Burning and Throbbing and Itching and Hurting

(sung to the tune of "Wishin' and Hopin' and Thinkin' and Prayin')

My foot hurts.

So darn bad.

All because of this bruised tissue!

You'd think it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but let's put it this way: I can pull my power chair right next to a toilet and still want to scream just standing up to move from one seat to another.

Good news about today: I got a 98 on my first Intro to Christianity test!

Bad news about today: I got a C+ on my first English writing assignment.

A C.

A C!

I don't get it. I went over that paragraph so many times. I thought it was really good! Writing is usually one of the things I'm best at! And yet my teacher backhandedly wrote "you suck" on my paper.

Sigh. I guess the only upside to it is that it's not that much percent-wise of my grade.

DWTS was awesome. Here's my quick recap of the contestants:

Michael Bolton (singer): kinda bad, but very graceful
Margaret Cho (comedian): the planned mishaps looked weird, but the judges were too hard on her!
Rick Fox (former NBA player): really really sexy! especially for a 6'7 guy doing the Viennese Waltz with a 5'4 partner (in 4-inch heels)
Jennifer Grey (Baby from Dirty Dancing): awesome! but I refuse to vote for her because I hate her partner that much
David Hasselhoff (who doesn't know who he is?): bad. just bad. really really bad.
Florence Henderson (Carol Brady!): hilarious! and a heck of a lot of talent for a 76-year-old! AND she flashed the camera in her rehearsal video!!!
Kyle Massey (from the Disney Channel): AMAZING! SEXY! MY FAVORITE OF THE NIGHT!
Brandy (singer): really really good. and seems like she won't put up with Maks' crap, either.
Bristol Palin (she needs no introduction): a lot better than I thought she'd be. and she shook it in her cha-cha a lot more than I expected her to, as well!
Audrina Patridge (from The Hills): really gorgeous. hard routine. but it looked like her face was frozen, she had the same expression the entire time.
Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino (from Jersey Shore...yeah, I know): terrible. but he only had 5 days to practice and everyone else had like 3+ weeks, so I can't be too hard on him.
Kurt Warner (football player): not good, but not bad, either. he's got potential.

Hope The Hoff or The Situation goes home tomorrow. But we shall see. I gotta get ready for bed. It's been a very long day.

Busy, busy me.

I.

Am.

So.

Tired.

For once, I didn't let myself get distracted and have spent all day doing homework.

Okay, so I did take an hour nap this afternoon, but I just couldn't hold my eyes open anymore!

But seriously, other than that hour, from 11:15 till 9:30, I did homework and chores. I'm quite proud of myself.

I read five chapters of my Science textbook (which it's my own fault I had to read that much - I procrastinated because I had so much work in my other classes).

I read two stories for my English class and did the required journaling.

I did prewriting for my English paper and came up with my thesis.

And I did all of my laundry.

Believe it or not, all of that took that long.

And yesterday, I ended up accidentally sleeping the day away, but when I finally woke up, I read and highlighted two chapters of my Western Civ book for the quiz on Tuesday.

And Friday before the whole ER drama, I read for my Religon class and did my French homework.

So I don't know about you, but I would consider this quite a productive weekend. When I started, I had no idea how I would get it all done, but somehow I did. :)

I also found out I got an 88 on my Western Civ test, which is about what I was expecting. Yes, I'm frustrated I got so close to an A and didn't get it, but I'm not upset. The test is only 10% of my grade, as are the other two exams I have on October 5 and 28, but the final in December is worth 40%, so I figure if I ace that test, I'll be just dandy. :)

Now, I gotta get ready for bed. It's been a tiring day, and 7:30 is gonna come way too quickly. One exciting thing about tomorrow - the new season of Dancing with the Stars!!! :D

I'm back.

Well, that was a surprisingly quick ER trip.

Thank heavens I'm okay.

I've just apparently injured all the soft tissue in my right foot right around where Dr. P operated, so I'm to take pain meds and stay off it till it gets better.

I got a shot of Dilaudid and Phenergan at the hospital, but I was crying for two hours before they could give it to me because seeing as how it's late, I couldn't get up with anyone to come get me and they had to know I had a ride before they'd give me narcotics. And I understood that, but it didn't really help with how much pain I was in. And my kinda rude nurse kept saying "calm down, calm down" and finally I yelled at her "You have no idea how bad this hurts!" (I didn't mean to yell, and yes, I apologized later.)

Thankfully, a Campus Safety guy came and got me. I had no idea that was included in their job description, but apparently it is!

So...fun night, huh? I've got to eat something and then I am crashing.

