The Doctor Adventure

I am sick. Ashley is too, poor thing. I think she passed it onto me, but my body apparently really enjoyed the idea of being sick, and so embraced it with both arms. She has a cough and headache and is congested. I have a sore chest, phlegm, hacking, fever, headache, clogged ears and no voice. Joy. I called the doctor this morning, and they asked me to describe my symptoms, which I did. They told me that they didn't want me to come in, that I might have the swine flu, and that the doctor would call me later. He did, listened to my symptoms, and told me that he needed to consult with some other medical entity, and that if they thought I had swine flu as well, someone would be coming to the house to examine me. Another long wait between phone calls. Then a call back: I don't have swine flu, just a chest infection. They prescribed antibiotics, which wonderful Stephen will pick up on his way home from work. Ashley, though still sick and sent home from school, is only supposed to call the doctor if she develops a fever, which she hasn't yet done.

So no work this week.

I am trying to get the fever broken, and feeling pretty pathetic and sore and sick all over, when Christi and Zach send me an email: Zach has been watching classic Sesame Street and they found a song for me. I don't think I told Christi I was sick - but the video shows that she knew someway or another. I'm posting it here for you to enjoy too.

Blech.

I am sick. It comes from Stephen being sick. He has been running a fever and has had a cough deep in his chest. Now I have the exact same thing. I feel absolutely terrible. No appetite, nausea, coughing so much I can't sleep. I am lucky, in that he has done a really nice job taking care of me. I almost feel coddled. Then I remember how cruddy I feel.

And then today, in the midst of thinking that perhaps I would feel a bit better if someone were to actually shoot me and put me out of my misery, my glasses broke in half. I took them off of my face to wipe them off, and the split apart in my hands. I have put off getting new glasses. These are the ones I think I got in 2005. I kept telling myself that, even though I was pretty sure that my prescription had changed, I could hold out just until I had finished paying off my tuition. Well, that is not happening. My old glasses are not repairable.

I have an appointment for an eye exam in the morning. This afternoon Kelley and Stephen went out and about, but I chose to stay home in bed for feeling so bad. While they were gone, Stephen took my old glasses into the place that I have the appointment, and secretly had them transfer my old lenses into a temporary frame. I have to give them back tomorrow, but it means that I have glasses to see with until then.

He really is sweet.

In Review, kind of a bad few weeks.

Benny, my very old Grandma's husband, and therefore my step-grandfather, went into the hospital on 6th of November. He had cancer, and the tumour had spread to his liver and he was bleeding internally. They did an endoscopic surgery in the 7th to stop the bleeding, and he died on the 8th of November.

Kelli called to tell me on the 9th of November that my mother had overdosed, either accidentally or purposefully, on prescription painkillers.

On the 10th of November the hospital said that it wasn't an overdose. On the 11th they said it was congestive heart failure. On the 13th she had an angiogram which,while showing normal blockage which was taken care of, was not enough to explain her symptoms. On the 14th she told me that they wouldn't come right out and say it, but that it was a stroke.

On the 16th Stephen's mum called to tell us that his abuela was back in the hospital. Daily updates left us still not sure what was going on, besides age. On the 20th Stephen received a 5 am text message from his mum saying that his abuela had died. He left last night to fly to Spain for an unknown period of time to spend time with his mum and go to the funeral.

I am sad for all the sadness in our families. While I am so glad, I am also just a tad jealous that Stephen is able to go and be with his family during this time. I didn't get to. I am a bit mopey because I do not do as well when he is gone. I don't sleep as well, I remember my disturbing dreams more, and I have a lot more nightmares. And I can't help but wonder if the old adage about death coming in threes will be true this time also. All this is added to by the fact that Stephen and I have no way of keeping in touch besides the telephone (he usually takes his laptop and we chat often, but there is no internet where he is) and we don't know when he will be home. I know he will come home, though.

So this weekend, while I do have a bit of work to do for school, Ashley and I are going to hang out. I stocked up on junk food yesterday, an almost unheard of treat coming from me. We ate pizza and cookies and talked. Tonight I am taking her out for dinner, and tomorrow, as sad as it makes me, I am taking her to get her hair cut. I hope that we get the whole house clean this weekend, a task that I haven't even touched in weeks since things have been so hectic with school and I have hardly been home. I'll feel better when it is all done, and we will benefit from having some intense time together.

