Autumn Burn's Journal

Halloween Party

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:16:10 GMT

When: Saturday, October 24th!
When, more specifically: 7 p.m., although early and late arrivals are welcome!
Theme: Magic!
Activities: Crafts, including mask-making and glass-painting, Horror role-playing games, snacking. There will be dry ice and lasers! Costumes are mandatory! If you don't come in costume, a costume will be appointed to you.

To RSVP or for directions, call Monica on her cell at (608) 669-1409.

New Employee Orientation

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:22:12 GMT

My new job as a Medical Assistant at the UW Transplant Clinic started today. Well, we had orientation today; the actual job training starts tomorrow. UWHC seems like a good employer, so I'm pretty happy. I know I'm going to get lost at the hospital, and I know I'm going to get confused with EPIC and be in way over my head for the first couple weeks, but I'm trying to be optimistic. New job! Nice benefits! Clinic next to the cafeteria!

Bee Pictures Again

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:13:23 GMT

Don't ask me why, but taking pictures of bees makes me insanely happy. My cats and living in Madison make me happy too, so there's a pic of Toby and the Madison capitol under the cut along with the bee pics.

In an unrelated note, why is the east side Half Priced Books so much better than the west side one? The west side location never has P.G. Wodehouse books or Beatles albums, whereas the east side location had a huge selection of both. As far as I can tell, the west side location is only superior in its comic book selection.

Missy's Coworkers are Odd.

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 07:12:26 GMT

Tomorrow Madeline and I fly back to Madison. Spring break - my last one, in all likelihood - went too quickly. Tonight Missy threw a party for her coworkers, so right now I'm sitting on the couch while my sisters and six guys play a drinking game.

We made some cheese and cracker platters, and Missy made us cosmos before the guests arrived.

We went to the Getty Center on Wednesday, and it was just as awesome as the Getty Villa. Seriously, Getty knows how to make a museum. I'll post pics soon.

Apparently They're Called Stereoscopes

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:01:32 GMT

Anyway, I'm having a good time with Missy and Madeline. We haven't killed each other yet, at any rate! I've got lots of pictures of the Getty Villa (my new favorite museum ever) and the botanical garden, which I'll post soon.

Who Watches?

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:43:31 GMT

School and work are combining to stress me out big time. I've found myself close to tears constantly the last few days. Ah well, spring break happens in a week - hopefully that will help.

I saw my third Jonathan Coulton concert last Thursday, and it was just as good as the first two. I think maybe I'll try to catch it every time it comes to Madison for the rest of my life. It is seriously good times. Sam and Anne came with, and we actually managed some conversation. Not much, but some! When we came outside everything was coated in an inch of ice. Roads were not fun, but I managed to drive Sam and myself home with a minimum of slip-and-slide action.

I finished reading Watchmen last night. Perfect timing, as the movie comes out today. I'm not sure if I'll try to see it tonight or wait a bit. On the one hand, a 3/6/9 movie ticket works as a 20% discount coupon at Westfield Comics. On the other hand, I'm tired and would like to go to bed early.

Dear goodness, I'm lame.

Anyway, I loved the book. I think I would have read it much earlier if I'd had a more accurate impression of the story. What I always heard was that it was a dark look at super heroes with lots of sex and violence. I found it instead to be character studies tied together with a psychological thriller plot line. And yes, it was quite violent, but there really wasn't a whole lot of sex. I'd definitely recommend it.

Birthday and Halloween, or Why I Like Autumn

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:28:39 GMT

I took a look at the tentative panel schedule up on the Geek Kon message board (I really think there ought to be a definite schedule up, but whatever) and there are certainly panels I am interested in. I wish I'd remembered about Geek Kon earlier, so I could have signed up to be on a panel or put some effort into a costume, but I suppose there's always next year. Might as well attend one before I try to take it over.

I had a good birthday. Nothing exciting, but good quality time with family and good last minute quality time with Sam. Yay for living two blocks from her!