It's official.

I can't catch a break.

Last night, I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep. I pulled my foot towards me to see how the mobility was with my newly-knicked heel cord. As soon as I do, I heard a loud pop. Like someone popped their shoulder or all ten of their fingers at once. It freaked me out for a minute, but then I remembered that my left foot did the same thing after getting the cast off it. So I figured things were fine, and eventually I fell asleep.

Cut to this morning. My alarm went off, so I turned it off, put my walking boot on, and got up to go to the bathroom. The second step I take, something pops again! I rode my chair to classes all day, so I didn't even think about it, except for noticing the new stabbing pain.

This afternoon, when I got back from English. I stood up to go walk down to my friend's room (something I've done before, in fact I just did it yesterday), and I couldn't bear putting weight on it. So I call my doctor's office and my mom, and they both say I should stay off it, and wait till Monday to see if it's better.

Well, already, I can tell it's not.

It's worse.

Much worse.

Standing up to move from my chair to the toilet makes me dizzy.

And as of half an hour ago, I had a fever of 99.7. For one, it's rare for me to get any fever at all. I have a hard time staying around 98.6, usually being much lower. I just took it again, it's 100.4. The doc's "warning sign" number is 100.9.

Pray. I'm so tired of missing class.

I have a test I need to be there for on Tuesday.

I just can't catch a break.

I'm going to go call my mom. She'll know what to do.

Ew ew ew ew EW!

Here's my super gross story of the day:

So I'm sitting in my room hanging out doing homework after I got back from my Science lab, when my RA knocks on my door. "Hey, can I check your water?" Uh, sure. She turns on my sink, and the water is BROWN.

Like, really brown.

Like someone poured Coke in our water pipes brown.

Talk about gross.

And of course, with my luck, I find this out just when I really have to go to the bathroom, so I first go over to Shouse (dining hall) and their bathroom is messed up, too. So I go over to The Groc, and the only bathroom in there isn't public, but the guy at the cash register told me that there was a bathroom in the Sauls lobby right down the sidewalk. Whew!

So I ended up having to go over there whenever I had to go to the bathroom because using mine seriously made me gag.

It took like four hours for the water to be clear so that I could take a shower. And I still felt like I was contracting some disease the entire time I was showering.

Sigh. The joys of college, huh?

P.S. I think I did really well on my Western Civ test. Yay! :)

Big Test Tomorrow

I have my big Western Civ test in the morning.

All I can say is that I would really, really appreciate it if you said a quick prayer that I get an A. I don't just want an A, I need it.

Adding stress to the matters is that I'm having bad neck pain (along with other slightly random muscle pains) tonight which I got right before that two-and-a-half-week-long headache. If I wake up tomorrow with a headache like that one, getting up and going to class to take that test is going to be incredibly difficult.

So needless to say, I'm going to bed now. And hoping and praying that when I wake up tomorrow, I won't be in this kind of pain.

It seems I just have the most fantastic timing, don't you think?

So much better today.

So despite getting a really, really terrible night's sleep, and forgetting to do my reading for Honors today, I feel so much better today than I did yesterday.

My guess is the lack of anxiety med all day seriously contributed to my feeling so overwhelmed. Gee, ya think?

I had a conversation with Dr. Martin, my Western Civ professor, after class today, and apparently, I've really impressed him. You know how I know? Because he said it like 5 times in a 5 minute conversation. Talk about an ego boost! :) He said that his tests, 50 multiple choice questions, are way easier than his quizzes, having to define/explain 5 terms out of anywhere between 25 and 50 pages packed full of information.

And the 2nd floor RA of my dorm, Heather, had him for both Western Civ I AND Western Civ II, and she said as long as I wrote down everything from his slides in class (which I did) and study those notes, I'll be golden. I even lucked out with a girl I can study with tomorrow! The girl who sits next to me in class is really nice, and she lives on the 3rd floor of my dorm! How awesome is that? So we're having a study session tomorrow afternoon.

Then, I talked to my Environmental Science teacher today, because the labs this week are going out to this pond to do water testing of some sort (makes sense for the class). At first I thought I wouldn't be able to go out there since I'm still in my walking boot full-time and my chair most of the time. However, he said that since people have to carpool over there anyway, whoever drives me can just drive their car right up to the picnic table area, and I can just sit there and help with the testing of the water. That'll work fine because I can walk some, and I can just leave my chair in the lab room on campus till we get back.

It's so nice not to be so upset anymore. I feel normal today. :P Must remember: Mallory, do not forget morning medicine!

