fredericks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fredericks) wrote2006-08-05 06:42 pm
fredericks) wrote2006-08-05 06:42 pm
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I think it's been a stressful week for me. The reason I'm not certain about that at the moment is because I just spent the last three hours reading a book while lying in bed without sweating off ten pounds of water weight and currently some soothing Elton John (ha) is playing on the stereo. If my eyes didn't feel slightly dry and burnt out I'd think all is right with the world.
A mini-recap of my week:
Monday I had my Med-Surg/Leadership final. Not pleasant. I had a five hour gap until the subsequent class so I decided to head up to Union Square to catch a movie, the Greg Kinnear and Steve Carrell flick "Little Miss Sunshine". I didn't know what to expect going in. I was thinking something with a touch of the artsy-fartsy, because I remember hearing the movie was a Sundance favorite. I figured the Kinnear/Carrell tag-team would balance out the fart quite nicely. Lucky for me there wasn't any pretension to be found, although there was a bit of the obvious plot twist. Road trip movies being blatant metaphors for life once I saw the group I knew someone was going to kick the bucket. I put my money on the grandpa and I was completely on-the-money. Before we were subjected to his death, however, Alan Arkin's character had me cracking up. It was sweet to have an older character who wasn't a complete asshole. His relationship with Olive was wonderfully refreshing. I lost my way with his death. I liked the way they kept some levity in and avoided completely changing the mood of the film during the hospital scene but I got lost in the absurdity ("by the absurdity" might be better there) once they decided to take his body back to the van. Even now my reaction to that is hard to gauge. Wasn't too fond of the sequence.
Then there was the son who wanted to be a pilot. Another bit of obviousness when his dreams were shown to be beyond his reach (although they do eye testing on kids all the time now; you mean to tell me he had no idea he was color-blind? he was so gung-ho about enrolling, with the crazy-ass workout regime, you'd think he would have asked for a full physical just to make sure, right? but I'm nitpicking) and he had to learn how to accept and move on (the journey stops for no man, cue the anvils...but the anvils came with Kinnear and Carrell so I was cool).
I'd heard that Olive's talent scene was supposed to be really funny but, honestly, I found it disappointing. And a little disturbing. She was stripping and shaking her ass to Rick James! Come on, peoples. It was funny for ten seconds, but the scene stretched out for something like ten minutes, with the entire family going up on the stage and yeah, I wasn't amused. I smiled but not with the "ha ha funny".
All that being said I really DID enjoy the movie. There were moments in it that touched me deeply. The main moment I recall was the ice cream scene, where Olive orders apple pie "a la mode-y" and her dad tells in his way that she should avoid getting any plumper and "beauty queens don't eat ice cream". I sat in the theatre and flashed back to all the time my folks spent harping on my weight when I was younger and how that has played a great part in me being rather fucked up emotionally and just cringed. Then the family rallied around Olive, with grandpa leading the way with eating the ice cream when it came to the table, assuring Olive that people do eat ice cream and trying their damnest to not make her feel ashamed for liking it. I'm not doing the scene justice and I suppose you'd have to have been subjected to something along those lines to understand how much you'd long for your family to rally about you like that but...man I was *this close* to being a sobbing mess. The coda, with the Miss American contestant telling Olive near the end of the movie that ice cream was her favorite food, wasn't even necessary from my point of view but it was a nice call-back.
Aside from poignant moments like the one mentioned above the movie looked beautiful, all bright colors and crisp landscapes. And the little jokes were hilarious. Steve Carrell's character starts off a bit serious but the comedian gets a chance to shine through, particularly when he's playing off of Alan Arkin. And "sweet sweetness"...bwah! Great stuff. Not something I'd see again in theatres, but I'm definitely buying the DVD when it comes out.
Tuesday is a complete blur. I think I'd have to look through my school notes to see what I was up to, but I'm actually drawing a blank. Odd.