By the way, who might be able to come to a Halloween party this year, and what day would be best? Also, I'm thinking about having an Arkham Asylum theme. Which means, 'Come as whatever the hell you feel like, but it'll make Monica happy if you're a crazy super villain.' Then again, I'm tempted to just rig up an arc reactor chest piece and be Tony Stark, which wouldn't fit the theme terribly well. Yes, I'm lazy.

Two Month Summary

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:11:24 GMT

My last post was almost two months ago. What have I done since then?

-Gotten a job as a CNA at St. Mary's Care Center
-Watched the whole first season of Starsky and Hutch
-Started the Medical Assistant program at MATC
-Started reading Iron Man and Avengers comic books

My camera also stopped working. It flashes 'Error 99' at me when I try to take a picture. I looked it up in the manual, and error 99 is an 'unspecified problem'. Gee, thanks. It especially sucks because a visually impressive family of turkeys has walked through our backyard a couple times this week.

I like my job so far, and classes are fine. I guess life is okay right now.

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:34:17 GMT

Despite not sleeping last night, I'm having a good day. Tiger is running smoothly on my iBook, and now my iPod is compatible with my laptop. And I have another interview lined up - this one is on Tuesday at Attic Angel.

Yay for good moods. I think I'll share my good cheer by posting photographic evidence of one of the reasons Life on Mars rocks.

Even the press sees it.

Hey, I said one of the reasons. There are others.

iPod Yays and Nays

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:05:49 GMT

When I bought my iPod Nano from Best Buy, I also bought a two-year warranty. Luckily enough, the iPod's buttons stopped working recently, only a month or so before the warranty expires.

Of course, they don't sell the ancient model I have, so the replacement model they gave me has twice the storage space and video capability, plus fun extras like games. Yay!

But then I try to connect it to iTunes on my laptop (iBook G4 10.3.9) and find out it isn't compatible. Apparently I need 10.4.2 or higher. So now I'll probably have to borrow my mom's laptop if I want to put music on my iPod. Do I need to buy Tiger? Do they even sell Tiger any more? Because I really don't want to put the hundreds of bells and whistles of Leopard on my poor old laptop. Damn.

In other news, I have an interview at St. Mary's Care Center tomorrow. I really want this job. If I could get this job and be able to listen to music on the bus again, that would be splendid.

Stolen Earth Rant

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:11:27 GMT

So, I watched the Doctor Who ep The Stolen Earth tonight and was... um... a bit unhappy.

Thanks a lot, episode 12. I was really looking forward to you. And what did I get? Two small squee moments, which is nice, but rather offset by the fact that you made me hate Rose.

I was looking forward to Rose’s return. A little apprehensive, yeah, but mostly excited. I liked Rose, you see. And I was excited to see her reunion with Jack, who she hasn’t seen since he died for the very first time. Especially considering she’s responsible for his immortality, I was hoping for a happy reunion mixed with some thanks-to-you-I-can’t-die angst. Jack would have the biggest grin ever on his face, because he loved Rose so much that she was one of the first things he asked about after waiting over a century to see the Doctor again. Good times, right?

But when Rose sees Jack on Harriet Jones’s web cam conference? She doesn’t react. In fact, all her reactions focus on Martha. She snidely asks, “Who’s that?” when Martha tunes into the conference, and when Rose finds out that Martha was a companion of the Doctor, remarks sourly, “I was one first.”

How do you know that, Rose? Do you still believe you were the Doctor’s first, even after the events of School Reunion? Maybe Martha traveled with the Doctor long before you did. And does it matter, anyway, who traveled with him first? So instead of any joy at seeing Jack, all we get is to witness Rose’s apparent jealousy of Martha. Nice.

Then there’s the sense that she just came back for the Doctor. I was under the impression from the last episode that she came because the universe was in danger and she had some knowledge of what was going on. But in this episode she seems to have no interest in contacting anyone but the Doctor. I mean, she only gets in touch with Donna’s parents because she knows Donna is traveling with the Doctor and that Donna’s parents likely have a way of contacting their daughter.

Why doesn’t she try to get in touch with this universe’s Torchwood right away? Oh, that’s right, she’s not interested in anything but her fucking One True Love. Instead of, ‘I came to fight!’ or ‘I came to save lives!’, it’s ‘I came back, Doctor! Why aren't you here for me?’

