Work kept me from writing for all of December and January, but the world didn't stop around me. Ken Jennings took over as new host of Jeopardy replacing the late Alex Trebek, and he's done a serviceable job, but he's yet to develop the signature tone and presence of Alex and variation in exclamation of the clue repsonses yet. On the plus side, I've learned a great deal of information from Ken's books (available whereever books are sold/heard/uploaded and also at the L.A. Public Library), the most famous of which is "Brainiac," about his journey to becoming Jeopardy champ and trivia icon that he is today. Whether he wants to admit it or not, Ken likely has a photographic or at least eidetic memory (ability to see an object soon after you look away) and has a special ability to remember a fact and store it away for future use on just one glance like a sponge, whereas for me to learn something I have to read it once, read it the next day to review, then read it again sometime in the future before I forget to even having a chance of storing into long term memory. That and I have to actually care about it, which is easy for learning sports trivia like Franco Harris caught the Immaculate Reception, but more difficult differentiating between AC/DC and Guns N' Roses. The world of music is just a vast ocean of different types of music and genres compared to the small pond of sports information (or trivia people might say, the Bering Strait compared to Lake Okeechobee in Florda. (This is how Ken Jennings writes by the way, he drops in trivia facts in almost every paragraph he writes to keep readers engaged, at least the nerdy ones).
I fell into binge mode and binged all 3 seasons of Cobra Kai! I taught MJ what "The Karate Kid" was, Mr. Miyagi, "wax on, wax off" and that all 80's kids grew up with this, but she seemed unimpressed.
Political news: New president Joe Biden took over in what was a very composed and necessary speech on January 20, especially after the storming of the capital that took place On Jan. 6 that may or may not have been spurred on by the ex-president. The official analogy I'm hearing is that Trump "raised the temperature" and "fanned the flames" that caused the riot and storming into the Congress building, but it was a scary day nonetheless.
Covid mutant strains! Oh no! Despite the announcement of a 3rd vaccine for the US by JNJ after Moderna and Pfizer, Covid is still a clear and present danger due to the massive case count and the looming threat of mutant strains from South Africa. The developing world hasn't even started vaccinating because they can't afford to buy the vaccine whereas places like Japan which didn't even get affected as much pre-ordered the vaccine for its citizens.......causing an imbalance in the world's needs. It was at around this time last year that everyone knew about this new virus spreading through Chinese but nobody thought it would be as bad as it came (except certain political officials who were briefed on the severity and sold their stocks), so let's not underestimate the disease this time or ever again. Covid will still be around after this year and probably beyond, it's limiting the damage that it can cause that is the priority.
I'm officially tired of the GME (Gamestop) stock news, the Wallstreetbets crowd, Robinhood restricting trading, etc, especially since I'm not in the stock. I had a bad week kicking myself for not getting into Gamestop at 20, 30, even 50, but no way even if I had GME would I have stayed in past 100, 150........that's not investing, that's gambling, and if I wasn't afraid of backlash and the potential of UNLIMITED LOSSES (sounds existenstial, doesn't it) I would bet against GME........it's only a matter of time before it drops down, even if it can still double or get to the "moon" (proverbially) before then........but stocks, even solid, long-term, blue chip companies like Apple or Amazon, go up slowly like an escalator and drop precipitously like an elevator.......I would just not be able to sleep well holding on to GME worrying that I'd wake up one day and it was down 90% (happened to me with LK stock last year in much less speculative circumstances).
Finally, MJ has begun her preceptorship at the ICU! I've given MJ a lot of pressure and criticism for not "carrying her weight" in our relationship the last few years, but I can see that she finds a purpose for what she does at the hospital and gives her confidence, stability, hope for the future, which is important to have in order to have a healthy lifestyle and be an optimistic person and stay calm, whereas I've had the luxury of having a cushy low-stress job all these years and can feel like I accomplished somehing every day. Now MJ gets a bit of that feeling working at the ICU unit, and I've learned a lot about what she does and all nurses have to do, from all the labor they put in, monitoring patients and their charts, cleaning up feces (unfortunately one of the anti-percs of the job) to dealing with patients' visitors who suddenly collapse in the patient room. MJ worked hard to get to one of the more coveted "ICU" (Intensive Care Unit) positions at the hospital which include different divisions like "Surgical ICU," "Cardio-thorassic ICU," "Medical ICU," "Pediatric ICU," all kind of foreign-sounding to me and places I luckily have not stepped foot in, but others less fortunate than I have to, especially nowadays with Covid-19 still running rampant. I'm living vicariously through her experiences and can imagine what it'd be like if I had taken a different path towards the medical field (or even if I go crazy and want to go down that road in the future). Hi MJ at the ICU, I see you!
Happy groundhog day!
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