On Sunday morning I revised my translation of the ninth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian.
I translated the rest of “Dessous mon pull” (Under My Sweater) by Serge Gainsbourg. I sang along with the recording once. Tomorrow I’ll start memorizing the song.
I weighed 87.6 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune for all but the final three songs.
Around midday I cleaned the warm mist humidifier that’s been working most of the week and set the other one going. It’s supposed to be like summer for the next few days and so I might have less to clean next Sunday.
I weighed 89 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with peanut butter and baba ghanoush with a glass of iced tea.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 88.55 kilos at 18:20.
I was caught up in my journal at 19:12.
I tried to digitize a cassette tape of a Christian and the Lions performance at the Rivoli. This is one of those tapes that won’t digitize using a direct line without resulting in distortion. I tried several settings and even recording with low gain doesn’t work in this case because I don’t even get a proper waveform in Audacity. The only thing that comes close to working is for me to mic the speaker and plug the mic into my audio interface. I tried it with the intro and part of the first song and got a proper waveform. There was no time to record the tape this time in that way and so I’ll do it tomorrow. I think that when I do I’ll have to set one non-clipping gain level for the whole recording.
I deleted several images from my hard drive.
I made pizza on a slice of seven grain bread with marinara, tomato pesto, a chopped slice of ham, five-year-old cheddar and an egg. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching the penultimate episode of the first season of Star Trek: Star Fleet Academy.
The Athena with all the cadets aboard are crowning the end of the first year of the Academy by travelling to Betazed for the dedication of that planet as the new seat of Federation government. Caleb is not happy because in the midst of all of that sense of his friends feeling like family he has still not found his mother. Vance tells Nahla they found out what Braka stole from the Miyazaki. It’s an omega bomb that wherever it is exploded shreds space and subspace so warp travel is impossible there for millions of years. He also has the tech to make the bombs into mines.
Caleb goes to his room to be alone but SAM has a habit of just appearing without knocking. She notices that Caleb is monitoring com frequencies and asks why. He says he’s still looking for messages from his mother who he hasn’t seen since he was 6. SAM says he’s thinking like a 20 year old. His mother would be sending messages to the Caleb she remembers, who was 6, and so it would be a simple word. He suddenly remembers that his mother told him that the moon called “Ishaani” would always be their moon. He types the word and two years worth of messages pop up. He learns where she is right now and goes to tell Nahla but when he enters her office he hears her talking about Starfleet being in lockdown and no ships being allowed outside of Federation space. He decides not to tell her and goes directly to steal a shuttle. On the way he stops to tell Tarima that when he looks at her he sees music. He enters the shuttle and prepares it for launch but suddenly SAM appears and says she’s coming with him. He tries to dissuade her but she insists and also convinces him that he wouldn’t be able to survive without her. He is going to attempt to leave a ship while it’s travelling at warp speed by synchronizing the shuttle’s warp bubble with the Athena’s and then leave the warp bubble without blowing himself up. She knows she could survive by just popping back to Athena but Caleb has a 99% chance of dying. He needs someone who can calculate vector harmonics faster than a computer. He says she can come. Suddenly Genesis steps in because she volunteered to help lock down the shuttle bay. She learns about Caleb’s mother but says he has to tell the chancellor. He says he can’t. Suddenly Darem arrives drunk. He had a small amount to drink during a ceremony in Kraag’s quarters but he says Khionians lack a lot of enzymes including the one that processes alcohol. SAM detects a trans warp tunnel that could get the shuttle to Caleb’s mother’s location outside of Federation space in 15 minutes. Genesis says she’s going to report them but SAM locks the door and says she won’t let her ruin Caleb’s chance of finding his mother. They make it free of Athena and go through the warp tunnel.
Tarima and Kraag discover Caleb’s messages from his mother and realize where Caleb has gone.
Caleb and his friends make it to the planet but lose some parts along the way. They arrive in disguise in a black market and must not reveal they are with Starfleet.
Nahla gets permission from Vance to take Athena to the border and to scan for the shuttle from there.
