My life is going awesome right now with school, student teaching, and other stuff. This semester is the best one I've ever had so far. I'm a big ball of feeling great and enjoying everything, which is new for me. I'm not epically annoyed by everything and hating everyone in the world. It's nice.

My list of vids to feedback and rec is getting longer and longer. It still includes stuff from VVC. I'm working my way through the DVDs slowly and I'll have everything posted before the end of the year. Hopefully.

VID RECS (VVC disc 2 - premieres from themed shows):
dualbunny's I Want What I Want (Bionic Woman) - A sleek and beautiful exploration of Jaime and Sarah, how their characters weave around each other and show how their stories interact.

maichan808's Fun with Real Audio (The Girlie Edition) (Supernatural) - LULZ.

My class ended early today and I took advantage of the time to watch VVC DVDs, leave feedback, and make some recs. Look at my productive self. I'm all caught up with my college courses for today, but tomorrow is another story when we get more assignments. College makes me sleepy.

VID RECS (VVC disc 1 - premieres part 1):
halcyon_shift's VVC Premieres Intro 09 Star Trek In 60 Seconds (Re-enacted by Llamas) - Massive LULZ.

DC's We Are (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) - Calculated action, beautiful overlays, great pacing, and interesting lyrical interpretations.

bradcpu (and laurashapiro)'s Hard Sun (Firefly) - This is the vid that knows where I live.

I love the sounds in the beginning and how it just flows into the vid with all the twists and turns. Love the ivory tower. Love it like burning. It's amazing how well it all fits together and feels so right to me. It's like it couldn't be any other way than to see the lens flares at 1:09 blend together. The introduction of the rain is beautifully done and I love how the vid continues while the original footage is of walking away at the end. It's so full of love and appreciation that it bubbles up inside me and makes me smile and feel a bit better about certain things. There is sadness in the vid, like in the 2:20s when they walk away and the weeping, but I'm ultimately left with the crews and happiness.

jarrow's Learning to Crawl (Battlestar Galactica) - DAYUM, that's hot and I want to make out with it. There's so much tension and sexiness in the tight editing. Beyond the femslash and sexiness there's deep character beats within the vid and that's something beautiful.

mlyn and Jo's It Comes and Goes In Waves (Varg Veum) - Beautiful use of the source with the beautiful framing compositions and colors. I love the progression of the vid and how it changes into something so dark and violent, yet still beautiful with the changes in the music. The symbolism and emotions are so engaging that I connect with the vid without knowing the source.

hollywoodgrrl's Marble House (Doctor Who) - The editing and atmosphere is stellar. I think my favorite parts are the use of the watch in the instrumental section because it's so finely edited and heartbreaking. Honestly, the whole thing is edited with great skill.

At first I was reading as the Doctor has the choice to run off in the TARDIS, while the humans have to stay and face the fights. The Doctor plays with humanity, including John Smith, without having to face the darker aspects of it. He can go hands off whenever he wants. The Doctor can deal with aliens fine, but he doesn't stick around for humanity's darkness. That he leaves to us (and Torchwood I suppose). The Doctor leaves humanity to its own darkness. A darkness that isn't supernatural, but coming from within ourselves, which makes it all the more frightening, especially for The Doctor, who wants to love humanity. He just wants to run away from the darkness in our hearts.

dualbunny's Video Killed the Radio Star (Wizard of Oz - Elphaba [Wicked]) - I don't know Wicked very well, but I still was able to enjoy the vid. The motion and jumpcuts in the editing are great. I love how you take the footage and have us look at it from a bit to the left. The zooms make the footage more interesting and grabbing, while it also has me thinking about the scenes differently in my mind because they look different than I'm used to. It's so fun and even more fun with femslash goggles!

I started back at college and this is my last semester before I graduate with my Bachelor's Degree (yay accomplishment). It pretty much means the only thing I'm going to be doing for a while is going to classes and student teaching.