As of now, I only have one project that's scaring terrifying me. That would be the 5-6 page research paper I have to do for Honors that's 50% of my entire grade. Not only am I freaked out by placing half of my grade on one paper (talk about pressure!), seeing as how the whole semester is on creationism vs. evolution and the first few chapters of Genesis, and that's basically what the paper has to be on, and I'm really not fascinated by the topic, it's going to be that much more of a pain to do this.

Let's just say, my paper is probably not going to be more than 5 pages. ;)

It's not due till October 26, but Mom said that if I can get a draft out by Fall Break, she'll proofread it for writing and content. One of the many plus sides of having an English teacher for a mom. I hope I can find the time to do it, because that would seriously help. One nice thing is that I have a friend in the class, who is also in my English class, so maybe we can do some work on this together.

Okay, this was a whole lot of rambling that probably no one cares about. I'll stop now so that on the slim chance that you've actually made it all the way down to this point, you don't get annoyed by the length of this. Good night!

Manic on Monday

Today has been nonstop.
Class.
Homework.
Lunch.
Class.
Class.
Reading.
Dinner.
More HOMEWORK.
Add in the freakout I had this afternoon, and you can just imagine how super my day has been.

What was the freakout about, you ask? Oh, typical me feeling so overwhelmed by everything that I called Mom in tears. Don't even know where that came from. Although, I did notice a few minutes ago that I forgot to take my medicine this morning, part of which was my anxiety med, so that just might have had something to do with it.

In all seriousness, though, I am feeling terribly overwhelmed. It's a never-ending cycle of homework, and essays, and quizzes, and tests, and I'm stuck in feeling like I'm just never going to get caught up. Plus, I'm working my butt off and I'm getting grades that I'm really not used to.

Thankfully, my mom is a teacher, so she gave me some studying tips and advice to talk to the teacher whose class I'm most concerned about (Western Civ). What would I do without that woman, I tell ya. To make me feel slightly less of a freak, she told me about a girl from our church, Brittnay, who is super smart and in grad school at YALE(!!!) right now, and her mom told my mom today that Brittnay has talked to them feeling the same way I feel.

Just must remember that a) this IS normal b) I WILL calm down and c) I can do this.

Note to self: Repeat phrase "I can do this" until you believe it.

Write your Senators, everybody!

Seriously.

How is it Sunday night already?

I call for a write-in campaign to make 3-day weekends mandatory.

I need 3-day weekends to get all the homework my teachers assign done.

It's like each professor thinks that they're the only one who assigns homework, and quizzes, and tests. Because somehow all the tests manage to happen right on top of each other taking away all opportunity for you to breathe.

Case in point: French test on 10th, Western Civ test on the 16th, Religion test on the 17th, and Science test on the 21st. And trust me, my Western Civ and Science tests are going to be killer. Factor in the weekly Religion and Western Civ quizzes, and Science Lab work, and English essays, and Honors reading, and I am losing. my. mind!

Which considering we've not even been in class for a month is really kind of pathetic.

And I have to make it till October 6th before I get another break from this place.

I think a 4-day school week and 3-day weekend would save us all from a lot of added insanity.

I mean, most of y'all probably have jobs and could use an extra day to breathe, right? I can't be the first one to have thought of this.

9/11/01 - WE REMEMBER

I don't remember a life before 9/11.  A life without fear.  It's kind of like how I don't remember life before my dad died.  We all have these moments that shape us, that change who we are forever.  I may not remember much about what happened, but I live every day with effects of that tragic morning all around me.

You see it on the housefronts with the American flag flying proudly.

You see it on the marquees that read "GOD BLESS AMERICA."

You see it on the news programs covering the war we're still fighting nine years later.

You see it in the airports.

You see it in the obituaries, listing the latest casualties.

It's everywhere.  America is not the same.

I was only 9 years old and in 5th grade. I remember that we hadn't been in class very long.  After my teacher, Mrs. Smith got the message, she explained that our country had been attacked and turned on the TV.  Then, our principal came on and announced that the school was on lockdown, and no one was allowed to leave their rooms.  Let's just say, we got no work done that day.  We were just a bunch of 9 and 10-year-old kids, but we understood that something very big had happened to us.  We just had no idea how big it was.

I may not remember much about that day, but I do remember this:  I live in the greatest country in the world.   The country filled with men and women who volunteer to risk their lives so that we can keep living our lives blissfully unaware of what other people live with on a daily basis. 

Remember those who died that day.

Remember those still fighting to protect us.

Remember that there are people still out there trying to destroy the life we hold so dear.

Always remember...