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Wednesday night, in an attempt to set a dish on the counter, I accidentally dropped it on the floor. Oops.
Thursday night, while putting my computer on the table, I knocked over a glass, which shattered perfectly around the middle into a shorter glass and a ring. Don’t know how I did it, but I did.
John asked, politely, if I could try not to break anything today, Friday.
So it’s a good thing that I took my breakfast out today on a plastic plate. I had to go get blood drawn before eating, so I took toast and a banana with me when I ran out the door. Then, on the way to the doctor’s office, some jerk pulled in front of me and I had to slam on my breaks. The breaks locked, I skidded a bit, but all was well and both cars remained intact.
The plate went sailing onto the floor, as did all my food.
At least my toast landed butter-side up!
And with just over an hour to go, I haven’t broken anything yet today.
Of course, with a scuba weekend ahead, there’s always toes and tanks to be wary of. Wish me luck!
Life has been so full of stuff lately that I feel like I haven’t had a chance to sit and breathe, let alone do anything extra. There’ve been scuba classes to teach, research symposium applications to finish, weddings to help with and attend, plus all sorts of work.
The biggest thing John and I had on our plate lately was Elizabeth and Mark’s wedding. We’ve been having all sorts of lunch and dinner parties to help the happy couple make table center pieces or arrange favors or have bridal showers. We’ve been on a number of bike rides to help the bride tone her arms and back. It’s been really great to watch two people so clearly in love, and so right for one another. Plus meeting all of their other friends has been a blast.
Their wedding was last weekend, and it was beautiful. Hot as hades, but beautiful. Full Catholic mass ceremony, which was a bit much for a non-air-conditioned church (one of my friends from high school nearly passed out but made it through), and a great reception. We’d helped set up the reception area beforehand, so knew how nice it was going to be. There was also a post-wedding brunch, for which my oven was on at 400deg for 2 hours on Saturday, while the outside temperature was hovering around 100deg. Hot, but the food was oh-so-tasty.
Elizabeth and Mark are off on their honeymoon for the next couple of weeks, and I’m sort of sad to not have them around, and to have no more wedding party excuses for getting together, but we’ll be back to our usual routine the minute they’re home, I’m sure.
The other big thing that’s been taking up my time, and absorbing most of my words, is my paper, which was submitted Monday to a journal, and has been sent out for review. Such a relief. I went home Monday, sprawled on the couch, and didn’t move for hours. That may have been due to the heat, in part, but still. It’s done, or at least I don’t have to think about it for 4-6 weeks. Cross your fingers for me, will you?
I’m pretty proud of this paper. Yes, maybe it’s not as great as it could have been with massive more experiments (there’s always another paper, I suppose), and no, it’s not going to change the world, and yes, it’ll likely be one of two instead of a whole handful that I end up graduating with, but that work? It’s mine. I did it. I completed it, with lots of help, but it’s still mine. And I’m pretty proud of that, regardless of the comments that have been thrown at me in the past about it.
Now to just get a second paper out and aim to graduate sometime. Key word: sometime.
But hopefully with the paper done, I’ll be around a bit more. I’ve clearly kind of forgotten how to do this whole blogging thing, but hopefully it’s like riding a bicycle, which, hey, I’m allowed to do again! Here’s to the paper being sent off, and theoretically only 2-3 more months of physical therapy! Whee!
Remember how we have a hummingbird nest right outside our door?
Well, MommaBird hadn’t been around in awhile, or at least not when I was coming and going from home, so I was a bit concerned.
And then, yesterday, as I was leaving the house, two little hummingbird baby heads were poking out of the nest to greet me.
So awesome, and a lovely start to a kick-ass Friday that ended with 21 people in an awesome scuba class (good lord that was tiring) followed by a home-cooked meal from Cara!
I know I haven’t been posting much, and sort of trivial things, but it’s because I’ve been figuring out how to deal with what I’ve been feeling–I figured working through it in my head was a lot better than rambling on forever here.
Also, I’ve been working on a paper a lot lately, so I’ve kind of not felt like writing anything else.
So, the truth is, I felt for awhile there like I was two people, one very happy and one not so happy.
I was given some advice awhile back–that I could choose to dwell and be unhappy and let things get to me, or I could move on and get over them and be happy with the way things were. Difficult advice to follow, to be sure, but I decided it was worth a shot.