Did Rose ever move on? Wasn’t the implication of the end of Doomsday that Rose was going to find a meaningful life without the Doctor in her new universe? You know, with Torchwood and a new father and a new baby brother? Don’t tell me, don’t tell me... once you meet the Doctor, life outside him is meaningless. You will become fixated on finding him once again.

And when they finally see each other in person? Thirty fucking seconds of them running towards each other. For fucks sake, is this Doctor Who or a Hallmark channel movie? If I can grab a can of soda from the fridge and miss nothing but love!running with soft piano music in the background, something is wrong with my sci-fi.

I wouldn’t mind so much, except Jack waited one hundred fucking years to see the Doctor and all he got was the Doctor running away.

I’ve noticed that I like Doctor Who the least when the plots focus on any kind of romance with the Doctor. The Girl in the Fireplace had a great concept and lots of cool moments, but the mushy bits between Reinette and the Doctor made me wince, not to mention the hints of jealousy from Rose. (At least then it was only hints.) I liked some of the elements from the library two-parter, but River Song making eyes at the Doctor got old quick. And I hated the implication that the Doctor is going to marry her in his future, slight as it was.

I don’t mind the Doctor falling in love, but why can’t it be written like his normal relationships with companions - happy and fun and running together through space and time with huge grins and hand-holding, with maybe a minute or two every other episode for something romantic or sexy? Why does love with the Doctor have to be like some cheap romance novel?

I could practically hear it in the last scene: ‘Jack! Donna! You guys are standing in the light of Rose and the Doctor’s True Love. Move!’

Dude, the Dalek army have successfully invaded Earth. I don’t care if it’s been two years. I don’t care if it’s been twenty. Get over yourselves and prove that Harriet Jones didn’t just die putting her faith in complete air heads.

House on the Rock

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:08:00 GMT

Trevor and I took our cameras to House on the Rock. It was fun!

Seeing as he was the one to recommend and lend me American Gods, it made sense to take a trip there. Plus, the last time either of us had gone was a long way back, and we both now possessed nicer cameras.

Although I really enjoyed touring the unique and often spooky and surreal rooms, I realized I really prefer taking pictures of people and animals, and not so much objects. My favorite of these are the ones that capture some motion, which I tried hard to do. Sadly, that rather meant that too many in my batch came out blurry - but here are some that I like.

I think the landscaping had vastly improved since the last time I visited. They had some very beautiful gardens.

Old machinery and random spiral staircases and bridges crisscrossed this room. The dreamlike atmosphere was augmented by a couple very large clocks.

Was this a room devoted to glassware? Sort of - it also happened to be a women’s restroom.

Angels watched over the carrousel.

A detail from the top of the carrousel.

And here’s Trevor, looking through his awesome photos.

I have a few more on my flickr page.

Nail Polish

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:21:21 GMT

My mom cleaned out the space under our sink yesterday. There was a bin under there with dozens of nail polish bottles, thickly coated in dust. As she dusted them off, we picked out six or seven colors to keep, threw out the ones that had dried up, and resolved to give the rest to the Collins girls. I hope they aren’t too used to the newfangled nail polish that dries in less than a minute, because one of the bottles had ‘1983’ printed on it, and I suspect many of the bottles hailed from that era.

I whined when my mom asked to paint my toenails. Pink will clash with my sandals, I said, but she found a shade that worked. Not surprising, considering we had every shade of pink known to man scattered about our table. This one was a dusty rose, subdued enough that clashing with anything was probably beyond its capabilities.

Even though I liked the color, I bartered with her. I let her paint my nails, and she agreed to watch the first episode of Life on Mars with me. We both enjoyed it. Afterwards I asked her about her experience with 1973, so I could compare it to the main character’s experience. She and my dad were living in New Jersey then, and she told me about their apartment, the cockroaches that would stream out of the toaster 30 seconds after turning it on, the river so polluted it had caught fire in the late sixties, and her shock at seeing armed guards patrolling the local supermarket.