I've been meaning to make a post about vid_commentary, but never actually did it. I posted commentary for charmax's multifandom (Battlestar Galactica, Terminator: Sarah Connor, Terminator movies) vid, Unnatural Selection. Also, thuviaptarth posted commentary for my Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles vid, Ding! Dong!

I'm considering participating in Challenge 2: Combined Vidder & Viewer, but I can't figure out what I want to do for it. The idea is a comparison of point of view from creator and audience on a vid, which sounds like it could be incredible and enlightening.

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and the super cute virtual gifts (nursedarry, bop_radar, talitha78, and sol_se).

National Organization for Marriage is throwing “Rhode Island’s First Annual” Celebrate Marriage & Family Day this coming Sunday 16th...

"The highlight of the Sunday afternoon event will be an opportunity for married couples to renew their vows together at a beautiful waterfront setting. This is a great opportunity to take a stand for marriage as it was created: between a man and a woman. Our goal is to esteem marriage to its proper place in society and make a statement that Rhode Islanders believe strongly in this cherished institution."

One of the sponsors of the event is Tim Horton's. Why is TIM Freaking HORTON'S is supporting something like this?

I read on TMZ that Jeffrey Donovan (Michael Weston on Burn Notice) was arrested on suspicion of DUI on Sunday and my first thought was, "he didn't twitter that."

My neighbor's dog got out through a giant hole in their fence and the mail lady brought him to me, so I have a furry little ball of "OMGZIWANTATTENTION" licking at my fingers while I try to type. He's cute, but I don't like small dogs.

I've been cooking and baking a lot lately. I mean more than never when I say a lot. I made bacon and cheese stuffed beer burgers this weekend, which turned out well. I made ice cream cone cupcakes to take to a party too and they turned out freaking awesome.

ice cream cone cupcakes by ~miserychic.

I've also been making my own cold-brewed coffee, which is so good that I think I might like it more than Starbucks. I know, I know, blasphemy, but it's true.

I've been using twitter instead of LJ for little things I find interesting. I used to make posts about little things, but now they're all on my twitter and never make it to LJ. This is probably a good thing because it spares everyone my squeeing over Eliza Dushku, Zachary Quinto, and Olivia Wilde; linking to pretty photographs; laughing about how I set off the smoke alarm baking; and mourning having deleted the Torchwood Children of Earth miniseries only to get a vid idea 3 days later. Link to my twitter.

VID RECS:
newkidfan's Blood Makes Noise (Lost) - A gorgeous layering and coloring that is lush and full with jumpcut editing and wavering images. The interesting framing choices feel like the zeroing in on a microscope that amps up the intensity and tension along with the effects. It doesn't hurt that I gave her the musical prompt because I've wanted to see this song vidded well to Lost for as long as the show has been on the air.

danegen's Down by the Water (Southland) - I've never watched Southland, but that didn't matter because I was able to plug into the more emotional aspect of the vid. I know I'm missing the depth and understanding that would come with knowing the source, but the vid is still terrific in the use of imagery. It feels like a great study of objects and how people can become objects in that sense. I think my favorite aspect is how a woman's dead body is transformed into a landscape.

WashingTones' Dr. House is a wicked cool music video that uses footage of the band performing and source footage from the show, House, too. The end result is an engaging music video that has me bopping around and singing the chorus in the shower.

I took my fourth and hopefully last teacher licensure and certification exam, PRAXIS, Saturday. I think I did well. I studied my face off, but after having taken the test, I'd have performed the same without studying. I thought I'd have trouble answering 60 multiple choice questions in an hour, but I finished in 30 minutes. I used the last half to reread, double check, think over, and such. I was unsure of 6 questions in the end, but I'm fairly confident I passed. I worry and worry over things like that and it turns out fine. I thought I'd failed my second one for sure because it was the day after I'd gotten out of the hospital and I got a 196 out of 200.

I have accomplished a life goal this week. I made someone pee their pants laughing! For posterity I have transcribed the conversation. It happened at work where T is a male my age, 20s, and D is a female in her mid-40s.