So that is what I’ve been working on for the last month. I’ve really begun to feel like I can just be happy with myself and my life and my family and my friends and everything recently. But I also felt like if I tried to blog about it before I was ready, it’d come out all negative, which would defeat the purpose.
Now, though, I think I’m ready to go back to writing. And definitely ready to go back to being happy and self-confident and self-loving!
So here are some of the happy moments in the last month or so:
I got to help with an Advanced scuba class awhile back that Sydney took, and it was great to work with our staff and her. Plus, we had some cool dives. On our night dive, an otter came and hunted by the light of our lights. Sydney also found an octopus, which I’m hoping the otter did NOT find! I also saw my first eel, a monkey-faced eel, down in Carmel on the boat dive, which was pretty cool.
I threw myself a kick-ass enchilada birthday party, somewhat delayed to make room for the advanced class, and the weekend Sydney had her birthday party, and stuff going on at John’s work. We heated our little apartment up to toasty levels with three burners and the stove going, but it was an awesome evening.
I did a big presentation for my department, and it went well. I made it through the talk, answered all the questions fully (I hope), and was told afterwards by people that it was clear and concise and I did a good job.
I got to spend part of the past weekend with the lovely Julie and her adorable girl Ella, and even got a smile and a hug from her by the end of the day. (Specifically Ella, but Julie did smile and hug me, too!) There’s nothing quite like a baby’s smile to make all right with the world. Plus, it was great to hang out with Julie and her family! Now to just wait for the third member of her family to come visit…
And last, there’s a hummingbird nest in the bushes by our front door. The poor thing keeps dive bombing us whenever we come or go, and if we had another door, we’d use it. But in the meantime, it’s pretty cool to watch her, and I can’t wait for little hummingbird babies!
See, now how can life be dark and dreary when I’ve got all that going on?
Life has been scattered lately. So has my brain.
We’re making massaman curry chicken for dinner. I’m super excited. And hungry.
Easter was lovely. Good time with family, and lovely to see my grandparents doing well. Of course, after the left, things got even livelier–liar’s dice and lots of wine were involved. Lovely.
Not so lovely: I’ve been wondering if things don’t work for me in experiments because they just don’t, or because I’m not good at this whole science thing. Other people can make similar experiments work, so I’m starting to feel it’s just me. And I already feel like I suck at science, so this isn’t helping.
On a positive note, though, I got dismissed from being on a jury last week because the case involved disputed scientific evidence of the sort that I am familiar with. Neither the defense nor the prosecution wanted me. I’m guessing one side thought I’d agree with the evidence, and the other side thought I’d agree with the dispute. So apparently this science thing is somewhat worth it. And thankfully I won’t miss two weeks of work!
We went “fun diving” this past weekend with James, Cara and Sydney. We saw a thornback ray. The conditions weren’t great, but the ray was awesome. Plus hanging out with the three of them was awesome.
We’ve got a scuba class next week, and I’m super excited. Sydney is taking it, and I think I’m going to be allowed to carry gear, and hence be a useful member of the staff, so it should be awesome. And if involves boat dives! Whee!
I’ve managed to get rid of most of the tension and pain in my shoulders and back. Now I’m just working on making my muscles strong enough to do normal everyday things.
For the first time in about three months, I don’t have a doctor appointment tomorrow morning. So excited. And starting next week, I only have two a week instead of three!
I’m allowed to bike again, and Elizabeth and I went out this past weekend. It was freakishly hot, but well worth it. We got in a good 15-20 miles, and had a blast. There are plans for a repeat this coming weekend!
My mom, too, is doing really well. No further complications from surgery, energy recovering, doing well. We keep getting favorable reports from John’s mom, which are much appreciated. And I get to see my mom with my own eyes in just over a month. Sweet!
On the flip side, John’s grandmother went into the hospital with lung problems again recently. It didn’t look good, to the point where we were ready to pick up and fly home, but thankfully she too is recovering and back at home.
I still miss my bunny, but it’s getting easier every day. I’m starting to even think of doing something with his cage. John has vetoed that “something” being filling it with a new bunny. Bah. Though I really appreciate all the condolences.
Randomness of the brain: Sometimes helpful. Sometimes not.
