I'm going in for surgery tomorrow. They called me during class, and when I picked up, it was my surgeon asking could the procedure take place tomorrow, rather than next week. After several confused and anxious phone calls, I worked stuff out, and it's a go. And then it will be over.

I'm anxious, nervous, worried. But I guess that's just the way some things go. At least they didn't make me check in today...I'd be there now, in a cold room with several other people, covers pulled up to my chin, book in hand, reading light bent down over my shoulder, trying to plow through something, anything to take my mind off the next morning. At least I got to eat real food tonight. Lucky me, I get wonderful hospital food tomorrow for dinner.

Anyway, outside of that, life is good. My workshop went well today, rehearsal wasn't really rehearsal, and there were Halloween activities in the hostel this evening. Now I need to go take the nail polish off my nails, make sure my bag is packed for the hospital (I've overnighted there twice now...you'd think I'd know exactly what I need, but alas, such is not the case), and um, not worry. Hahahahahahahaha. Ha. Ha.

:)

Long time no update. Not that I've been terribly busy, just not a lot terribly exciting going on. So let's see.

I went to the grand old hospital four times this week. My "score" (whatever it's measuring) is a 77, which, as my PT pointed out, is better than the 34 two months ago, but still much under the 80-something she was hoping for prior to surgery. I saw my surgeon for all of two minutes today, and he confirmed the date of the surgery (Nov 6th) and told me that they are going to use the tendons from my hamstring to reconstruct the ACL. Or something. My surgeon makes me so nervous, that I forgot to ask him when I was going to be discharged. It's not that I don't trust him, not that at all. It's just he gets flustered, seems puzzled by me, and talks really fast and then pauses for a really long time. I think it's the whole English thing/I'm an American girl who shows up with her nails painted and short hair and stuff. Or something. Anyway, he reminded me again not to wear nail polish to the surgery (which I know from last time) and then said he'd see me in ten days. WoooOOOoooOOO. So, yeah, surgery on November 6th. And then I get to go through the exhausting-waking-up-from-general-anesthesia-can't-take-a-proper-shower-have-to-use-painful-crutches-
can't-do-much-on-my-own-feel-drugged-and-useless-have-to-go-to-pt-all-over-again thing. I look forward to it.

Aladdin is going well. We got to see some of the costumes the other night. Maybe I shouldn't say it's going well. It's going. Not terribly, not wonderfully. It gets frustrating at times, and I have to keep reminding myself to step back. A lot of them have never worked onstage before, many of them have no idea what stage presence is, and most of them have never done a musical before. So it's understandable that it's slow going. It just gets frustrating sometimes. And I just have to remind myself to chill out. Hardcore.

So! We start a new round of workshops next week, and I'm doing two on 'Exchange English/Social English,' which is essentially English prep for people going to English speaking countries for exchange studies. Should be fun. Even more exciting is that I get to teach a ten-week course next semester on Introduction to African Literature (and by default some history and culture)!!!!!!! I'm uber-excited about this. I know I want to do Soyinka "Death and the King's Horseman," Ngugi's "I Will Marry When I Want," something by Achebe, Coetzee, and probably Gordimer. I might excerpt something from Fanon. Then there are poets I can't remember who I'm going to look up. I just don't want everything to come from Nigeria, which is the country with which I am most familiar, being's as my thesis was on it and I did my research fellowship on Nigerian lit. Anyway, I'm going to do some research/pull some books to prepare my curriculum while I recover. The Spanish classes are going well. The primary school courses are too. *nods*
I've been thinking whether I want to go back and get a teaching certification...for high school English. Would that be crazy? Do I want to deal with adolescents for the rest of my life? But I love doing literature, and I love reading and talking about it...I just don't see me in the strict world of PhD academia. Then again, I also don't know if I have the patience to work with 14-18 year olds. I've still got some time...we'll see how it goes.

Ummmm, what else? Putonghua classes have started. I find the tones easier than Cantonese, but that doesn't mean I'll be able to learn it well. But I try.
Oh! There was a dance show here the other day. All the colleges/universities around Hong Kong are sending their dance societies to the different campuses to do performances. Most of it was hip hop type things, although there were some other styles. It was really fun, hype, exciting. And they were pretty good...some of it was amazing, actually. Their costumes were on point! They must have spent a small fortune on them. Craaaazy. I remember with ours, it was more of a what do you have in your closet that's jeans and black thing for most of the pieces. Except Magahlena. Which is just special. And wonderful.