T: One of my classes this week was about breastfeeding and I'm the only guy in the class, so it's everyone talking about their experiences and I had nothing to add. The rest of them were talking about babies that wouldn't let go and the logistics of breastfeeding in public.

Me: I seriously doubt you've ever breastfed a baby. You used to be a baby, but I hope you don't remember the breastfeeding part.

D: Nothing is the same after having a baby. Nothing.

Me: I saw my stepsister's stuff when she was having her niece.

T: Her niece? Is that possible?

Me: I meant having my niece, which is her daughter.

T: That makes more sense.

Me: It could happen. The only way I'd be pregnant is if I was a surrogate.

T: What do you mean?

Me: My aunt and uncle can't carry children to term, so they could rent my uterus out for 9 months if they wanted.

D: Really?

Me: Yeah, they've been trying for nearly a decade. I'd do it if they asked. It'd just be awkward when people would ask and I'd have to say it was my uncle's baby.

[D and T laugh so hard that D pees pants and has to rush to the bathroom.]

SUCCESS!

I paid off a couple more hospital bills that came in. It's getting annoying because they bill everything separately. There isn't one bill, but 20 bills for individual things like sterile gauze, doctor's time, the room, transport, aftercare nurse's time, bandage tape, and so on. I decided to go all in and pay off my car completely before I have no money left. I'm not sure it was the smartest thing, but at least my car is paid off and it's mine, so I don't have to worry about having no money left after hospital bills. This is the poorest I've been since I was 7 years old and my great-uncle opened a CD account in my name. (Side note: that was college money that my dad gambled away, yay!)

I had to take the semester off of school, which has turned out to be a better and better choice as time goes on. I've been working more, so I have more money than I did when I could only work on the weekends. Sadly, that money has gone to pay ridiculous hospital bills. Going back to how shitty my dad is, he promised to pay what hospital bills were left after insurance. Now that I'm not dying and the bills have started coming in, he's not paying.

I went to breakfast with my grandparents this morning and studied a bit while drinking coffee. I have my forth and final PRAXIS teaching licensure and certification exam on Saturday. I went overboard studying this week. I'd planned to study over two weeks and be confident and ready by Thursday, using Friday for overall review. I finished my outline and information gathering far sooner and I studied far more than I'd planned. It's Monday and I feel like I could take the test right now. I suppose that's a good thing though.

I received the results from the one I took in March too. I got a 191 out of 200, which is quite good considering the average is like 170 or so.

a few recent DeviantArt photographs of mine:

Kitchen Window


Mostly Ceiling


Violet of African Variety I


Violet of African Variety II

Easter
password: reallifeness

041209 Easter
Easter lunch and arguing afterward like the horrible family we are.

( Where I ramble and relate vidding to Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit Learn It and Use It for Life )

( Where I relate the book to The 5 Obstructions (with trailer) and vidding )

All of this has brought me to a vidding idea. I would like people to leave me "obstructions", restrictions like having at least one clip that plays for 10 seconds without cut, not using effects, or anything. I'll pick out some and complete a vid according to the specifications.

Today was my last doctor's appointment for a while. I'VE BEEN PRONOUNCED HEALED (thankfully not Ernest Angley style). I have a far away follow up appointment in the future to make sure everything healed properly and I have a few consults for pain management, but I'M HEALED. HEALED. HEALED. I cannot believe it. It has been a long time since everything started happening in Decemember, so I'm freaking overjoyed right now.

Best Day Ever. I even got pretty presents last night that made me cry and smile at the same time (recs list coming when links open).

My Stepdad's Birthday Party: the Usual Disaster (not safe for work because I swear and warning for grossness because there's a clip of the wound on my leg)

password: reallifeness

02/20/09 Birthday Party: the Usual Disaster

Another excellent report from the doctor. She said I'll be done in the beginning of March for sure. The wound looks so frakking good. It's only 1.3x.7cm and .5cm deep, which is amazing. When I first looked it was like 4x5cm and 4cm deep, which looked like it would NEVER heal.

