Elena Juatco

            On Sunday morning I sang along with two versions of “S'il pleauvait des larmes” (If it Would Rain Tears) by Boris Vian. Then I memorized the first verse. 

            I worked out the chords for the first two verses of “Des Ils et des Elles” (Of Hes and of Shes) by Serge Gainsbourg. That’s pretty much half the song. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions. 

            I weighed 87.75 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since June 9. 

            I moved more photos from my main hard drive to the Samsung SSD. I created folders for them as I went along, trying hard to figure out how to categorize some of them. 

            I weighed 88.75 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of low sugar lemon iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 87.75 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:42. 

            I took my Martin acoustic guitar, my camera and my tripod out on the street to make a video of myself playing my song “The Next State of Grace”. I went across the street and set up the tripod at the east side of the front of the Dollarama under the canopy. I positioned the camera so it pointed northeast and so with me facing southwest I caught the late afternoon sun on my face while I sang. I haven’t played “The Next State of Grace” for years and so I fumbled a bit. I ran through the song three times and then packed up and went home. Tomorrow I’ll watch the video. 

            I weighed myself again at 18:23 and I was 88.2 kilos. That’s a half a kilo gain in an hour and a half even though the only weight I added was from drinking a glass of water. Obviously my digital scale fluctuates somewhat between weighings even though if I do multiple weighings in different positions at a given time the weight is always the same. 

            I uploaded the video of my electric performance of “Mamadou” to YouTube. Then I opened the Movie Maker project for my electric performance of “The Post Colonial Breakdown”. On the video timeline I cut out everything before the place where I want the video to begin. The audio is quite far behind the video and so next time I’ll get it synched with the video or close. 

            The MP3 file of Christian and the Lions performing at Fat Albert’s that Audacity couldn’t read yesterday even though it had read it before was successfully converted last night to WAV. The WAV file loaded into Audacity and I cut out everything but the two songs that I performed on June 22, 1994. Then I increased the overall volume and extracted the file. I tried to upload the audio to my blog post for that date but there’s no direct way to upload audio files onto blogger. It has to be done in the HTML and I don’t have the time to figure out how. I uploaded the file to Google Drive and followed instructions to copy the link and embed it but that involved manipulating the HTML as well. I decided that the easiest solution would be to load the file into Movie Maker and then just add two photographs to the video timeline and copy and paste over and over. I still need to do it for the second song. Blogger allows the uploading of videos directly from one’s computer and it should do the same for audio. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sourdough bread with Basilica sauce, two sliced chicken kebabs, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 5, episode 8 of Star Trek: Discovery. 

            Discovery arrives on the edge of the plasma storm called The Badlands that currently houses the Eternal Archive and Gallery. They are welcomed by a hologram of Archivist Hy’Rell. Discovery makes it through the plasma storm with some difficulty. The library’s scans detect a Quajon aboard and Hy’Rell asks that Book also beam down because they have a Quajon artifact they hope he will provide information about. Hy’rell leads Burnham to a reading room where the manuscript Labyrinth of the Mind is waiting for her. She opens it and finds in the middle at the centre of one of the pages a triangular button which she pushes. She is found unconscious by Book and Hy’Rell and can’t be revived. Burnham wakes up in a dreamlike space identical to the library but with someone who looks like Book acting as her guide. He tells her that her consciousness has been transported into a mindscape. A virtual space created from what her neural activity indicates to be the most important place in her life. He is a program that Dr. Derrex created and his appearance was generated from her subconscious. He warns her that if she is still in the mindscape when it shuts down she will die. She searches history books but finds nothing. It occurs to her that the library is in itself a labyrinth and she concludes that if she finds her way out she will find the clue. She navigates the maze but ends up where she started. The lights in the mindscape are getting dimmer. She begins to self analyze about her own identity crisis, her need to prove that she deserves what she has achieved, and her fear of failure. It makes her feel small, weak and ashamed. So this test was all about her ability to self reflect and she passed. That is such a weak solution! He tells her the clue is inside a crystal in viewing room 7. 

            In the real world Dr. Culber examines Burnham’s body and says that a nucleonic emitter is attached to her frontal lobe and running a program. Hy’Rell announces that a Breen ship has arrived at the library beacon. Hy’Rell appears before Primeach Rhul and he tells her to give him what he’s come for or he will destroy the library. She reminds him that there are several priceless Breen artifacts in the archive as well but he doesn’t care. There is mumbling amongst his soldiers in reaction to this. The Breen use shield tunneling technology to try to get their men inside. With Reno’s help Stamets and Adira figure out how to hack the Breen drill and temporarily stop it from working but before that some of the Breen got through. Book is wounded in a fire fight. 

            Burnham wakes up and they go to get the clue. They transport back to Discovery just as the Breen break through and fire. Rhul says if Discovery doesn’t hand over the clue he’ll destroy the archive. She says she’ll give him the clues if he swears a Terrgoon that he won’t destroy the archive. He agrees. Burnham has the map completed so they know where the Progenitors’ technology is and then she sends the map to Rhul. He then fires on Discovery. They jump away but create the illusion that their ship has been destroyed. With both sides in possession of the map all that Discovery has is a head start. Rhul orders the archive destroyed anyway. Mol confronts him about breaking his word and she has the sympathy of the soldiers. She disarms Rhul and kills him. The other soldiers rally around her with the goal of bringing La’k back to life with the Progenitors’ technology. 

            The Breen are the most boring race in Star Trek because they all look alike with nothing but helmets and tight suits. We can’t see their facial expressions and personalities. And then there’s the disappointing story with more therapy sessions like in past episodes and less quirky adventures.

            Hy’Rell was played by Canadian actor Elena Juatco, who at the age of 18 was a top six finalist on Canadian Idol. She played Dr. Scarlet McWhinnie in Open Heart. She released an album called Beyond This Line.