Sunday, February 24, 2008

Oscar Opinions

Maybe for the first time in a very long time (ever?), everyone I really wanted to win did. There were a couple categories where I would have been happy with pretty much anyone (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress), mainly because I hadn't seen any of those movies yet. Bet the ones I loved and was rooting for all won. No Country did wonderfully, Diablo Cody got her screenwriting award, and Once won for best song. When your song from a movie (a musical no less!) makes it onto the KBCO Studio C CD, you know you have a winner of a song. And Marion Cotillard deserves the best actress award. She had the most incredible transformations in the movie, and the most astonishing thing is that it never felt like "Oh look at me, now I'm acting very old. Isn't it great that I can act old too?" Honestly, they did the older scenes first and when they showed the her as a young woman, I could hardly believe it was the same actress. And the makeup totally deserved to win for that movie for making her look so believably old that they did closeups and you could never tell. Bravos all around.

In sum, Jon Stewart is awesome, I love movies, and the montage of best picture award winners gives me a lot of ammo for my Netflix queue. What did you think?

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Scenes from a heartwarming day

One of my clinical assignments in in our toddler group, with kids from under 2 up to about 3ish. Some have different challenges, others are typically developing peers. Here are some incredibly touching things that happened today:

One little girl was cry very, very hard this morning. Her friend seemed unsettled by this, though neither said anything to the other; the second girl just kind of ignored her crying friend. At the end of the class, the first girl said, "I'm sorry I scared you when I was sad." So perceptive, and sweet!

We've had some trouble with some of the older kids not being as accepting of some of the children who aren't talking yet, due to different challenges. One of the girls had said some not-nice things (for 3 year olds) about not wanting to play with those friends. Today, one of the clinicians explained that one of the boys just needs some help with some things (he has a syndromic condition). Immediately, she takes him under her wing, helps him with *everything*, hangs out with him ALL DAY and calls him "my little buddy." The same little boy she refused to play with last week. SO cute.

Finally, I was playing "hurt leg" with one of the more verbal boys. They love to play doctor and fix people, and as I was laying there with my "hurt" leg, this little guy treated me with such tenderness as he "fixed" my leg that it melted my heart. His ultimate solution? To cut off my feet and attach new ones (but he did it so skillfully!). I think he has a career in surgery ahead of him.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Three Day Weekend

I wish I had one. Instead, I'm in class all day and wishing I could take a nap. At least I'll have Spring Break in a month (is that right? Maybe 2 months?). Whatever it is, it can't get here soon enough!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Reno Sadness

Sad news out of Reno today. They found the body of the young woman who was kidnapped from her friend's house about a month ago and think it was the work of a serial rapist.

Two reasons (other than the obvious) why this is so sad:

1. There have been *so many* rapes and sexual attacks near the University of Nevada Reno (UNR) campus in the last few years. And it seemed like there were several serial perpetrators in those times. Like, multiple cases of men coming in through open windows/doors, touching a foot, doing very specific things that seemed like an MO. I don't think they ever caught anyone.

2. The girl was taken near an unopened door. Even sadder than the police not catching these horrible rapists is the fact that even after all of the highly-publicized stuff in the past few years, people are STILL leaving doors and windows unlocked. I'm not trying to blame the victim here AT ALL (since he might have broken in the glass door or a window to get her anyway, who knows), but still!

People: Lock your doors and windows at night. In the day. Whenever you don't want some rapist/kidnapper/murderer to come in your house. PLEASE. Especially if you live in an area where stuff like this has happened a LOT, but do this ANYWHERE!

My heart hurts for my hometown and especially for my alma mater and the students/university community who are now trying to grapple with the fact that they have a "serial rapist" in their midst (not like they didn't before, but at least the police are now acknowledging it). Let's hope this tragedy is enough to really change people's ways, both the police and the students.

Saturday mornings

Me (7 AM): (thinking of everything I forgot to do yesterday) I don't really want to be awake.
Me (9 AM): (to Peter) What do you love about me?
Him: That you love sleep as much as I do.