I'm allowed to drive again. Ten minutes at a time, which means I'm pretty much limited to my pathetic town. Oh the joy of being able to... go to Subway? Post Office? Yeah, my town is lame. We have a McCafe now.

I'm even going back to work this week. I don't miss working because my job is sucktastic sometimes, but I miss a couple of people I work with. I've probably forgotten how to do everything because it's not like I was that great at it to begin with.

( spoilers for the last two episodes of House, but it's less about the show and more about my crazed emotions and soapboxing about Intervention Specialist things )

My doctor's appointment ok. They're bringing in another doctor at the Wound Center and he came along with my doctor for the day. We went over my case history, which was great fun for me... not. I get that he was shadowing to get a feel for the place, but he put gloves on started poking at my leg with no warning. I said something like "whoa, you're not my doctor" and got a bit irritated. I felt like an jerk, but he wasn't technically employeed by the Center yet. It hurt something awful too because my leg didn't even have the numbing liquid on it yet. My actual doctor made joke about him trying to steal her patients. One of the nurses apologized later, saying he had been doing that all day because he's used to working with patients, but not people.

Good new: The second wound is healed! I don't even have to have a bandage on it. The doctor said the front one should be healed up by the beginning of March. There's light at the end of the MRSA Tunnel!!!!!!!

I had another doctor's appointment. She said I did a lot of healing this week and it's looking great. It's to the point now where I won't have to have skin graphs. Last week they mentioned that I might have needed it to close up the skin over the muscles at the bottom of the wound because it was tunneling. I asked about physical therapy because they mentioned it last week, but the doctor said it's difficult to tell right now because I still have a ways to go before we can discuss it. That pretty much ends the good part. There's a secondary wound on the back of my thigh now. It's not the exactly the same as the first; it doesn't look the same, but it hurts the same. They put antibiotics on it and a dressing, telling me to call if it got worse. The whole thing has me freaks out again. They didn't do any tests or take a sample, so it can't be that bad. I'm just freaking out because that's been my general state of being for the last month. Freaking out and terrified of dying some awful death.

Most of the doctor's at the hospital thought it was an insect bite, while some thought it was a puncture from a scrape or something else, but there was never a conclusive answer. It wasn't the original wound that was the reason it was so serious. The infection was the major thing. The MRSA was what caused the whole thing. I flipped my shit when I came home and had everything cleaned from bleaching my clothes, sending stuff to the dry cleaners, sanitizing everything, and everything, so an insect bite is unlikely if it's happening again. I would have sprayed a thin layer of Purell all over the house if it was possible.

I'm feeling really screwed up, more so than usual. Libby brought up that I haven't let many people touch me at all. Before all this I was weird about people touching me anyways. If I'm not expecting to be touched, I flinch. Libby said I've become every weirder about it. One of my friends made a comment about it a few years ago because I would shrug his arm off my shoulder and he took it personally until he finally asked me about it and I didn't even realize I did it. Lately I only let the nurses and doctor touch me and I snap at my family when they try to hug me or anything. For a few days in the hospital I was told not to touch anyone because they weren't sure what I had and they thought it might be contagious. I guess I took that a bit far, even after they said I was cleared. I haven't voluntarily touched someone else in a month. I haven't had anyone over to the house and I barely talk to my friends on the phone. I'm only really talking to Amanda and Cassey. I made plans to go to Amanda's and watch a movie, but now there's a second wound and the doctor said it would be best if I stayed home until everything was checked out. I've forgotten what some of my friends look like. I'm pretty sure whatever I had going on with J. is over because I didn't tell him I was in the hospital and he found out from someone else. He sent me a bitchy text message saying that he never felt close to me emotionally. In that whole string of texts he never once asked me if I was ok. He knew I was still in the hospital, but he thought it was a good idea to have a text argument with me. He knew how I was before we got together and I don't feel to bad about because he has another girlfriend. When I'm honest with myself, I didn't call him and I didn't even think about it, which says something. I don't miss him much either. I miss other people way more.

