for every up
there is a down!
(This post is now late cos blogger would not post anything last night)
Yesterday was a very interesting day. My appraisal at work went not as well as I had hoped, cos I forgot that it was about the past and not the future. So no rise and really I have been underperforming cos I have not ensured I have the right end of the stick and I've just not been seeing the right things to do. Of course I have not been receiving feedback along the way, just at every six month period.
Oh well. I now know some of the things I need to do to start making things better.
So I worked on the sock for a while this evening and also got some more gardening done. I am almost ready to turn the heel on the sock and pick up the instep stitches. Things were levelling out after work excitement. We bought a new electric kettle cos the "old" one (all of hmm three years old?) suddenly died - the water level metre thing on the side fell out, which meant there was a hole in my bucket (jug), dear Liza a hole. It couldn't even hold enough water for a cup of tea!
Then a friend told me that my favourite actor in B5 had died of lung cancer. More info here. Andreas Katsulas was well known for his heavy smoking habit and it got him. No more G'Kar. Woe! Dismay! I'll have to go watch a whole heap of special G'Kar moments and sniffle over someone I never knew. It is funny how this sort of thing affects you - I remember when Bing (Crosby) died and Mum was really upset. The man she would've run off with at a wink of an eye was gone! I don't think I could've tolerated Andreas' smoking (it would make me very very sick) but the thought of no more G'Kar is very sad.
You might want to go away now cos I am going to sit and remember some of my favourite G'Kar quotes:
"No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power tyrants and dictators cannot stand. The Centauri learned that lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Although it take a thousand years, we will be free." (and unless you have heard this speech, you cannot imagine the power Andreas gave to it through the mask)
"I was ready. I had prepared myself. I had made my peace with the universe, put all my affairs in order. I had the dagger in my hand! And he has the indecency to start dying on his own. Never in my life have I seen a worse case of timing. Well, you'd think he could've waited a few more minutes before..."
"There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."
"In the past we had little to do with other races. Evolution teaches us that we must fight that which is different in order secure land, food, and mates for ourselves, but we must reach a point when the nobility of intellect asserts itself and says: No. We need not be afraid of those we are different, we can embrace that difference and learn from it."
"The Universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice. The language is not Narn, or Human, or Centauri, or Gaim or Minbari. It speaks in the language of hope; It speaks in the language of trust; It speaks in the language of strength, and the language of compassion. It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul. But always, it is the same voice. It is the voice of our ancestors, speaking through us, And the voice of our inheritors, waiting to be born. It is the small, still voice that says: We are one. No matter the blood; No matter the skin; No matter the world; No matter the star; We are one. No matter the pain; No matter the darkness; No matter the loss; No matter the fear; We are one. Here, gathered together in common cause. we agree to recognise this singular truth, and this singular rule: That we must be kind to one another, because each voice enriches us and ennobles us, and each voice lost diminishes us. We are the voice of the Universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light the way to a better future. We are one."
(The Declaration of Principles, written by G'Kar)
And most appropriate:
"I believe that when we leave a place a part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Go anywhere in these halls, when it is quiet and just listen. After a while you will hear the echoes of all of our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. But I will admit that the part of me that going will very much miss the part of you that is staying."
A whole bunch of us will miss you too, Andreas - there can never be G'Kar now. RIP.
(BTW B5, all images, characters, etc are copyright Warner Bros. Gotta put that in just in case...)
anon!
(This post is now late cos blogger would not post anything last night)
Yesterday was a very interesting day. My appraisal at work went not as well as I had hoped, cos I forgot that it was about the past and not the future. So no rise and really I have been underperforming cos I have not ensured I have the right end of the stick and I've just not been seeing the right things to do. Of course I have not been receiving feedback along the way, just at every six month period.
Oh well. I now know some of the things I need to do to start making things better.
So I worked on the sock for a while this evening and also got some more gardening done. I am almost ready to turn the heel on the sock and pick up the instep stitches. Things were levelling out after work excitement. We bought a new electric kettle cos the "old" one (all of hmm three years old?) suddenly died - the water level metre thing on the side fell out, which meant there was a hole in my bucket (jug), dear Liza a hole. It couldn't even hold enough water for a cup of tea!
Then a friend told me that my favourite actor in B5 had died of lung cancer. More info here. Andreas Katsulas was well known for his heavy smoking habit and it got him. No more G'Kar. Woe! Dismay! I'll have to go watch a whole heap of special G'Kar moments and sniffle over someone I never knew. It is funny how this sort of thing affects you - I remember when Bing (Crosby) died and Mum was really upset. The man she would've run off with at a wink of an eye was gone! I don't think I could've tolerated Andreas' smoking (it would make me very very sick) but the thought of no more G'Kar is very sad.
You might want to go away now cos I am going to sit and remember some of my favourite G'Kar quotes:
"No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power tyrants and dictators cannot stand. The Centauri learned that lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Although it take a thousand years, we will be free." (and unless you have heard this speech, you cannot imagine the power Andreas gave to it through the mask)
"I was ready. I had prepared myself. I had made my peace with the universe, put all my affairs in order. I had the dagger in my hand! And he has the indecency to start dying on his own. Never in my life have I seen a worse case of timing. Well, you'd think he could've waited a few more minutes before..."
"There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."
"In the past we had little to do with other races. Evolution teaches us that we must fight that which is different in order secure land, food, and mates for ourselves, but we must reach a point when the nobility of intellect asserts itself and says: No. We need not be afraid of those we are different, we can embrace that difference and learn from it."
"The Universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice. The language is not Narn, or Human, or Centauri, or Gaim or Minbari. It speaks in the language of hope; It speaks in the language of trust; It speaks in the language of strength, and the language of compassion. It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul. But always, it is the same voice. It is the voice of our ancestors, speaking through us, And the voice of our inheritors, waiting to be born. It is the small, still voice that says: We are one. No matter the blood; No matter the skin; No matter the world; No matter the star; We are one. No matter the pain; No matter the darkness; No matter the loss; No matter the fear; We are one. Here, gathered together in common cause. we agree to recognise this singular truth, and this singular rule: That we must be kind to one another, because each voice enriches us and ennobles us, and each voice lost diminishes us. We are the voice of the Universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light the way to a better future. We are one."
(The Declaration of Principles, written by G'Kar)
And most appropriate:
"I believe that when we leave a place a part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Go anywhere in these halls, when it is quiet and just listen. After a while you will hear the echoes of all of our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. But I will admit that the part of me that going will very much miss the part of you that is staying."
A whole bunch of us will miss you too, Andreas - there can never be G'Kar now. RIP.
(BTW B5, all images, characters, etc are copyright Warner Bros. Gotta put that in just in case...)
anon!
Heard about Andras tonight - very sad day. Love the G'Kar quotes you have posted. I can hear him speaking them with all the inflections and the power of meaning he put into them. Sigh, need to watch some B5 I think. Too sad that yet another of the B5 family has been taken.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what to make of it but the verification text below reads "i hope" ......