Wednesday morning/afternoon I had community rotation which, as always, was cool beans. Later that evening came An Evening With Harry, Carrie and Garp at Radio City. I met up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sternel for dinner at Heartland Brewery beforehand where my drug-required sobriety made the "brewery" part moot. The root beer *was* kick ass, as she'd had promised beforehand, and during dinner she let me bug her for fandom wankery information (it still boggles my mind). Walking into the venue we ran into laughingirl, and all was good. You can check out her entry for more details about the event because her recall is much better than my own and I'm lazy. Bits and pieces that I thought noteworthy:
Thursday I had med-surg clinical. I'm not fond of the instructor and I more or less *had* to be on the floor, so I wasn't looking forward to it. It didn't turn out too badly overall although I had my frazzled moments. I cannot wait for the last week. When I came in I stayed up more or less all night trying futilely to do a simple posting for one of my classes. My inability to concentrate on my schoolwork is becoming very troublesome. Well, less troublesome as I get closer to the end, but still! I have to be able to complete the work *to* graduate, don't I?
Friday was a trip to school to work on a project with a classmate, then later in the evening a trip to the movies to see "Pirates". FINALLY. We were expecting the theatre to be empty as it had come out four weeks ago but nope. Jam packed. We were lucky to find seats together. I liked it, although I did find it a little long. The wheel sequence was great. I can't wait until the next one comes out.
Today (Saturday) I went out and did my CPR re-certification (I can save lives for two more years, people!) and then came home to devour some Kirith Kirin. Oh yes, and this must be posted for posterity - my dad actually initiated a visit to church, on a SATURDAY no less. It's one of The Signs, I'm frakkin' sure of it.
Now I'm wrapping this up because my eyes are going from slightly burnt out and tired to painful. Guess that means I need to put the book aside. Damn it.
ETA - Whose Voodoo is up, if you haven't voted already. Because winners vote, and losers vote too but y'all aren't losers.
A mini-recap of my week:
Monday I had my Med-Surg/Leadership final. Not pleasant. I had a five hour gap until the subsequent class so I decided to head up to Union Square to catch a movie, the Greg Kinnear and Steve Carrell flick "Little Miss Sunshine". I didn't know what to expect going in. I was thinking something with a touch of the artsy-fartsy, because I remember hearing the movie was a Sundance favorite. I figured the Kinnear/Carrell tag-team would balance out the fart quite nicely. Lucky for me there wasn't any pretension to be found, although there was a bit of the obvious plot twist. Road trip movies being blatant metaphors for life once I saw the group I knew someone was going to kick the bucket. I put my money on the grandpa and I was completely on-the-money. Before we were subjected to his death, however, Alan Arkin's character had me cracking up. It was sweet to have an older character who wasn't a complete asshole. His relationship with Olive was wonderfully refreshing. I lost my way with his death. I liked the way they kept some levity in and avoided completely changing the mood of the film during the hospital scene but I got lost in the absurdity ("by the absurdity" might be better there) once they decided to take his body back to the van. Even now my reaction to that is hard to gauge. Wasn't too fond of the sequence.
Then there was the son who wanted to be a pilot. Another bit of obviousness when his dreams were shown to be beyond his reach (although they do eye testing on kids all the time now; you mean to tell me he had no idea he was color-blind? he was so gung-ho about enrolling, with the crazy-ass workout regime, you'd think he would have asked for a full physical just to make sure, right? but I'm nitpicking) and he had to learn how to accept and move on (the journey stops for no man, cue the anvils...but the anvils came with Kinnear and Carrell so I was cool).
I'd heard that Olive's talent scene was supposed to be really funny but, honestly, I found it disappointing. And a little disturbing. She was stripping and shaking her ass to Rick James! Come on, peoples. It was funny for ten seconds, but the scene stretched out for something like ten minutes, with the entire family going up on the stage and yeah, I wasn't amused. I smiled but not with the "ha ha funny".
All that being said I really DID enjoy the movie. There were moments in it that touched me deeply. The main moment I recall was the ice cream scene, where Olive orders apple pie "a la mode-y" and her dad tells in his way that she should avoid getting any plumper and "beauty queens don't eat ice cream". I sat in the theatre and flashed back to all the time my folks spent harping on my weight when I was younger and how that has played a great part in me being rather fucked up emotionally and just cringed. Then the family rallied around Olive, with grandpa leading the way with eating the ice cream when it came to the table, assuring Olive that people do eat ice cream and trying their damnest to not make her feel ashamed for liking it. I'm not doing the scene justice and I suppose you'd have to have been subjected to something along those lines to understand how much you'd long for your family to rally about you like that but...man I was *this close* to being a sobbing mess. The coda, with the Miss American contestant telling Olive near the end of the movie that ice cream was her favorite food, wasn't even necessary from my point of view but it was a nice call-back.