Not going to lie, I'm really freaked out about the next surgery. Waking up from the anesthesia was so hard last time and the pain was so bad. And I didn't know what I was getting into last time, so I could only dread it as a great unknown. And now I know what it's like. Maybe it won't be as bad this time. *crosses fingers* I can do this though. After this surgery, I just have to do all my PT and work on the recovery. And then I can be okay again.

So I've noticed something. And it's not a phenomenon limited to Hong Kong. Or foreign countries. This may sound like a sweeping generality, BUT, Americans are really loud. And I completely include myself in this category. When in groups with other Americans, we talk loudly. On campus, around town, on the bus, etc so on and so forth. We were coming back from an activity at the JC Student Quarters tonight, and we stopped outside one of the dorms (where some of us live) and were talking. The volume escalated to unbelievable proportions considering we were all standing within a few feet of each other and it was a quiet night, no background noise. I notice it in myself all the time...and it's one of those irritating aspects of my personality that I am aware of (at the time, prior to, immediately after) and yet cannot seem to control. Part of it is that I can't hear very well, or don't listen very well, and so I guess if I talk louder then maybe other people will as well. Such is life. I've been telling myself for ages that I need to speak quietly (and carry a big stick! Name the quote!...wow....new depths of dorkiness...of course, in three weeks, I'll be carrying two big sticks...made of metal...to wit, my crutches).

Speaking of crutches, which I also do a lot, I need to stop that, um, lost my train of thought.....
Oh right. I've decided that during the few days of convalescence where I am mostly incapable of motion (from experience, the first two or three days), I can study for the GRE/LSAT! I mean, I know I nap a lot in the first couple days, and what quicker way to knock myself out than to study vocab, apply formulas, and play logic games! *beams*

I wish I could say I had done lots of crazy things, gone somewhere, done something, seen someone. But sadly, the last however long, I've stayed close to home. I don't feel comfortable out and about right now for some reason. Partially because my left knee is starting to hurt, I think from over compensating for the weakness of the right knee. I hope it's fine. *knocks on wood* Anyway, have plans to go out Thursday night, but am thinking of bailing, because of my knee. And because we wouldn't be leaving till 10ish at night, to travel over an hour to go walk around/stand up for several hours. After three hours of rehearsal. It's tempting....I really would love to get off campus. But I'm thinking, since I have to meet with the surgeon soon, and I want to make sure everything's good with my knee so he clears me for the November 6th surgery, the sensible thing would be to remind myself that, while I may be bored off my rocker now, health should come first. I keep telling myself that I will be back to normal or thereabouts by New Year's, and that I'll have six more months to get my fill of Hong Kong. It's just hard right now.

I overuse parentheses.
Goodnight!!!!
(And by that I mean I'm off to read)

It occurred to me today that my Bryn Mawr email is probably about to be deactivated. And with it would go all the papers, applications, etc. that I did the past three years. So I proceeded to go through my email folders, helpfully labeled "Academia" and "Apps". I pulled several essays, some random writing pieces, and a few letters that I had written in word, printed out, and mailed. One of these days, when I'm feeling inspired or depressed I'll read through them.

I downloaded the Scrabble application on facebook. It's kind of amazing. I wish I had a scrabble game on my computer.

I started reading another Alison Weir book...Eleanor of Aquitaine, which takes me back a couple centuries earlier than I normally read as far as British history goes. Interesting thus far...all thirty some odd pages that I've read. Sometimes, when I think about what I'd like to do with my history degree, I have to admit that it's already been done: take some of the interesting/scandalous/shocking/dramatic/old-fashioned tales of history, and write novels about them. Then I realize the reason I want to do this is because someone (by name Philippa Gregory) has already done this. And she's not the only one, of course. I mean, obviously, there's a ton more history out there, and a million stories to be written about them. I just have to find another area/era that captures and holds my interest like Britain in that time.