These last few weeks I have really wanted to go home. Not to stay, but to visit. To mourn. To spend more time with my Grandma. To see my mother and Kelli and the girls and my daddy. To hold onto Tristan so tight and make him remember how much I love him. To make him feel it. And maybe so I can feel it too.

We're Moving House Soon, and I Don't Talk About That In This Post......

My toe, as everyone is wondering, is fine. Apparently not broken, as the pain faded after a few days. The bruising spread to the entire top of my foot, but is finally fading also. This week has been an exciting one for my poor toe... not only was it almost broken, but then the same toe was run over by a speeding tricyclist. I was at work, and managed not to scream. I still don't know how. I don't think that was why the bruising spread, but who actually can tell?

I had a sick adventure this week, too. The wonders of working in Early Childhood is that until your immune system catches up with you, you catch EVERYTHING that the children bring into the classroom. This includes icky-vomitous nasty stomach bugs. Which I caught. Tristan called me on Wednesday night, as I had gone to bed early, and after talking to him I realised that I really felt nauseous. Spent an hour or so in the bathroom, threw up 4 times. Went to bed. Woke up a few hours later. Repeat and rinse. By this time the acid from my stomach was no longer in my stomach and had spread throughout my throat and mouth. It was bad enough that I was not going to be able to sleep through it burning a hole in my esophagus. I dug through the medicine box and found, to my delight, a present left by Kelley when she was here. A liquid antacid. Anise flavoured. Bought at Boots (the 'chemist' - i.e. pharmacy.) Grimacing in advance, then telling myself that beggars cannot be choosers, I took a swig. Ew. So gross that tasting it almost made me sick again, but boy-howdy does the antacid from England work so much better than any I've ever had in the States. 5 minutes later, the burning was gone. Then back to bed me. I had to be up early for work the next morning.

7 am, and I was up calling work to find out if they still wanted me to go in. No answer. Off to work I went, hi-ho, hi-ho. I worked 8 - 9:30, and was told that I look awful, and was asked if I have a history of being 'sickly'. I calmly (I think) explained that it had been a year since working with children, and I was in a new country with new bugs. My immune system is a desert rats'. Not some water-logged river-rats'. They did not understand, but did send me home.

I popped into the store on the way, and made sure we had stuff for the BRAT diet. (We only had rice.) Bananas and wholewheat bread for toast made it into my basket. There was no applesauce, so I add apples to make my own. Then, sparkling water. Now, I have to add a side note about sparkling water. It used to be that I didn't like it. But now I do. It is nice and fizzy and sugar free and yummy goodness. And I was hoping it would settle my stomach. 4 liters in my basket. Luckily I had my backpack. It gives one a new perspective when one has to carry all one's groceries home on one's back. When sick.

Home. Didn't even manage to put all the groceries away. Threw the water into the fridge, fell into bed. Slept. Until 3 in the afternoon. Threw up again. And again. Drank water. Ate banana. Had warm, freshly made applesauce and toast for dinner.

Woke up the next morning feeling so much better. Back to the Work grind.

On an extended note, I really don't like my job very much. I am working in an early childhood center, or at least they claim to be an early childhood center. I actually think it is more like a day care. I work in the preschool classroom, ages 3 - 4, and I can think of so many things I would do differently. The staff in the room are quite content to sit back and do as little as possible, and I work extra hard to cover their slack. The room is filthy, and I have been in the process of going through it during the day and cleaning it, center by center. The other staff have asked me why, and told me that it just isn't worth it. But the children must be affected. I don't want to go into the centers, so what makes me think that the children would want to? They don't teach the children how to take care of the toys or the books. It frustrates me. Christi, I have to say that every day at work I wish fervently that you were here and we were opening an early childhood center together. It is what I day-dream about. We would be cutting edge, and the UK would tremble in awe.

On yet another note, I have 2 huge projects for University next year. One is a literature review, and while I don't know exactly what I am doing (they want something to be VERY narrow scoped, and I haven't gotten it narrow enough, I think) what I have so far is implementing critical literacy in the early childhood classroom. I could use advice, any research, commentary, or even help on narrowing my topic. I am already doing a lot of reading on it. I will also have a large research project in the spring of 2009. I want to do a comparison study between a reception classroom here and a kindergarten classroom there. That will, of course, depend on if I have the money to fly to the US to DO the research, but I would be open to being pointed towards some kindergarten teachers there that might be interested in participating in something like that. There might even be a tie in between classrooms, if the someone is that interested.