Aside from poignant moments like the one mentioned above the movie looked beautiful, all bright colors and crisp landscapes. And the little jokes were hilarious. Steve Carrell's character starts off a bit serious but the comedian gets a chance to shine through, particularly when he's playing off of Alan Arkin. And "sweet sweetness"...bwah! Great stuff. Not something I'd see again in theatres, but I'm definitely buying the DVD when it comes out.
Tuesday is a complete blur. I think I'd have to look through my school notes to see what I was up to, but I'm actually drawing a blank. Odd.
Wednesday morning/afternoon I had community rotation which, as always, was cool beans. Later that evening came An Evening With Harry, Carrie and Garp at Radio City. I met up with
sternel for dinner at Heartland Brewery beforehand where my drug-required sobriety made the "brewery" part moot. The root beer *was* kick ass, as she'd had promised beforehand, and during dinner she let me bug her for fandom wankery information (it still boggles my mind). Walking into the venue we ran into laughingirl, and all was good. You can check out her entry for more details about the event because her recall is much better than my own and I'm lazy. Bits and pieces that I thought noteworthy: - Stephen King is AWESOME. Just a funny, humble, all-around cool guy. I admire how he would occasionally make reference to the works of the other featured authors. And he read "Lard-ass's Revenge" to us(!). I don't think I'll get tired of it, and it gained a lot from being read aloud. Sick, twisted, yet a riot. You couldn't help but laugh, judging from the audience reaction.
- I'd only read one work by Irving, The Cider House Rules. Now I have to go pick up A Prayer for Owen Meaney; he read an excerpt from it to us. His reading topped King's if only because he managed to do voices rather effectively. Owen's voice had the entire crowd laughing. His prose was lovely.
- Rowlings came across as friendly but nervous (unnerved?), and her reading was the weakest of the three by far. Her delivery left something to be desired, particularly after we'd been spoiled by Irving's. I'd gone in hoping she'd read something from book seven but no; she read the bit from book six where Dumbledore tells the young Tom Riddle about Hogwarts. Most all of her answers to the questions posed to her were brought back to book seven in some way. I found myself wishing she responded in a more *personal* way, if only to break the monotony, as not all the questions where along the lines of "what happens to X" or "what'll happen regarding Y". Maybe she could have talked about the craft of writing? Yes, I expected too much.
- Apparently Dumbledore is really dead. Like, doorknob. She said it more than once.
- People like Snape. Or Alan Rickman (me!). We were shown a little video montage of Potter stuff as Rowling's introduction and when Snape was shown there was a bit of applause and cheering from the crowd. From Rowling's reaction, though ("you guys never give up hope, do you?"), I get the sinking sensation that Snape is indeed going to be evil to the bone to the very end.
Thursday I had med-surg clinical. I'm not fond of the instructor and I more or less *had* to be on the floor, so I wasn't looking forward to it. It didn't turn out too badly overall although I had my frazzled moments. I cannot wait for the last week. When I came in I stayed up more or less all night trying futilely to do a simple posting for one of my classes. My inability to concentrate on my schoolwork is becoming very troublesome. Well, less troublesome as I get closer to the end, but still! I have to be able to complete the work *to* graduate, don't I?
Friday was a trip to school to work on a project with a classmate, then later in the evening a trip to the movies to see "Pirates". FINALLY. We were expecting the theatre to be empty as it had come out four weeks ago but nope. Jam packed. We were lucky to find seats together. I liked it, although I did find it a little long. The wheel sequence was great. I can't wait until the next one comes out.
Today (Saturday) I went out and did my CPR re-certification (I can save lives for two more years, people!) and then came home to devour some Kirith Kirin. Oh yes, and this must be posted for posterity - my dad actually initiated a visit to church, on a SATURDAY no less. It's one of The Signs, I'm frakkin' sure of it.
Now I'm wrapping this up because my eyes are going from slightly burnt out and tired to painful. Guess that means I need to put the book aside. Damn it.
ETA - Whose Voodoo is up, if you haven't voted already. Because winners vote, and losers vote too but y'all aren't losers.
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