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.