Up until then, she’d only lived in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and she hated it in New Jersey, where it was too expensive to live anywhere nice. My dad loved attending Rutgers, though, and she had to beg for them to leave. While I’m sure he prefers the midwest, too, I know he gave up a lot by leaving.

My parents were married well over a decade before I was born. Sometimes I think it would be fascinating to see them earlier in their relationship, before everything was so established. I’d like to know the circumstances that led to the moves from the midwest to the east to the west and back again, to the changed jobs, to me and my sisters. I’d like to know what each of them gave up and why.

It’s weird, because I don’t like painting my nails, but I know at some point I’m going to miss the bin spilling over with nail polish bottles, just because it was there for so long.

Books and DVDs.

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:12:25 GMT

I went ahead and ordered the first season of Life on Mars, despite the fact that I don't think my DVD player will be able to play it. I'll buy a region-free player if I have to, but the guy at Best Buy seems to think that a lot of their models will play region 2 without any hacks necessary. Whatever - I'll figure it out when it gets here.

I actually cleaned my room. I was afraid that the stacks of books on my floor wouldn't fit on my bookcases, but after moving some things around it turns out I have space to spare. Could it be a sign that I need to visit Frugal Muse? Most certainly not, but I could totally pretend it is.

Rain, Rain...

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:54:00 GMT

Well, I passed the CNA exam. Unfortunately, they didn't give any kind of detailed feedback, so I don't really know if I passed with flying colors or barely squeaked by.

I registered for the fall. It looks like my random day off next semester will be Tuesday.

Last night was pretty horrible. My support group ran late, and the rain was pouring down by the time I left. I don't like driving on the East side at night because I don't know the area well and get lost easily, and the decreased visibility brought on by the downpour and the Echo's crappy windshield wipers didn't help.

I didn't get lost on the east side - in fact the problems started when I reached University. It was flooded. Flooded, as in several feet of water, cars stranded like islands flooded. Police vehicles were blocking off the road to ensure that no one else got cocky and tried to drive through.

I ended up following the car ahead of me as it tried circumventing the flood by driving behind the businesses lining University. No dice - The parking lots of Cops and Borders were impassible also. So I went further back, into that extremely hilly, wooded neighborhood with winding, narrow roads and tiny, tiny street signs.

And promptly got lost.

Distressed, I followed the next car I saw, hoping it was also trying to find a dry run of University. It wasn't - it pulled into Eagle Heights and parked. I parked too, intending to sit for a minute before resuming my search for home sweet home.

I heard a loud creaking above me that could only be described as ominous. In retrospect, I could have turned on the car and pulled out of the spot in time, but instead I sat thinking - no, a branch isn't going to fall on me. That's taking Murphy's Law too far.

The next moment the upper part of a tree came down on the Echo. I sat staring at the leaves obscuring my windshield until a man wearing one of those flashlight headband things came over to see if I was alright. He was quite nice - he asked me if I needed a minute to cry, and I assured him that that's pretty much what I'd been doing before the branch came down. "Branch?" He said, "That's the tree!"

But I was able to back out from under it, and upon inspection the Echo was miraculously undamaged. Forehead Flashlight Man gave me directions and I was able to find my way home from Eagle Heights without further trouble. There were freshly baked chocolate chip cookies at home, too.

So, in the long run, it wasn't that bad, but for a moment I felt like the butt of a cosmic joke.

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:26:01 GMT

Hawaii was nice. I really like oceans, you know. They taste awful, but other than that they're hours of fun. I like oceans, but I'm glad to be back. I prefer here where it's cooler and I don't get lost (as much) and plus this is where Maple is. Can't beat that.

I'll put up pictures soon.

My CNA state exam is on Wednesday. I'm feeling pretty confident, but tomorrow is devoted to practice just to be safe.

I've been reading a fair bit lately. I finished Leave it to Psmith at the airport, so now I've read the first and the last of the Psmith books, and the library doesn't have any of the in between ones. And I really, really want to write a Doctor Who/Psmith crossover fic just so I can call it 'Psmith and Jones', and find out who else in the fandom is a Wodehouse fan.

