Bella Shepard

            On Monday morning I revised my translation of the first three verses of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            In my Christian’s Translations blog I was almost finished preparing “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg and my translation for publication. I should be done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 88.7 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since March 7. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune during all but one song. That one song is usually “Le déserteur” or my translation “The Deserter”. It’s weird because I can play that song for three minutes and still have my guitar in tune but if I set my guitar down for a minute it will go out of tune by itself. 

            I deleted several images from my hard drive. 

            I weighed 89.35 kilos before lunch. That’s the same as the early afternoon of March 8.

            I took a siesta at 14:30 and planned to sleep for my usual 90 minutes but I was out for an extra half an hour. By the time I was ready to take a bike ride it was too late to ride all the way downtown. Besides I had to get my back brake looked at so I went to Metro Cycles. Gordon said my cable barrel on the right brake grip needed to be adjusted and he screwed it back in. I rode to Ossington and Bloor, went south to Queen and then west to home. 

            I weighed 88.85 kilos at 17:50. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:41. 

            I worked on recording from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity an acapella performance of two of my poems at Fat Albert’s but the digitization was distorted. I restarted my computer and tried again but it still didn’t sound good. I tried putting a microphone to the speaker but it still sounded bad. I restarted again, turned up the volume and turned down the bass. The result was almost tolerable but I decided to try again with a direct line to the interface from the tape player. I started getting a clean sound but the volume kept fluctuating drastically. I tried adjusting the volume in Audacity and it sort of worked except in cases where the volume jumped drastically during the recording. I’m going to try it again tomorrow. 

            I grilled two racks of pork ribs and had three with a potato and margarine while watching episode 3 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. It’s nice to be eating meat again. 

            As the Academy begins its first semester in 100 years the War College Cadets with whom the Starfleet Cadets share a campus begin to instigate a rivalry. They consider the Starfleet Cadets to be soft and undisciplined. The cadets are dressing after gym class when one by one they begin to disappear. They rematerialize half dressed at various parts of the Academy. Then the War Cadets hack the video screens of the public address system to reveal to the Starfleet Cadets that they did this and will keep doing it. 

            Thok tells Chancellor Nahla Ake that she needs to demand an apology from Kelrec who runs the War College. Nahla thinks that cadets need to resolve their own problems and she thinks the rivalry is fun. 

            Nahla introduces her cadets to the Vitus Reflux empathy plant. She wants them to grow them so they can learn patience and empathy. The plants reflect back one’s emotions and kind of talk in a squeaky voice. She also quotes The Art of War that they should respect their enemy. 

            Thok instructs them in the game of Calica which is sort of like laser tag on steroids. It prepares the cadets for real combat. Each team has a mascot that defends the goal. The top 8 scorers make the team. They are attacked by drones and have to get through to ring a bell. The phaser used in the game has a transport setting that teleports the player out of the game for one round. Caleb is disqualified for actually jumping, grabbing and smashing a drone. 

            Later Caleb finds Tarima playing basketball alone and goes to talk. She joined the War College instead of the Academy. He tells her she didn’t have to join the wrong school to avoid him when she could have joined the Academy and avoided him there. He calls the War College the Asshole Factory. He confronts her with avoiding him after it was clear there was energy between them. She looks upset and her empathic inhibiter turns red. 

            Tarima’s brother Ocam doesn’t make the Calica team but he fits the mascot costume. Genesis and Darem are tied for top scores and so they have to do a side by side shoot off to determine which of them will be captain. But Darem says something about Genesis’s insecurities relating to her admiral father and it distracts her enough for him to win. 

            The War College cadets again hack the big video screens and broadcast all of the moments when the Starfleet Cadets fumbled during the Calica game. 

            Nahla confronts Kelrec because she knows only he could have given his cadets access to the footage of the Calica game. She says the competition between the two schools should be a level playing field not assisted by staff. 

            Darem challenges the War Cadets to a game of Calica. But Darem just wants to meet the War Cadets on their own level and in a fight of simple force and skill the War Cadets are superior. In mid game, Genesis rebels against Darem’s leadership, rallies the other players, and starts to apply strategy. She takes out the replicators and it creates a fog they can use for cover. The War cadets begin firing at the academy mascot but it’s really Sam using her photonic abilities to disguise herself as the mascot. The Academy cadets under Genesis win the round but Darem feels humiliated. 

            They are caught by Thok for breaking the rules by having this fight. They are brought to Nahla’s quarters where she confronts them about failing to use the strategies of patience and empathy. She shouts for them to “Grow!” and says something about tailoring an eyeball. 

            We learn that Reno is in a relationship with Thok and that Thok likes Klingon-French fusion cuisine. 

            They replicate the War Cadet mascot costume and Caleb has to wear it to infiltrate their college undetected. Darem admits that Genesis is a better leader than he is and agrees to follow her. They need Kelrec’s DNA and so Darem approaches him and under the pretence of an apology for the illicit Calica game he pretends to give him a traditional Khionian apology by hugging him and holding his neck from which he painlessly removes some skin, which Kraag uses in the genetics lab to “tailor an eyeball” so they can use it to breach security at the War College. That’s what Caleb does in his mascot disguise but Tarima’s empathic abilities are able to recognize him and she confronts him. She also tells him that she chose the War College over the Academy because outside of Betazed her empathic feelings are out of control and she needs to learn discipline to control them. She kisses him and then pushes the alarm. 

            Sam delivers the Vitus Reflux spores under the doors of every dorm at the War College. At sunrise the War College cadets begin to scream as the Vitus Reflux plants grow to gigantic proportions and begin to snake through all of the dormitories. One War College cadet finds it all very amusing and he’s been smiling through the whole episode. Other than him the War College cadets are painted in two dimensions. 

            Kelrec admits defeat to Nahla and says says her cadets learned from the best. Nahla tells Caleb that the War College teaches fighting war while the Academy teaches how to end them. It turns out that Nahla was a legendary prankster when she was in the Academy and the War College’s prank with the transporters was a copy of the one she used when she transported the War College cadets to Alcatraz.

            Genesis is played by Bella Shepard, whose film debut was in Oz the Great and Powerful. She played Blake Navarro in the series Wolf Pack. She plays drums, ukelele, and guitar. She was co-star of the series Grace and Frankie. She co-starred in the series A Girl Named Jo.