Melissa Navia

            One Thursday morning I worked out the chords for the fourth verse of "Être ou ne pas naître" (To Be or Not to Be) by Serge Gainsbourg. All that's left are the instrumentals and a repeat of the first verse. 

            I audio and video recorded my song practice while playing the Kramer electric guitar. I kept it at fairly low volume since Cesar told me I was disturbing him, although he didn't specifically say it was my song practices that bothered him. He may have been referring to how loud I played the songs I listen to during the day before Benji attacked me over it. Anyway I felt like I was holding back too much this morning. Some of the songs sounded okay on the playback anyway. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I've been in the morning in seventeen days. 

            Around midday I filled out my application for the winter term Noah Meltz Grant to pay for what will probably be my final course before I graduate. I had a few free minutes before lunch to continue writing my Statement of Purpose, which will accompany my application for the Master of Arts program in Creative Writing. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. That's the most I've weighed at midday in ten days. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on my way back. There were no cherries and the grapes were all too soft and so I bought a basket of peaches, and a basket of nectarines. I also got two packs of blackberries, a pack of blueberries, two packs of five-year-old cheddar, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, Miss Vickie's chips, a box of baking soda, a small jug of vinegar, and a bottle of shampoo-conditioner for dandruff. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:25. 

            I reviewed this morning's song practice video. There was a lot of fumbling of French words that I don't usually have a problem with. 

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video of my song "Sleep in the Snow" I inserted the clip of Marlene Dietrich into the main video to fit with my line, " I guess I'm just too lazy". After that I cut out that line from the concert video to synchronize the part of it when I sing, "Don't it make you wanna go to sleep in the snow?" with the studio audio. I got "Don't it make you wanna" lined up but then it was slightly behind for the last part. I needed to edit part of it out and it seemed the only logical part to eliminate would be a tiny part of the "wa" from "wanna". I looked at where my mouth was open widest and cut a small bit of it out. That helped but I might need to take out some more. I'll look again next time. 

            I scanned some black and white negatives from maybe early 1987 that had pictures of my ex-girlfriend Brenda posing for me, my friend Tom Smarda busking, and some street shots. I scanned a set of colour negs from September of 1991 that shows my four month old daughter Astrid breast feeding. This set also has shots of Tom busking. 

            I had a potato with gravy and three pork ribs while watching season 2, episode 4 of Star Trek Strange New Worlds. 

            In this story the Enterprise has to return to Rigel 7 because its previous landing party five years before had corrupted the Bronze Age culture with Star Fleet technology. Their mission is to correct this problem. They can see from the ship that there is now a facility on the planet that is using Star Fleet technology and symbols. Pike, La'an and Mbenga beam down with no tech and they make their way towards the facility but La'an begins to experience memory loss. They have with them a telescope that matches the planet's level of development and when they get close to the fortress they see that the guards have phaser rifles. They are arrested by guards that say they know they come from Starfleet. Inside the castle they meet former Enterprise Yeoman Zac Nguyen who was part of the previous away mission but Pike had thought he'd died in the attack. Zac has made use of Starfleet technology to become the ruler of Rigel 7. He is angry at Pike because he feels he was abandoned. The three are placed in a cage outside the castle and by morning they don't remember who they are. They are put to work under the supervision of Luq who tries to teach them to live in the moment and not worry about a past they can't remember. They overcome their guards but in the fight La'an is severely wounded. Mebenga has a feeling that he can help her if he gets his memory back. Luq says that their memories are kept in a chest in the castle and so they head back there to save La'an. Meanwhile on the Enterprise the entire crew of the ship is experiencing the same memory loss until Ortegas forgets she is the pilot. The ship is in an asteroid field being pelted by the rocks because there is no one to guide the ship through it. With the help of the computer Ortegas learns who she is and realizes that she can instinctively fly the ship without consciously knowing how and she steers the Enterprise out of the debris. She steers the ship free of the asteroids and their radiation. Pike and Mgenga take out the castle guards but Mbenga is wounded. Pike goes inside, confronts and beats Zac to make him say where the box is. Despite being severely beaten Zac thinks it's hilarious that Pike thinks there's a box of memories. He explains that it is radiation from a long ago crashed asteroid that causes the memory loss. The castle is made of materials that shield those inside from the radiation and the memory loss. Pike gets his memory back and brings La'an and Mbenga inside. La'an is saved. 

            This was a very good episode. 

            Erica Ortegas is played by Melissa Navia, who starred in the movie Love Eterne. She won the award for best actress at the 2013 Wild Rose Independent Film Festival for her performance in The Paragon Cortex. She had recurring roles in the TV series Common Charges and Dietland. It is hinted that her character of Ortegas on Star Trek is gay and she looks like a lesbian but apparently she isn't. 

            

            After dinner I noticed that my front tooth filling is chipped off in the corner, probably from gnawing on pork ribs.