Last week, on one of the days John had off, I left work somewhat early and we went out to one of the bayland parks for a walk. Since my activity involving shoulders is so restricted, walking is about my only form of exercise. I’m feeling slothful.
Anyways, we’ve been going out to the park, walking and bird watching. Yes, I apparently am my parent’s daughter, seeing as how I’ve finally admitted an interesting in figuring out what bird I’m looking at and putting it on a “life list”.
Plus, it’s been fun to just walk with John, to catch up and meander and be together.
So last week when we were out there, we’d walked about two miles around the outer park loop and had four ahead of us. It was freakishly windy, so instead we turned back to redo the two we’d already done. There were a lot of little estuaries, most of which were mud as we walked out, but were slowly filling as the tide came in on our way back.
And then, there it was.
A snake.
A big snake.
And no, I’m not exaggerating. John says 3 feet, at least. Brown. Trying to swim across one of the estuaries.
Away from us, at least. Right up until it gave up and came back to the bank that we were on.
I spotted it, and John immediately put the binoculars to good use. He joked about a diamond pattern. Funny guy. Hmpf. (My dad, the snake expert, says it was probably a gopher snake. He was much more excited to hear about it than I was to see it.)
In true form, I froze, but mostly just did that. A bit of shaking, a bit of tear-welling, a bit of jumping at rustling bushes, and a bit of keeping an eye in all directions. But mostly I just stood there. No binoculars for me, but no extreme panic.
I spent the rest of the walk back to the car with one eye in all directions at all possible times, and was a bit jumpy, plus I was pretty thankful to be back safely in the car, but I thought it was good progress.
So apparently, even if I didn’t see a sea snake in Fiji to test out my “okay-ness” with it, the therapy worked at least a bit.
There’s probably more therapy in my future, as I wasn’t entirely okay with the situation, and I still don’t know what I’d do if I came face-to-face with a snake instead of being 40 feet away.
And as I just jumped at the NHL Stanley Cup commercial with a snake in it, and as one of the dive sites in Papua New Guinea is called the “Snake Pit”? Some work still needed, clearly.
Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be doing that dive, mmkay?
Remember back, oh, maybe 10-12 weeks ago? When I mentioned I’d hurt my shoulder?
No?
Well, I did. Somehow. The left side of my neck hurt. Then the pain moved into the right side. Then down into my shoulder blade. And then down into my side, to the point where I felt like I had a stitch from running to far, despite doing nothing but laying on the couch on a heating pad, eating ibuprofen like candy. It wasn’t fun.
I went to the doctor, and since I’m not a fan of Student Health’s physical therapy people (not being a student athlete and all), I got a referral to a chiropractor.
All was going well for the most part, and the pain was slowly going away. At least to the point where I was no longer single-handedly keeping ibuprofen people in business and could do things with my right arm. Simple things, like pick up a half-gallon of milk. Ah, the small pleasures in life, right?
Then, about two weeks ago, I started going backwards. More pain in my shoulder blade. New pain in the fronts of my shoulder joints, right where you’d draw an imaginary line between your arm and your body.
In fact, right where your rotator cuff is.
Wait, what now? Rotator cuff? Umm, not so good.
So off I went to see the doctor again, and got another referral to a physical medicine specialist, who gave me a referral to a physical therapist (thankfully a real one, not student health).
Up to this point, no one besides the chiropractor had done anything other than ask me where it hurt, to move my arm a bit, and to tell me I had a sore muscle. And they’d all asked me what I did for a living, then suggested I stop doing it. Riiiiiiight.
The physical therapist lady, on the other hand, was lovely. She asked a ton of questions, took a lot of notes, then had me do a bunch of resistance movements, with her providing the resistance and me telling her it was fine/uncomfortable/pressure/pain/ouch/etc. It took almost an hour. She also had me relax and then moved my joints around, presumably to see how much they did move.
Then she sat me down and gave me the news. Apparently, I have what’s called hypermobile joints in my neck and shoulders. This means the joints allow extra movement of my shoulder and/or vertebrae. More than the average person. A common symptom/sign is double-jointedness, which I don’t have, but I’m still hypermobile.
The pain in my shoulders and neck/back? While possibly stemming from some initial muscle pull, is likely from what’s called hypermobile insufficiency. Basically, the muscles around my shoulder joints (i.e. those four fun little muscle that make up your rotator cuff), as well as the ones in my neck/back/shoulders, are tired of dealing with the extra movement.
