Know the word for being home alone and getting drunk in your undies?

As has become a habit in the last four weeks, I would wake up at 2am, pass by my laptop, and delude myself into thinking, “It’s just going to be a minute. I’ll just check my Facebook.” Or “Let me just look if I have any new email.”

And, as has become habit, I would go to the news wires and find out what else is happening with the world. It usually is the Associated Press or Reuters. And then I see the news.

International news these days make you want to crawl under a rock and wait until rosier news comes along. I must be checking the wrong news sources because I am getting clobbered with bad news and worse news that no amount of weekend is lightening up.

How was I to know that the North Korean leader’s threat against Guam and President Trump’s response was just a faint whiff of what would later turn into an excruciating episode of the six o’clock news?

The peeing contest between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump last week was a painfully funny spectacle from the peanut gallery. But the appalling brutality in Charlottesville between neo-Nazis and white supremacists and counterdemonstrators was a cold dash of reality—a dreadful reminder that race relations in this country still has a long way to go, reminiscent of the violence so common in third-world countries instead of a first-world society. A woman was killed at that rally, and scores of others were injured, when a car plowed into the counterdemonstrators.

That was soon followed by news that terrorists have struck in Barcelona, Spain, which had just hosted the World Pride Madrid, with an Islamic extremist cell carrying out vehicle attacks in Barcelona and a seaside resort. A van plowed into a promenade packed with pedestrians in Barcelona, killing 13 and injuring 120.

Suspects in the Spain attack were still being hunted when news broke of a knife attack in western Finland that left two people dead and seven others wounded.

The political activist and revolutionary Thomas Paine said it best: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

The hum of human activity is such that it is probably a good thing that the world can turn a collective eye to the heavens today to witness what promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime event: a total solar eclipse. Yesterday’s AP reported that millions of Americans have converged on a narrow corridor stretching from Oregon to South Carolina to watch the moon blot out the sun for a couple of minutes in the first total solar eclipse to sweep coast to coast in 99 years. The moon hasn’t thrown this much shade at the U.S. since 1918. That was the country’s last coast-to-coast total eclipse.

I don’t really know what it all means but a pundit pointed out that Donald Trump hasn’t had a year yet on his post as president of the United States but the U.S. is already having a nuclear fight with North Korea, a slew of advisory councils have abandoned him or resigned en masse, a standoff between neo-Nazis and counterdemonstrators have resulted in a death of a woman, and then the sun will be blotted out for a couple of minutes. A sign of the times?

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It appears I owe Galvin an apology. Mount Carmel might not realize it but the guy, besides being busy in his role as president of the school, is also active with the school’s drama club, creates video productions on the side, functions as the school’s one-man corporate affairs office as the school’s press officer, and is busy with his continuing education pursuits. However, I have inadvertently forgotten Mount Carmel School despite it being deserving of much kudos.

In a previous column, I griped about the kind of PR our office gets and did cite a few examples of well-written materials. I forgot to mention the PRs we get from Mount Carmel, as well as the ones from the Office of Insular Affairs, The Compassionate Friends of Saipan, Saipan Cares for Animals, and a slew of others that are obviously well-written and do not make much demands on a copy-editor or proofreader.

Another time, I was griping (I seem to be doing that a lot, hmmmm) about the theater scene on island and I totally forgot to mention the plays that Mount Carmel School and its Drama Club have staged over the years. The club is one of the most active on the islands and deserves much commendation.

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And now, here are a few weird words to get us through the week:

pareidolia: A psychological phenomenon involving a stimulus (an image or a sound) wherein the mind perceives a familiar pattern of something where none exists. A common example is seeing an image of Jesus on a slice of tomato.

tsundoku. The condition of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them.

schadenfreude. The pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.

mudita. “Sympathetic joy” or “happiness in another’s good fortune” is cited as an example of the opposite of schadenfreude. Alternatively, envy, which is unhappiness in another’s good fortune, could be considered the counterpart of schadenfreude.

kalsarikännit. The “feeling when you are going to get drunk home alone in your underwear”—with no intention of going out.

No need to wonder. Kalsarikannit is my newest favorite word!