Last thing. Ashley made it fine to the States and is now with her Daddy. She almost missed her flight from Houston to El Paso, but the airline was nice and held the plane. I arrive late on the evening of the 17th, for my three weeks of Boo-goodness. I'll update you on all of the Ashley-flight fun next post.

Deja vu.

Happy Midsummer!

Today's Sunrise: 4:36:58 BST
Today's Sunset: 21:18:12 BST

(BST = British Summer Time. Subtract 7 hours to equal Mountain Daylight Savings Time.)

I think it is a good thing that I have people like Dan around to keep me motivated to write on this blog. He says:

Hi Amy,

I've been checking your blog to see an updated health post. How are you doing? Are you getting psyched to come back to the States?

The sick thing is an interesting tidbit right now. No, I am not healthy. Yes, I am sick. But I am sick again rather than still. Which I suppose is better. My chest is not full of gunk, though I go in for an x-ray on Monday just to be sure. I, however, have come to the conclusion that whoever told me that it takes 5 to 7 years to develop allergies in a new place LIED. (And I say that with venomous emphasis, just in case you were wondering.)

I had seasonal allergies in the states: mulberry pollen got to me just like it did everyone else. There must be something here, though, that I am really allergic to in the air. I have been hacking and sneezing repeatedly and strongly, and glad for doing it as it itches my throat when I do. (When I am not sneezing to itch my throat, I am rubbing my tongue as far down it as I can to try and itch it that way.) My nose is running, my throat is sore from the nastiness draining down it, AND my eyes and the inside of my ears are so itchy that I seriously consider scratching them out.

These allergies don't feel like allergies from mulberry pollen. They feel like the allergies I get when I roll in the Bermuda grass and my eyes swell up and I break out in hives. So today Stephen and I took a trip to the local chemist (pharmacy) and I found the anti-histimine Loratadine. I hope it is my friend. I am really tired of being sick.

The weather here has been about 65 to 70 degrees F. The other day a colleague was telling me that it was obvious that summer was here. I hesitated to ask. She told me that this was about as hot as it gets in the summer. Egad! I feel like an icicle. My sweater is still my best friend, and I never leave home without it.

As far as being excited to head back to the States, I am! I can't wait for the heat. I can't wait to see my family. I can't wait to hold and kiss Tristan and read him books. Still waiting on the inventor to show up with my portal for instant travel.

There is news going on in our world too. We are house hunting again. Our lease is up at the end of July. The rent is going up, and we can spend less fairly easily. So the weeks before my trip to the States will be filled with work and packing. Woohoo fun.

Remember the job Stephen applied for? Well, just the other day we were sitting in our favourite coffee shop talking about it. We decided that it had been too long without hearing anything, and that must mean that he had not been called back for an interview. We get home and Stephen finds an invitation to interview in his email inbox. It is July 10. We will let you know what happens.

Ashley leaves the country on Tuesday. She will be flying internationally all by herself. She is almost adult-like. She will have her old cell phone when she flies into Houston, and will be staying the night with her Uncle Jim.

That's the current scenario. We will keep you posted!

Is the Sun Even Shining Today?

I am noticing a pattern.

Days in England that are rainy happen. Stereotypically, they happen daily; but in actuality it is far less than that. British people just like to make it seem worse than it is. In New Mexico, when it rains, it is sunny beforehand. Then the clouds pour in, thicker and thicker, until the sky is dark and gloomy overcast. the darker it gets, the harder it rains; and if it was really really dark, then you know you are in for hail and tornadoes and you'd better be in the house. Here, it is just... grey.

Today I can tell the sun is up because I can see. But there are no clouds. It is just like the sky is missing. Just grey. Sometimes lighter grey, sometimes darker. But still grey. This is a strange sensation. It feels like I live in a completely different world.

This other-worldliness manifests in other interesting ways too. Sunrise, for example. I don't think I told you all, but in the winter it was dark at 4. Yes, 4 in the afternoon. Kids came home from school in the dark. I came home from school in the dark. The sun would rise about 7:30 in the morning, and set at 4. People went to work in the dark and came home in the dark, having never seen the sun. I still shake my head at that phenomenon.