And so they’re complaining. By producing pain. And all the bench work and desk work I do for a living is not exactly helping.
And the extra fun news? Unlike a pulled muscle, this won’t get better. I can do physical therapy to increase the strength of the muscles to hopefully avoid more pain, but it’s going to be a life-long struggle to stay ahead of the weakness.
While I’m glad to know why I’ve been hurting for close to three months, I’m not exactly happy with the diagnosis. Frankly, a pulled muscle sounds better. Or at least shorter-term.
And so the verdict is: Physical therapy twice a week for at least a month, if not more. Chiropractor once a week, for my back, mostly. Diving is permissible for now if I never carry weight. Yoga is good. Biking is completely out the door unless I get handle bars that allow me to sit straight up and not put any pressure on my shoulders. Kickboxing is gone. Swimming isn’t so good until I’m stronger. Working at a computer for more than 20 minutes without standing up and moving around isn’t good. Working at the bench for more than 10 isn’t good.
After the first physical therapy appointment today, I can definitely tell how weak I am in my shoulders. I knew I hadn’t been able to lift heavy things, like a fully grocery bag or an empty pot (let alone a full pot), but I didn’t realize how little strength I had there.
Must be why I’ve never, ever, in my entire life, been able to do a pull-up.
My goal now is just to get strong enough to do normal life stuff, and then hopefully get back into being able to exercise (dive, bike) at some point after that.
But really? This kind of just sucks. And hurts a lot right now. I suggest you all buy stock in ibuprofen and/or aleve.
No jinxing things, okay?
So, what else to mention…
Well, I’m still working on writing my paper, which is great fun, let me tell you! Despite not providing too many comments on my writing, my boss commented to me on Wednesday that if I’ve got a committee meeting coming up, I should try to have a final draft of my paper by this weekend. Yeeeaaahhh. I’m working on it. And progressing, theoretically.
Hrm, fun things to talk about…
Oh, my shoulder/neck is getting better! I was pain-free for nearly a week leading up to my appointment a week ago, then made the faulty decision to do some cardio kickboxing with minimal punching moves on Monday. And then proceeded to have mild neck pain for the rest of the week. Apparently there’s a difference between feeling fine and being fine!
And here I was, about to make diving plans with Sydney and whoever else was interested. D’oh! Maybe I can convince people to carry my gear into the water for me, so I don’t have to carry the weight.
But at my last doctor’s appointment on Friday, she said that despite the pain, I was less tense, or whatever she’s feeling in my back/neck/shoulder, than I had been, so things are progressing towards being okay despite my bad decision.
And John has been absolutely wonderful. He told me I was going to my club meeting Wednesday night, despite whether I wanted to or not. It was actually a great decision, and I met someone who might help me with finding a job in the next year or so, as well as someone who had some good information on finding a new place to live! Productive night! Then I went to dinner with Nate and Shelly and Rae and Aaron, who were great and distracting company.
Then, Thursday, John took me to see the Sharks game. Just so I wouldn’t be sitting at home worrying. Lovely boy, eh? The Sharks won, which was also good. And I reconnected with three old friends over the course of the day.
And yesterday, when a headache came out of nowhere and blindsided me, probably a result of the stress and worry of the week, he made me a lovely dinner and helped me relax.
Now I’m sitting at home, on the couch, drinking coffee and watching the Sharks game and theoretically working on my paper. Clearly that’s going well, as I’m writing this and not it! But I’m feeling good, and things (all of them) are well. That’s what counts, right?
Plus, I think there’s a chocolate banana cake recipe calling my name. Anyone want to come by for a taste???
I’ve spent a ton of time lately working on a manuscript to give my boss, and the more time I spend working on it, the less time I want to spend sitting around writing other things. So, not so many posts lately.
But now I’m just sitting in front of the computer exporting image files to TIFF files, individually, one at a freaking time, in 5 different color combos, and I’m about to go mad from boredom. I’m really hoping the time this is taking is because John’s old computer is so slow, and thus it’ll be faster if I can find a computer at work, but it may just be the program.
One hour and 47 images down, millions of both to go.
So what have I been up to?