Well... sleep. Hope to see you all sometime soon this summer.

Again with the Pimping.

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:51:14 GMT

I'm still in a good mood. This is... unusual. I have a final in 15 minutes. Tomorrow is my absolute last class of the semester, and I'm actually a bit sad about that.

I read a 'The Liar' by Stephen Fry this weekend. I had mixed feelings about it, so I'll probably write more about that later.

Okay, I'm presenting my one_oscillation blog to my class tomorrow, so, if you have a few spare minutes, it would be awesome if you could read an entry and post a comment, or reply to one of Sam's comments.

BTW, Sam, I owe you three quarts of the free trade good stuff for commenting. You rock.

Monday!

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:58:08 GMT

Today cannot fail to be a good day. I feel I actually accomplished something in support group last night, so that puts me off to a good start.

Today is also Jamie McCrimmon's Day in loves_them_all's companion posting month. Kilts make a day more awesome, and Jamie in a kilt makes a day much more awesome.

I'm all ready for my test on the digestive system in medical terminology. Bring it on!

Also, there's a new House tonight. I'm loving the House/Amber/Wilson subplot, and can't wait to see it continued.

Speaking of television... I think I gave up on Moonlight too soon.

I don't know if scenes like that are worth the terribly predictable plots, but it's certainly tempting.

RIP

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:26:18 GMT

This is a couple days old, so you probably already know, but Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, died at age 69.

Many of my fondest high school memories involve D&D. Even though I’m crap at remembering names and data, I can tell you the name, class, and race of D&D characters I haven’t played in five or six years.

Glowing ferrets, flaming swords, giant spider webs, and buttons! Forks in the road, and traveling from point A to point B! Navigating centaurs up narrow staircases! Chainmaille bikinis and the obligatory tavern!

I owe a debt to Gary Gygax.

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:19:20 GMT

Study Shows Cat Owners Less Likely to Die From Heart Attacks

Now I know why Maple always looks so smug - she has mysterious powers over my heart.

In other news, I finished my first week of clinicals for my CNA class. I'm in the neurology department at Meriter, along with eight other students. We stand around looking lost until a real CNA or nurse asks for help changing a patient's depends/feeding a patient/bathing a patient/moving a patient.

The worst part for me is just the whole interaction bit. I don't mind body fluids, really, but knowing what to say as you clean someone eludes me. It's distressing because the other students don't seem to have a problem. I try not to feel too bad about it, especially because I think I'm the youngest in our group. I'm storing up a list of conversation starters from my classmates for future use.

In other, other news, I'm watching Torchwood episode 2x07 right now - 'Dead Man Walking'. It's got some fresh angles on zombies, so I'm happy. It also seems to be borrowing elements from the Doctor Who episode 'The Impossible Planet', including some of the haunting music. Zombies should be paired with mournful string music more often.

The Torture Method Known as Class Presentations

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:06:33 GMT

I gave my first presentation in a couple years today - it was nerve wracking. While in the graphic design program we often had group critiques, but in those people focus on your work, not you.

My presentation was for my CNA class, and was on bipolar disorder. Everyone in the class chose a disease for the presentation, and nearly everyone decided to do it in groups of two or three people. I think only I and one other guy went solo.

I was super nervous and my ugly poster decided to fall over halfway through. I was talking about symptoms of bipolar depression when that happened, and my teacher joked that my poster was committing suicide. Ah, well. She seemed to think I did a good job.

At the end one girl in my class did the whole "I have a cousin with bipolar, and..." thing, and then went on to list all sorts of symptoms that seemed to have nothing to do with bipolar disorder. I never have a clue as to what to do in those situations. I'm not going to argue the diagnosis of a kid I've never met, and obviously people can behave atypically of a condition and still have that condition. But it made me wonder if she was paying attention to my presentation at all.

Other diseases people presented today included schizophrenia, hep C, diabetes, MS, and post-polio.

Bed Baths & Beyond

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:19:24 GMT

In CNA lab, we practiced giving bed baths by pairing up and giving each other baths in the lab’s beds. Sorry, not as sexy as it sounds. It was kind of nice to spend half an hour of class just lying in bed, though.