Now that it is fast approaching Midsummer the tables have turned. The sun comes up at god-early 4 in the morning! Sunset is at a fairly normal time... 8:30 or 9. But 4 in the morning? Perhaps that wouldn't even be something I would notice if I would close my curtains against the sun that early... but here's the thing. There is no AC here, which is fine... but the breeze at night is nice. And closing the thick heavy sun-blocking curtains also blocks the breeze.

I wake up less at 4 in the morning when the sun comes up. But for a while, everyday, 4:30 Amy is awake. Suns up! I'm slowly training myself to block out the sun, which feels a shame since there is so little of it at the other side of the year.

On an update note: I finished my anti-biotics today. Called the doctor yesterday, as I am still wheezy and congested, to find out if they wanted to extend the course of anti-biotics. Let's just say that not all doctors here in the UK are as nice as the one I saw. I was told that he didn't know why I'd been put on such strong anti-biotics, that I wasn't coughing enough, that it was all in my larynx, and that the first doctor probably hadn't even listened to my lungs. I tried to correct him... but sometimes it is better to be a duck and let it all just slide off your back. I get to meet this guy next Wednesday, as he DOES NOT want to see me before then. Suddenly, I am not looking forward to going to the doctor.

Lovely Goodness... or Not.

So much to tell you all... and since I am stuck home in bed I have plenty of time to do it.

Why am I stuck home in bed, you ask? Well... that is part of the story. I wrote in the last post that I had been sick a while back. Well, I kinda lied to you all. I made it sound like I had gotten over it... but I never really did. I didn't want anyone to worry, and I figured it was just a persistent virus or something, so it wasn't a big deal. But I kept coughing and coughing, and coughing fits were actually slightly disgusting with snot flying everywhere and hacking up great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts. Breathing was difficult, liquid, and painful; and it felt like someone had wrapped a steel band around my chest. I was still pretty insistent that it was a virus, but I just couldn't shake it.

Then Ashley the Lovely ended up with a seriously infected ingrown toenail. Now honestly, you wouldn't think that much of a big deal, but it is. It is when you live a sedentary life as a couch potato, or a normal life as an active parent (As Kim did, once upon a time;) but it is a really huge deal when you rely on your feet as much as we do. And Ashley's feet are her mode of transportation, so when she couldn't walk on them without extreme pain... time to go to the doctor.

That in addition to the fact that I was down to my last scopolomine patch with much flying coming up this summer, and my job was being pretty insistent about my needing to have an epi-pen, since there are bees in these here parts... I decided that I would have my cough looked at too.

The doctor, a Doctor Barton, was the stereotypical older Englishman that you envision. He has a cane. He has white hair. He wears a bow tie. He has the accent that we Americans define as the epitome of English accents. And he took one listen to my chest. Then listened again. And again.

"You have pleurisy," says he.

Pleurisy is the inflammation of the lining of the lungs, and has a tendency to go hand and hand with pneumonia. Which is what he is worried about. The lower right lobe of my lungs is the most tender and goopey, and when I cough and Stephen pounds there, it helps because the cough becomes more productive. It was this lower right lobe that he said was where all these fun things were happening.

So, I have super strong anti-biotics. I am on day 5 of them now. The cough is slightly better, but is by no means gone. It doesn't hurt as much to breathe, and I don't feel like I am breathing through water. I will be having an X-ray this week, and then possibly another one the week after. That will either confirm or deny pneumonia, and may change what we are doing to treat this. I am desperately hoping it is NOT pneumonia. I am also desperately missing the dry windy hot places that this desert rat thrives in. I blame this lung thing on the weather and infernal cold of England.

Ashley is also on anti-biotics for her toe. It is doing much better. Dr. Barton did nothing for the ingrown bit of it because the infection was too bad, but that just means that we get to go back together next Wednesday. Me to be checked again and her to have the ingrown part taken care of.

In the process of all this, I now have 2 Epi-pens (one for work and one for home.. and watching Stephen read the directions and play with the Epi-pens was quite entertaining. At least now he can save me if I get stung) and 10 additional scopolomine patches. I also have acidophilus, and a yeast infection thanks to the anti-biotics. I love being sick. (ha!)

