.  There was a lot of work, and I had plenty of late nights, but there was never anything that I wasn't able to handle.  The two and a half weeks flew by.

I suppose one of the big reasons I wanted to leave the job originally was because of the stress it was causing me.  And the stress I was feeling was often caused by circumstances way beyond my control, which made it worse.  If the stress I am feeling can be solved by me, then I can handle it fine; but if it is caused by other people (people I don't even know, and who are sometimes all the way on the other side of the country), then I go crazy because I still feel all the stress, but there's not one thing I can do about it.

Part of me does not enjoy having to trust other people to accomplish a task that is required for me to be successful in my job.  There ended up being so many moving parts involved that I felt overloaded and scrambled.  Whatever I end up doing next in life, I want it to be something where my work is more focused; where I'm not trying to quell fifty fires at once.

But for now I am back in the world of the unemployed.

Last night I watched Barack Obama's State of the Union.  Overall it seemed like an okay speech, though he was less inspirational than usual (but that might be a good thing.)  The speech seemed all over the place, but I guess that's what State of the Unions are usually like.

I'm not American, but I pay attention to American politics way more than Canadian politics, which is a shame, I know, especially since our government has its own heap of problems at the moment.

I think the part I liked best about President Obama's speech was where he discussed the severe paralysis affecting Washington these days.  It is true that politicians are locked in perpetual campaigns, where the safest way to keep your job is to do absolutely nothing at all.

The worst of them all is the Senate, which is sad, since that is supposed to be the most level-headed body in American politics.  But the Senate has transformed into a tired, old oligarchy, constantly stifling the will of the people in favour of special interests that will help them get re-elected.

It is time for congressmen and women to be subject to strict term limits.  Am I the only one who thinks it's ridiculous that a Senator should be allowed to stay in power for 40-plus years?  What good can that possibly do for anyone?  Even if he or she is constantly re-elected, I would argue that it is still undemocratic.  The representative position that the senator holds should be a far greater thing than the senator holding it.  The two should never become synonymous.

While we're at it, the whole American political system should be overhauled.  It is an ancient, inefficient, overly complicated system based on a model of class distinction.  One needs only look at the fall of the Roman Republic to see how that system of representation eventually turned out.

But I am starting to talk about things beyond my level of expertise, which is my signal to clam up before I say anything that is easily refutable or just plain wrong.

I will return again soon.  Perhaps I will discuss my take on "Avatar" when I next update.

The snow has stopped outside.  I can see across the park once more.