I'm really into the soundtrack of Cabaret right now. And by that I mean I've listened to "Wilkommen," "Mein Herr," "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," and "I don't care much" over and over today. *sigh*

The week begins with a bang...PT at 8:45am. And ends with yet another public holiday. And the students here have another reading week, so no workshops or Spanish classes. Craziness!

So goals of this week: choreography for Friend Like Me, planning next weeks classes/workshops, write that thing I've pseudo-started but not really, survive PT. Reasonable, right? Doable, even? :)

The good and the huh.

The good: The workshops went well this week. We also started the Spanish classes. Two different classes, an hour and a half each. Most of the people showed up, and they were really enthused, participated a lot, and all that. Aladdin also is going well. We choreographed the two different versions of A Whole New World. I'm excited to start doing Friend Like Me choreography next week. It's going to be jazzy, with top hats! I also got some more books out of the library...which is always cause for excitement.


The huh: Apparently, my physical therapist suspects that I have sprained my Patellar (spelling? I actually don't even know if that's what it is called...the tendon on the front of your knee, essentially) tendon. This would account for both the swelling and the pain. She says it would have happened at the same time that I tore my ACL, and they just never picked up on it. The only concern now is whether this will affect the time schedule for my next surgery. *sigh*

Anyway, outside of that, things are going well, enjoying going into Tai Po and Kowloon Tong (I really wish I trusted my knee to go further about in HK), etc etc etc.

So work is going well. I've done one session of each of my workshops so far and one session at the Primary School. Spanish courses start tomorrow. We're doing two classes and each have twenty people registered for them. *gulp*

Shanita and I worked for almost four hours last night. We worked with the Genie, Aladdin, and the Carpet for an hour or so on "Prince Ali" and then spent the rest of the time developing the 'gestures' for the choral version of "A Whole New World." Then we proceeded to the dancing version of it, which I'm happy with. And the costumes for that scene are those really fun skirts with lots of extra fabric so that they spin out and can be incorporated into the dance. So we did.

I had PT again today. Despite their telling me last week that I only have to come in once a week, they now decided that I should start doing twice a week again. They also informed me that my score was up to 64, where it was 38 when I first came in. This score is based on a variety of things...pain, range, intrusion of injury on daily activities etc. So, as my PT said, I am improving but I have to make quite a bit more progress before the surgery, that she would like to see it up to 80 or 90. She then also told me that the next surgery will be much worse than the last one and that the recovery will be worse. She must have seen terror in my eyes or something, because she hastened to add that the surgery is not dangerous and that the doctor is very skilled, but that it's a tricky procedure. That will help me sleep at night. weeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Having received that wonderful news, I solaced myself (can I even use 'solace' as a verb?) by purchasing acrylic paint and two paint brushes and doing two paintings. Which admittedly took me close to three hours....shhhhh. They're pretty generic (read not good), but I enjoyed doing them, and it got my mind off my stupid knee. And how they're now telling me that when it hurts...push a little bit more.

I was looking at some pictures I had put up on the cork board in my room. I miss Taia and Grace. There's one of us in the pool from this summer, goofing off, you know. They'll be so much older by the time I get home. Craaaaazy. But then again, I suppose I will have grown up some too. Maybe. :)

Perhaps I'll go into Tai Po for dinner. Ramen with pork? McDonald's? Curry? Random place with good food? Yum!!!
I love eating. *happy dances*

Things learned in hospitals:

1) You can return your crutches two days late as long as a national holiday falls in between the due date and the time you turned them in. Or as long as they don't look at the due date.
2) If they tell you to come twice a week, and you skip for twelve days because you're sick and there are two public holidays between then and the next time you go in, they'll let you start coming in once a week after that.
3) If you can't straighten your knee, they'll put a pillowcase full of ice directly on your knee for fifteen minutes, then sandbags, then you'll miraculously be able to straighten your leg for the first time in weeks.
4) I got a 350 HKD refund for returning my crutches. Food! :)

My knee hasn't felt this loose in ages. Very nice. Of course, there was a bit of oh-my-ga-you're-trying-to-kill-me-aren't-you leading up to that.

Not much doing today, at least not till this evening. Going to go to the office and do some work, get some lunch, take a little nap.....