Hint.
Hint.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Happy Valentine's Day!

Or "Happy VD," as Peter's work calendar said. Are they trying to say something?

We are spending a romantic night of report-writing, clinic paperwork (me) and sleeping (Peter). Thank goodness for weekends!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Best break

I just got back from laying on the lawn outside our building in the 66 degree sunshine. It was SO hard to come back inside. We really tried to convince our teacher to teach outside, but she didn't bite. What made it even better was that tomorrow there is supposedly a 100 percent chance of snow tomorrow. 4-9 inches. WHY must we waste this weather inside a classroom with no windows???

Monday, February 11, 2008

Wind, wind, go away

Woke up at 5 thanks to the wind. Also because I went to bed at 9:30. I was tired! But it is really windy and it gets very annoying after a while. Mainly because the wind seems to only blow at night, especially when you are just going to sleep or a few hours before you need to wake up. The wind knows, man!

I had my thesis proposal meeting last Friday, and miracle of miracles (or not), they approved it! So now I guess I actually have to do this thing. Actually, I'm really glad they did because it's going to be a heckuva lot of work and I will really need the time to get it done. I'm way ahead of the game, but I want to defend by November so I can head out to internships without this hanging over my head. Another bonus if all works according to plan: if I have completed a thesis and all course requirements, I only have to do one internship, which means my first internship could hire me if they wanted to (fingers crossed!) which means I could actually be employed with money and everything in ONE YEAR! Amazing.

Well, my 12-hour day begins in 15 minutes, so I'd better be off. Payce!

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Post 300!

I should so be asleep. I have a big day tomorrow with a quiz, two assignments, oh, and my thesis proposal defense. Yeah, I didn't really know about it either. Long story short, due to some miscommunication and misinterpretation, I ended up writing a sort-of thesis proposal, when my adviser was intending for this to be much more informal. But we're here now, so might as well get a head start, right? And really, if they want me to rewrite or hate it, I didn't pour my heart and soul into it, since I had no idea what I was doing, so I won't be heartbroken at all. Luckily, my adviser is AMAZING and totally has my back, so regardless, I feel good.

Related: Blogger's speller does not like "advisor," but is fine with "adviser." For some reason, I like the -or version. Maybe it's British For equally unknown reasons, I like to spell a lot of words the British way. Like "judgement." I definitely think that "e" belongs there.

OK, I am going to bed. And then waking up early. This madness has got to stop.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Caucus

We caucused tonight. It was pretty interesting, definitely democracy in action. I'm glad we did it regardless, but it was really cool to be part of such a(n) historic event with both the first female AND the first African-American mainstream presidential candidate. It's pretty sweet. I have some pics I took up at my Flickr page. They aren't too interesting, but I guess that's how democracy works. There were a ton of people, 99 in our precinct alone. The lady running it said they normally had 25 people at these things.

I'm very tired, so I'm going to try to finish my paper and go to sleep soon. I'll find out who "won" in the morning.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

So. How've ya been? I know, I know, I've been neglecting you. It's nothing personal, I swear. I just tend to think of things to blog about at the most inopportune times, and then I forget what I was going to say until it's too late and no longer very timely.

We're caucusing on Tuesday, like half the rest of the country. At least Colorado moved up their caucus from March. Really, who cares by March? So we're gonna super-size it on Tuesday. I wonder what the Boulder Republican caucus will look like. I bet they all know each other already anyway, all ten of them. Literally, at the last election, there was not *one single* Republican candidate for ANY office. Even street sweeper. We only had Democrat, Independent, Green, Socialist, and some other ones I could make up for you.

The Clintons have visited, but I guess they are putting their campaigning efforts into demographics other than our own (broke-ass eternal students). We've gotten at least 3 phone calls apiece and one personal visit from the Obama camp, and not a peep from the Clinton side. Chelsea did speak at CU and wish I would have known about it ahead of time, but alas. I did not.

In other news, tomorrow is Monday. Sorry for the bad news. I thought you should know.