1. We went out and bought a couple hundred dollars worth of school supplies for the school in Fiji–it’s amazing just how much you can get for so little. Now, of course we have the problem of shipping this stuff there. That might actually cost more than the supplies themselves, but it’s a price we all (the people from the trip) are glad to pay. I just feel bad that it took us so long to go and do this!
2. I’ve screwed up my neck/shoulder/side muscles through some random combination of work and diving. The extent apparently has to do with my body trying to compensate for, say, my neck muscle being sore, and thus holding my shoulder funny, thereby injuring it as well. I am not amused. The chiropractor thinks she can help, but if not, I’m off to physical therapy. Grouch. That said, I’d like to be able to dive and bike again soon, so I’m doing what I can. Frankly, there are days when I’d like to take a deep breathe (or sneeze or yawn or whatnot) without intense side pain as if from a stitch. Grouch.
3. We’re going to visit my grandparents this weekend. They’ve been moved down to California, although they would probably term it “they’ve moved to California.” They haven’t done so well this past year, and fall (the month, although it did involve some falls) was hard on them. I couldn’t go help out, as I felt like I’d already taken off so much time to be with my mom, but now I can go and see them and take care of them whenever. Or just visit them. They’ve moved down here to be close to two children and their families instead of just one. Maybe this means my parents will come visit more? I hope!
4. Speaking of which, my mom Facebook’d me. I was amused. And yes, I accepted. I’ve always approached that site with the theory that, if I didn’t want my parents/boss to see it, it wouldn’t be on there. So why not? I’m wondering a bit about my sister, though.
5. We have back-to-back-to-back-to-back scuba classes starting tonight. I didn’t go down to help, but I might get in the pool if I can weasel permission from the doctors. This schedule is going to take the combined work of our entire staff. Le sigh.
6. We had brunch a week or so ago with Elizabeth and Mark, and found an awesome crepe place to add to our list of enjoyable restaurants. Plus, it was just a lot of fun.
7. On the opposite side of the spectrum, James M wanted to get together for dinner Tuesday night. When he was late, I texted. And apparently woke him up. Frankly, we were okay with being stood up. Less awkwardness, as he still hadn’t quite caught on to the fact that most of us are incredibly fed up with him and his lack of help to our scuba staff. Especially with the upcoming classes…
8. My goal for 2009 was to declutter my life. Not so much a New Year’s resolution, which is made to be broken, but a plan to feel better about living in a small apartment with a lot of stuff meant decreasing the amount of stuff. To that end, we took 7 bags of stuff to the Goodwill last Saturday. And that was only one room’s worth!
9. John finally, finally, has a full weekend off this coming weekend. First since December. He still has a job, so I’m not complaining, and I understand that his schedule is wacky because his boss is rearranging the whole schedule to maximize the full-timers, thus (a) protecting them and (b) minimizing the amount of time he has to pay his part-timers. This sucks for them, but not much I can do about it. That said, the lack of weekends off together combined with the number of late nights he’s working isn’t fun.
10. Sydney and I haven’t gotten together much recently, what with her crazy shifts around the holidays, my trip home, and now her trip to Thailand. But she’s home and we’re having dinner Monday! Woot!
Okay, ten seems like a good number. It seems like all I’ve been doing lately is working, going to the doctor, or going out to eat. I’m sure there’s more to my life than that, but maybe not.
Oh, yes, there was the massive Target run and clearing them out of all conceivable school supplies. Fun!
Anyways, John’s almost home and the San Jose Sharks are playing, as are the Stanford boys’ basketball team, so I think it’s officially time to call it a day and shut down the image analysis. Gee, darn!
I know some of you were or are getting pounded with blizzard conditions and beyond-freezing cold, and I don’t mean to brag, but we had lovely weather this past weekend.
Saturday in Monterey was sunny and beautiful and warmish (60’s, maybe?). It was a perfect day to be outside–not so hot that our students risked heat exhaustion in their wetsuits (and we in our drysuits) on land, and not so cold that they kept freezing when they got out of the water. Our winter classes are often very hit-or-miss: either beautiful or horrible. Luckily, this one was beautiful
Three years ago this class, John and I helped with our first class ever. It’s a class we kindly refer to as “Bowling for Students”. The waves were rolling in and crashing into the breakwater, causing reflection waves that kept rolling in, but from a different angle. Waves were crashing up onto the steps we normally seat our students on. We attempted an entry with our three students, but the waves came rolling in. You can guess what happened from how we refer to this class, I’m sure. Needless to say, we all changed into street clothes and went out to breakfast.