On Ukeck Caleb goes looking for his mother while the others try to find the part they need to repair the shuttle. He follows a woman who corners and threatens him with a knife to his throat and slowly they each realize who the other is. They have a tearful reunion. She takes him to her quarters. She tells him Braka helped her escape from detention but then she gave him the slip. Suddenly SAM pops in and Caleb has to stop his mother from shooting her. SAM opens the door and lets Genesis and Darem in. Anisha doesn’t trust them and would panic if she learned they are Starfleet Cadets. Caleb tells her they are from all over but Anisha looks at their fingernails and sees they are too well nourished to be from all over.
The Athena finds Omega 47 mines in orbit around Ukeck. The Doctor detects two cadets in airlock B and beams them to the bridge. It’s Tarima and Kraag. Nahla confines them to her office.
Anisha helps Caleb’s friends by building their shuttle part with programmable matter. It is clear that she intends for Caleb to stay with her and for his friends to leave.
Since scans from the border don’t find the shuttle, Nahla decides to disobey orders and head for Ukeck.
Anisha leaves them in her quarters to go and get transport for her and Caleb. After she leaves Caleb’s friends confront him about his intentions. He says if he told her they were Starfleet it would kill her. In order to make it easier for them to leave him he begins to hurtfully insult them. He tells Darem he’s looking for himself in the eyes of his parents. He tells Genesis she will never free herself from the shadow of her admiral father. He’s about to dress down SAM as well but she just runs up and hugs him. Genesis tells Caleb that most men his age are trying to find a life of their own but he’s about to return to being a messed up kid running as a fugitive with his outlaw mother. They try to transport to their shuttle but it doesn’t work. Their signal is detected by the authorities who surround them. The public address system announces the capture of possible Federation members. Caleb asks his mother what will happen to the Federation captives and she says they will be killed in the market as an example. She wants Caleb to come with her but he says he has to save his friends. She’s shocked to hear they are Federation. Caleb holds up his com badge and starts shouting that someone sold it to him in the alley. Meanwhile the badge is transmitting the signal to the Athena so it is able to lock on for transport. Suddenly one of the Vanari Ral agents recognizes Anisha and so Anisha opens fire. Caleb starts fighting too but his friends are tied up and can’t fight. It turns out that there are blocks to stop orbital transport so the Athena has to fly down to the planet. Anisha gets shot by a phaser. Athena descends and beams the cadets and Anisha aboard. Athena goes to warp with three Vanari Ral ships in pursuit. They use some kind of charge that knocks Athena out of warp and then hook them with tractor beams. Since all the crew is in the saucer section, Nahla orders the saucer to separate from the rest of the ship. They go into warp and escape but can’t get back to Federation space because Omega 47 mines have been planted along the entire border. Each one emits an energy field that if touched would set the bombs off.
The Doctor saves Anisha but when she wakes up she realizes she’s on a Federation starship and is terrified. Then she is pushed further into fear when she is greeted by Nahla, who separated her from her son fifteen years ago.
Anisha is played by Canadian actor Tatiana Maslany, who was in French immersion in elementary school. She started studying dance at age 4 and community theatre and musicals from the age of 9. She did comedic improv for ten years and participated in the Canadian Improv Games. Her TV debut was on Incredible Story Studios. She starred in Orphan Black, playing multiple clones with different personalities from 2013 to 2017 for which she won an Emmy Award and five Canadian Screen Awards. She co-starred in the TV series 2030 CE, The Nativity, Perry Mason, She starred in the series She Hulk: Attorney at Law. She starred in the films The Other Half (winning a Canadian Screen Award), Picture Day, Pink Wall, Two Lovers and a Bear, and Keeper. She co-starred in Ginger Snaps 2, Cass and Dylan, Grown Up Movie Star, Woman in Gold, Destroyer, Stronger, She hosted the 39th season finale of Saturday Night Live. She’s a member of General Fools Improvisational Theatre and is a certified Improvisational trainer.