The girl I paired up with was nice, but very quiet. Since we were acting out a scenario (CNA and patient, probably at a nursing home, as the ‘patient’ was supposed to act out arthritis in the hands as an added challenge to the CNA) I tried to role-play a conversation as I washed my partner. She was either playing a very vacant patient, or wasn’t in the mood for an RPG.

Me: Are you looking forward to tonight’s movie?
Her: Mm-hmm.
Me: I hear they’re showing Casablanca.
Her: Mm-hmm.
Me: (As I wash her hands) I’m not hurting you, am I?
Her: Mm-hmm.

It made me appreciate that I wasn’t playing D&D with her.

Me: Grug looks at you sadly. ‘I’m not a rich dwarf, but I’m the best at my craft in this land. If you retrieve my heirloom ring, I’ll forge you a sword the likes of you’ve never seen.”
Her: Mm-hmm.
Me: “Of course,” Grug warns you, “You’ll have to cross the Swamp of Dire Misquotes, the Desert of Bewitched Cacti, and the Ice Flows made Especially Perilous due to Global Warming.”
Her: Mm-hmm.
Me: “Such stoicism!”

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:11:06 GMT

Class canceled due to snow, so I walked to the library. Checked out books for a presentation next week on bipolar disorder.

House last night was awesome squared. Best ep of the season. In one fell swoop, the show has made me like all the new fellows. Although I totally saw the revelation about Thirteen coming. A bit worried about how they'll handle it, but loved how it was revealed. Foreman rocks. I don't know why so many fans hate him.

Then there were scenes like this through out the ep:

Will stop posting about House now, don't worry. This was the last ep of the season.

Off to write presentation.

Very easy equation, really.

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:30:34 GMT

A guy was asking me about my beads, so I told him I’d give him a strand if he flashed me. His response? “What would I do with beads?” Uh, duh. You use them to get people to flash you. It’s not that hard a concept. Shiny beads = boobs.

Happy Mardi Gras, folks.

(It might cheer me if I get virtual flashing. I have virtual beads...)

Epic Cane Battle

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:44:15 GMT

I looked out the window a minute ago, and no snow. Then I glance up 30 seconds later and the air is full of thick flurries of it. Weird.

Kind of like that temperature plummet we had two days ago. Warm - in the 40’s in the morning, then down in the teens by evening. It was raining one minute and snowing the next, which is fun to watch but not so fun to walk on. Oh, there was also a very big wind that made shoveling tantamount to Sisyphus and the boulder.

Not much worth reporting in school. Well, my lab instructor and my classroom instructor disagree on the proper way to use a cane, which is kind of funny. It came up while we were going over a quiz question. My classroom instructor, Gail, was demonstrating the proper walking order: cane, weak leg, strong leg. But she demonstrated with the cane next to the weak leg, which our lab instructor, Barb, told us was wrong.

I’m inclined to agree with Barb, as I’ve heard a lot of people say the cane goes on the strong side. But some people in my class grabbed the cane and tried it out for themselves, and some of them agree with Gail. Barb calls them ‘Houses’, because on the show House uses the cane on his weak side.

Barb has started polling the other instructors. I’m hoping for an epic battle.

Speaking of House, I decided to watch the new episode on Tuesday. I’d missed the last few aired episodes (way back in December), but I’d heard this was the show’s Christmas episode. For the first three seasons the christmas episodes became increasingly dark, and I was curious if the fourth season would keep with the pattern. It didn’t.

Overall I enjoyed it, but the PotW was kind of boring. The best parts were the clinic patient, and watching the new fellows interact with each other and settle into their roles. The B plot involved House and the fellows doing a secret santa, which House saw as a ripe opportunity to manipulate everyone.

I’m starting to warm up to Thirteen a little, which is good. There was almost no Chase, Cameron, or Cuddy: Boo!. There was a lot of Wilson, though: Yay! He had a ridiculous rain deer hat on in one scene.

The whole thing was rather blah until the last scene, which made the episode for me. It was an excellent Gotcha! twist, and sweet at the same time.