Upon arriving at the ocean Saturday (at 6am, I’m listening to John next time about when to leave–better to be a bit late than half an hour early!), we found the exact same conditions. Rolling waves paired with a predicted extra-high tide. We had 11 students, 3 instructors and 3 divemasters. Piece of cake, sort of.
James M, luckily, anticipated the needs of his instructor and DIDN’T show up. Ah, bliss. Especially since last weekend, he showed up at the pool several times but failed to do anything but stand there, despite the fact that Shelly and I were lugging around tanks and trying to help students and whatnot. I snapped at him at one point–”Nice of you to show up just in time to not help”–to which he replied–”I’ve got a cold.” I walked off without pointing out that Ben was so sick he wasn’t in the water, but was there nonetheless helping on the topside, or that I had a cold and couldn’t clear but was still in the water doing what I could. He just made me so angry. I think we’re all getting to the point where we just don’t want to interact with him at all in a scuba situation, and possibly just don’t want to be friends with him at all. Bah.
Anyways…
James F and I took four students–two little girls and two women, one of whom had to be done by noon in order to fly to Cancun the next day. John went with Greg and three other students, one of whom was our obligatory idiot. And that’s putting it nicely. John always seems to get stuck working with the idiots, no matter who he pairs up with. I tried to switch with him, but he was being all gentlemanly about it.
The entries into the water went fairly well–the girl I was holding had to be hauled to her feet at one point, but she muscled through, which was pretty much the theme of the day. (I think most of the students made it in and out okay–maybe a few went to their knees, but no one got bowled over.) Both little girls had problems on the first dive, which was fine with me as my ears were pretty uncomfortable once I got down. Instead of pushing it, I took the two of them into shore. Luckily, John had been “babysitting” students on the surface and was available to help me get the two of them into the beach. I spent my surface interval getting them warm and comfortable and sorting out all the students.
For the second dive, I did the obligatory “babysitting” on the surface, since I wasn’t going down again, and John got to go down and swim around with the girls and James F. Apparently there were lots of crabs out and about, but not much else. Good visibility, 20 feet or so, and beautiful weather made for good diving, and the waves calmed down after the high tide peaked around 8:30, but apparently no sea life was out and about.
After lunch with our staff and a lot of students, John and I headed home to wash gear and take a nap, then spend the evening doing nothing at all, which felt marvelous.
On Sunday, John had to work and I was off to help Cara shoot our friend’s wedding. She’d picked a super-small venue, and thus had a limited guest list, so she’d snuck in a few extra people by having them be “staff”. Now, Cara’s a pro photographer, so she makes sense, but I was there as her assistant purely to attend the wedding. We had another beautiful sunny day, and the view from the winery we were at was gorgeous. It was a bit windy, but Cara got some beautiful pics of our friend’s veil blowing out behind her.
I mostly did a lot of people herding to get them ready for group pics that Cara was taking, as well as a certain amount of small things–carrying extra cameras and film (backup to the digital, smart girl!) and taking a few group candids with Cara’s small camera. All in all, helpful, I hope, and it was so lovely to see our friend get married. She had a beautiful location and ceremony and reception, and we were both so happy for her.
There was a bit of sadness–this is the same friend who’s little brother was killed back in August, and I handed out tissues to various people for both happy tears and sad tears. I know it was hard on my friend to get married without her brother present, but I’m sure he was there with her in spirit. That may not have helped a whole lot, but she got through the though moments.
It was a long day, as we were there from 11:30 to 6 (not including the drive there and back!) to capture her getting ready all the way to getting in the car and driving away at the end. I can see why Cara says it’s such a good workout! Plus, Cara and I got in a nice amount of gossip time both on the drive there and back, and at the points in the day when we took small breaks.
So that was my weekend–long and full, but I got to be outside in the beautiful weather quite a bit. The weather is nice all this week, though I’ll be mostly enjoying it via the windows at work, but I’m hoping for a bike ride or something fun this coming weekend. Best of all, I may finally be kicking this cold’s butt. Cross your fingers for me, eh?
