On Fuller House

I used to be a huge Full House fan when the show ran on Zee in the 90s, so when they announced a revival last I was tremendously excited. The new season dropped on Netflix, so obviously I've spent the weekend watching all of it. And I have thoughts. Tiny little thoughts, which needed venting.

*insert mandatory spoiler alert here, for those who haven't watched it yet, and plan to*

• The show is bad. There is no other way to say it. I really, really wanted to like it, and it's not terrible. It's just... not great.
• It's like they had ideas for a number of scenes, and wanted to insert them in somehow, and wrote scripts that made sure these scenes were inserted in somehow. But the thread running through a lot of those scenes don't always make sense. 
• I was not a fan of the acting. The kids were cute, and the former kids were stilted (except Kimmy Gibbler who was pretty amazing, as always), and the former grown ups who flitted in and out were trying too hard.
• I don't know how much of the show would click with people who didn't watch the original show. There were so many inside jokes, not just about the characters in the past, but also about the cast, that I had to keep looking up to check if they were talking about what I thought they were talking about.
• I am so sick of the trope where a woman who is single and living the good life has to find out she can't have children. 
• I kinda saw DJ's choice in the finale coming a mile away. 
• Having said that, #teamsteve, always.

For nostalgia's sake, if they come out with subsequent seasons, I will probably continue to watch this show. But maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't?

And this makes me very, very nervous about the Gilmore Girls revival.

On sports I know nothing about, and employee morale

I'm the first to admit I know nothing about any sport that is not cricket - and there too, interest has dwindled over time. If it wasn't for Google Now's helpful alerts that we're losing another match to Australia or Sri Lanka, I wouldn't even know we're playing any more.


So usually, when I see any headlines or tweets that appear to be related to sports, I ignore them, apart from the occasional wondering which sport they're talking about. But there's one type of sports-related headline/tweet that tends to make me think a little more.


I saw a tweet just now that some team is open to trading one or more of its players - and I think the players were named, but I'm not sure. I also think the sport in question was basketball, but again, I'm not sure. Let's just say there a lot of words that I did not recognize in that tweet.


AnyWAY. The thing I always wonder is, what do announcements like this do for player morale? To have the world know the team you play for is willing to let you go so that it can find someone who might do better than you? I mean, I'm sure very often the players are willing to be traded as well, and I'm sure there's plenty of money involved to make them happy-ish about the trade, but... still. Doesn't it create some kind of awkwardness and/or tension among players?


Can you imagine this happening in any other type of job? To come into work and see a company-wide or department-wide email from your manager saying they're perfectly happy to be rid of you if another manager offers them someone better from their team in exchange? (This may or may not be something I have occasional nightmares about.) As someone who worked in HR in a previous lifetime, I'm not sure I would recommend this.


It just... makes me wonder. Y'know?

Of a slightly haphazard timeline

I pulled out a pair of trousers to wear to work this morning, and couldn't, because it's two sizes too big for me, and I don't have the right kind of belt to wear with it.


Two weeks ago, I wore a pair of green trousers I had bought on a whim three years ago, and not worn in two years, because it now fits.


Two weeks before that, I checked my weight in the morning, and saw that for the first time in more than almost three years, my weight was finally - finally - in the normal BMI range.


Over the past six months, I've lost more than twenty pounds - or ten kgs. I'm still at the edge of what would be a normal BMI range for me though, especially since I'm a short, short person. I have to lose another ten pounds, or just under 5 kgs, to be what is the ideal weight for me.


I wish I could tell you this is a story of great determination that they can make an Oscar-winning movie about. It's really not.


For years, the family's been trying to nudge me towards a more healthy lifestyle - be it in terms of what I eat, how active I am, or anything. I resisted all efforts, because pooh, your family will always think you're fat, especially since they're the kind of people who never put on weight no matter how much they eat, and think anyone who weighs more than them (which is 75% of the world) is overweight. And since most of my friends are the super supportive kind of people who always tell me I'm fine, obviously I chose to believe the folks who were saying what I wanted to hear.


Didn't really matter what my weighing scales, my clothes, or blood tests were saying.

A year ago, when the brother announced (formally) he was getting married, I vaguely promised myself I'd lose weight by the wedding. Ten months ago, when the wedding timeline moved up by a year or so, I thought of the promise and told myself I should do something about it. Seven months ago, when I went home and bought most of my outfits for the wedding in two days, I told our utterly unreliable darzi that he'd hopefully have to alter everything in two days when I came back for the wedding.

So when I came back to the US, I talked to a couple of friends, and we kinda sorta got going on getting me to lose weight. I started going for walks at lunch a couple of times a week. I didn't really change anything else in my life, but told myself this was a good first step.


Then, six months ago, I finally found a doctor to go to in the area, and get a routine checkup done. She asked me to get blood tests done, and when the results came back, I was told have diabetes. Borderline, but there it is.


The family reacted in fairly predictable ways: the father started looking up links and sending them to me as reading material, the mother wanted to know what she could do, and started forwarding whatsapp forwards on how to deal with diabetes that I would delete without reading (anything that comes via Whatsapp and is longer than my screen, I'm not reading), and the brother said, and I quote, "Oh? Well, maybe this will make you take your health more seriously." I could feel the love, you guys.


And it kinda, sorta did. A friend and I joined the gym at work. And when I say we joined a gym, I mean we'd go twice a week, I'd put on a show on Hulu on my tablet, and I'd walk on the treadmill for the 45 minutes it would take me to watch the show.


So between the walking at lunch, the walking on the treadmill, and the medication I was put on, I began to lose weight. A lot of it. And even when all this walking pretty much came to a stop three months ago because things got a little crazy all round, I still continued to lose something like half a pound a week because that medicine I'm on is a magical medicine.


As a result, when I showed up for the wedding six weeks ago, I was looking pretty awesome. And I did have to run around getting half my outfits altered. So I suppose you could say that I kept my promise to lose weight by the wedding.


Since coming back, I haven't gone for any walks, and I've been to the gym twice. My diet never really changed, and it continues to be the same. But I've still lost another two pounds, although it seems to be holding steady there. So if I want to lose those last ten pounds, effort will be required. And the diet definitely needs to be brought under control (Sidebar: Parents, I am eating fine, I just need to start measuring, don't start commenting or whatsapping me as soon as you read this. Shuye poro. End sidebar.).


I'm to see my doctor again next month, and get a blood test done too, so we'll see where we actually are healthwise. And weightwise, well, I guess I'll see where we are there as well.


(I just re-read this entire post, and this is the worst constructed timeline possible. Uff.)