Regional Semifinals Results Are In!

Results are here, and ... I'm out. Congrats to everythursday, who beat me out, writing 1959 words in an hour to my 1710, and congrats to all the other winners!

Hell, congrats to everyone who has played and is continuing to play: the whole point was to get the writing going, and that has clearly happened all around. Brilliant idea, pyjamapants!

In other babbly news ...

I was annoyed with myself earlier for picking up the Good Friday day shift, grousing that working 24 hours out of a span of 40 is dumb. Then I realized: I do nearly the same thing every Thursday evening through Saturday morning, just split across two jobs and two hours less, and usually with 8 hours of clinical first on Thursday. I really do have this mental block in which I think I'm still 19 and don't really need sleep. Ah well. Took the rest of the Thursday evening shifts off for April, because it was clearly getting to be too much, so that's something. Definitely have to remember when planning summer tutoring though: no Friday hours. Working during the day on Friday = badness. It was nice, though, if hectic and crazy-making, to work a day shift at my primary job, which I'd not done in probably over a year.

Side note re: clinical - I ended up calling out sick for it this week. Horrible cold + already sick patients = badness. This means I'll have a make-up to do in May, which is kind of a bummer, but also kind of unavoidable. I'm just glad that the class as a whole has worked around the other two make-up days already, so I should still be done with clinical before the final exam. Meanwhile, this cold is trying to turn into bronchitis, and I'm glad I went to the doc Thurs after all, even though I felt lame at the time. I just had a feeling it was going to go bad and didn't want to be stuck using the ER on a holiday weekend. She trusted me that I wasn't being ridiculous and really do know antibiotics are useless for a cold. In fact, I was only asking for a scrip (for antibiotics and an inhaler) to hold in case it turned into bronchitis over the weekend. Instead, I got told to just start the Z-pack immediately, because the cough was already starting, and in me that's usually a half-step away from bronchitis, so why not just make it unlikely for bacteria to set up housekeeping before they settle in. I still almost held off, but am glad I didn't, as it is moving down inexorably into my bronchi, as I'd sort of expected, creating a lovely environment for random bacteria to take over, except HA! they should not be able to do so. Since I was filling that, I went ahead and filled the inhaler too. Haven't needed it yet. Don't want to use it. (Because, dude, if caffeine makes my heart do the Macarena, can you just see what albuterol will do? PVC party!) But it's reassuring to have it just in case. She stuck a bunch of refills on it too. Guess she was getting antsy about me not routinely carrying one, which I'd kind of picked up on over past visits, even though I've yet to have a full-on "asthma attack." Probably just as well to stop tempting fate.

This may yet result in cancellation of Easter plans for the same reason I called out of clinical. My Dad is almost as compromised a cardiac patient as anyone on the floor at clinical, so even though I shouldn't be carrying any bacterial pathogens to pass around, what with the antibiotics, if I'm still sneezing and coughing, I have to assume I'm shedding cold viruses, which he doesn't need either. Not sure how I feel about that. Mixed, I guess, because there's family dysfunction and religious dissonance (I'd so much rather be doing Delphinia at HTAZP than celebrating a holiday that's no longer part of my faith) on the one hand and the definite sense that I may not get that many more visits with him on the other. Ah well. We'll see how it goes.

Oh, and Blue Gillespie's new album, Synesthesia is out!

I don't think I posted so much as once a week through March, and now I'm up to three posts in a day. *facepalm* Making up for lost time, I guess.

Anyway, GDL's band, Blue Gillespie, has been working on this album for awhile. It was due out mid-March and then hit some production-related snag or other, so it came out April 1. Been listening to it ever since, and I'm liking it a lot. My favorite song is still "Making Sound," which has a new, trippy version. Of the new songs, I haven't really decided yet which I like best. It'll take a few dozen more listens to be sure, though I like them all. Two of the songs are also part of the Casimir Effect soundtrack: "Paradox" and "Time Knot."

You can listen to the songs at ReverbNation. (Be forewarned that many if not most songs have the odd expletive and are probably not best listened to at most workplaces. Assuming you were going to listen to Stoner Metal/Heavy Blues at work in the first place.) You can also set up a fan account there and RN will rec other artists, and even give you a rundown of shows local to you by artists who use their service, which I'm finding cool and potentially useful, as I've already discovered at least one local band I want to check out. Possibly tonight, if I feel better enough. Or not. That might just run me back down again, and it's not like there aren't plenty of other local gigs coming up for that group.

Back to Synestheisa, if you decide you like it, you can purchase the album for download at BandCamp. I'd already pre-ordered the CD, which they're saying should arrive in 2-3 weeks. Meanwhile, they very nicely gave free dl codes to those who had pre-ordered, so no wait to put it on the mp3 player, just for the hard copy, which is cool.

Okay. Shutting up and going to sleep now. Finally.

DW 5.01 - Eleventh Hour

OMGs, not only is he still not ginger, he's still rude! 0.0

Not even seven minutes in, and I'm begging for him to have his arse handed to him.

That much I figured wasn't exactly spoilery. All else, mostly rambly reactions, goes ( under the cut. )

As usual, it'll probably take awhile to get used to having a new Doctor. But for the most part, that was a fun ep, so I'm looking forward to more.