Another day of “well, now that I’m dressed for work-in-person, there’s quite a bit I can/need to do from/at home.”
It so happens that today, December 1, is the national day of my country of origin. Cue the posts on socials from [former? current?] musicians-turned-historians1, psychotherapists (who had been recommended to me when I asked for professionals with certain competencies I thought would be a good match for my psyche) still publicly grappling with cultural-self-loathing2, diasporans letting themselves feel. (Hey, been there, done that, got the all-yellow HAGI 103 T-shirt.)
Oh, this image series is too good, on too many levels, to simply dismiss. Sit down, genAI, you tried.
In recent years, I’ve taken to referring to North Korea as a shorthand for ‘Romania in the ‘80s,’ but I don’t think we had kindergarten orchestras.
I also doubt that discipline was ever one of the prime cultural values of ‘my people’. Those about which I’ve heard the most bragging would be hospitality and ingenuity. Sort of Velcro-cat-like, and about just as easy to gather collectively behind a goal.
Miscellanea: an MMORPG in-game photoshoot to promote a guild event (I’m much better at branding if the “brand” is a fictional character in a fictional world), a frantic (and fruitless) search for my sewing kit (need to fix a laptop sleeve), this book I wouldn’t have thought possible when I migrated in the opposite direction,
and this glorious sports-pub fare: taco-in-a-bag.
Long live corn — make tortillas and mămăligă4, not HFCS.
from what I can tell, still presenting a more accurate version of history than all the assorted propaganda vehicles called, at various times, “textbooks”
I ran, of course
Gheorghe Hagi (born 1965), football (soccer for y’all heathens) midfielder.