So now that I've puked my emotional guts out have some VID RECS:
charmax's It's Not Over Yet (Merlin) - Amazing construction and editing of motion with skilled implementation of symbols.

lsketch42's Crackdance (Supernatural) - A cute and fun vid that is extremely rewatchable.

obsessive24's Red (Merlin) - The imagery and feeling of predestination is startling with the tone of the vid and the tension.

talitha78's Creator (Chuck) - With so few Sarah Walker vids, this one says something interesting with the footage using the Intersect imagery and slight glimpses into her internal emotions.

tearful_eye's Dido's Lament (Stargate SG-1) - Sadly beautiful editing with swaying motion, like a quietly hard lullaby.

Second Christmas Part 1
password: ilikecheese

(Opening crazily wrapped presents, Julia won't wear clothes, Rick hits my hurt leg, Julia is fascinated by her walking horse, Frog gets abused by Julia, and I snort.)

Second Christmas Part 2
password: ilikecheese

(Carter plays with flying toy, Parker plays with Legos, Julia plays with her fairy Godmothers, everyone plays Rock Band badly, Julia dances to Eye of the Tiger, and the toliet breaks.)

Gingerbread house with Becky
password: ilikecheese

Becky and I try to do a gingerbread something every year. It's nice for the most part. We don't argue that much.

Christmas Part 3 in which I have coffee while people tell jokes and Libby gets weird about jellybeans.
password: ilikecheese


Christmas Part 4 in which they're weird about jellybeans and grease cake.
password: ilikecheese

The doctor didn't annoy me as much as today. She didn't make awful jokes about my leg or make me play Name that Tune. She was a low grade irritating. Although she did make fun of my dressing. I had to change it again yesterday because of my epic fail at dressing changes. My second dressing from Sunday slipped halfway off my wound somehow and I had to change it. The one I went into the Wound Center with was slightly off center and the doctor said she hoped it wasn't done by one of her nurses. I explained that it took me 45 minutes to do the first dressing change because I kept getting lightheaded. She said that was fine and that I'd get better at it. I said that it was packing the silver stuff that hurt and made me lightheaded. She didn't seems to care too much about it and basically her answers were along the lines of suck it up.

I had a bunch of questions today because I've some major pain issues this week. Much more than anything since the surgery. I've been getting muscle twitches in my thigh, which hurt so freaking much that I can't do anything for almost a half hour afterwards. The doctor said that it's normal and it means that it's healing. That's not as comforting as it should be because it hurts now.

I'll be off studying for my PLT until January 10th, so I probably won't be around too much.

Guess what movie I'm dying to see?

Christmas Part One - People are cranky; they open presents and get less cranky.
password: ilikecheese


Christmas Part Two - Becky gets obsessed with her calendar and people talk over each other.
password: ilikecheese

Christmas Eve video in which we frost a cake, try to trick my aunt into going to the eye doctor, and make fun of Bo Bice.

password: ilikecheese

I think this may have been the best Christmas I've ever had, despite all the circumstances. There were no major fights, arguments, or nastiness. It was rather pleasant. Becky and Randy were late, but Gramma wanted to start anyways, so we ate and started to open presents before they were there. The day started off tense because everyone's been really cranky lately, but it was fine once they got here.

I got some awesome presents. Buffy the Vampire Slayer full series DVD set; Angel full series DVD set; seasons 1, 2, and 3 of Supernatural; 40th anniversary edition of Corduroy; a set of children's books; a hugemongous coffee cup; a purse; a fairy music box, a bunch of candy; money; a freaking sweet 320GB external hard drive that I've named Wendy Dawson; and bunches of other stuff.

The day wasn't even ruined when I had to change my dressing, which took 45 minutes because I kept having to stop so I wouldn't pass out. It wouldn't be so awful, but I have to pack Aquacel Ag into the wound without anything to numb my leg like they do at the Wound Center.


happy birthday hollywoodgrrl!