A funny side story that might just make up for being miserable: The anti-biotics that I am taking smell quite nice, as they are coated with some sort of stuff to make them easier to swallow. Stephen is attracted to nice-smelling things. He just can't stay away from them. He opens the medicine jar and sniffs them. Often. And asks if he can please just lick them before I take them as they must taste lovely too. Soooo...

I let him. Ashley watched and burst into laughter. He looked at me, then did. Slowly, with anticipation, he licked my anti-biotic before I took it....

... and was disappointed. He says they smell much better than they taste. So now he just opens the bottle and smells them. It makes me laugh every time... which turns into a coughing fit. Every time.

On the not-sick front, Stephen has sent in an application for a new job today. It is a learning technology job at a University in London. It is a significant (possibly 5 digit) pay raise for him. If he gets it, it means that until I graduate he will be commuting to London... but our potential plan is to move somewhere between here and there, so that his commute is shorter and balanced by the equal one I will have to make. Since the school that I think I would like to teach at is in London, that would make the transition after I graduate an easier one to make. No one will be settling for a job so the other can do what they want. We will keep you all informed of the result of the application. But, to be honest, Stephen is awesome enough that I can't imagine they won't want him. And I am not biased in the least.

It dawned on me that it is less than a year before I graduate with my Bachelor's degree.

Spring is here and though it is still cold to me, it is much warmer than it was. The rain is nice, though not as constant as I was led to believe. Ashley tells me that it is SO HOT, though I take a sweater everywhere I go because I get cold. She hasn't adapted...not at all. ;) My favourite part of the spring is the babies. Baby ducks and baby moorhens are everywhere. My favourite, of course, are the baby moorhens. Their parents stay together to raise them, and moorhen parents take the cake for trying hard... though they are really dumb about it. Most moorhen babies are lost, sometimes before they even hatch, because the parents were not quite as thoughtful as they could have been when placing nests. But they make up for it in hard work when the babies are actually born.


Moorhen babies are little black balls of fluff. On the river by the house, there is a family of moorhens with small ones. It is nice to watch them grow. They are very cute, and since they are not as good at swimming as ducks, they holler after mama and daddy to slow down and wait for them. And they eat all the time. I feel slightly sorry for the parents. I don't think they have had time to rest since the babies came.

Though resting is something I am now getting back to.

The Long Silence... an Explanation.

Yo ho ho friends and family. It has obviously been quite awhile since I have last spoken to you all. Last you heard I had many papers left to go. As of right now, I have one left for the year.

So, the quick update and explanation of my distance. Lots of papers to write, and a new job to boot. I am working at a 'nursery' (aka daycare) here. It is a daily experience. There are many things that I would change, but it is a lesson instead in keeping my opinions to myself. It makes me often miss Christi. I daydream about an early childhood center with her...

Anyway, on top of that, I have been really really sick. I am still not entirely over it. It started with the flu (or so I'm told) and happily moved into my chest and made a home there. I still hack and cough things up, and I still feel like there is a tight band around my chest. I make it through the night without coughing, which is an improvement. For a while, I thought I was fighting off pneumonia.



And while all of this has been going on, Kelley came for a visit. We had grand plans to post blogs while she was here; you can see how well that worked out. I am hoping that she still will help me post at least 1 blog. Until then, enjoy the few pics.


I don't want to post too many on the off chance that she will still post a blog with me here about her trip. She and Stephen spent most of their time together, as I still had school and I still had to work while she was here. (Insert sappy face sucking here...)


She and Stephen spent lots of time exploring London: she now has seen more of it than I have. Lucky for me she took lots of pictures, so I could see things too. She saw awesome changing of the guard stuff... I hope she tells all of you about it.

Mother's Day came and went, and it was a hard day for me. I feel it on a daily basis not being closer to Tristan. It doesn't get any easier the longer it has been. It just aches in my chest all the time. (And no, it ISN'T the cough!) I'm sure some of you will say that I brought it on myself. I'm not looking for sympathy, just commenting on the falsity of the 'it gets better with time' statement.

Related to this, it is definite that I am coming home for a visit this summer. My plane flies into El Paso at 10:45 pm on the 17th of July, and I leave to come back at 10:45 on the morning of the 7th. I'm grateful for the chance to spend time with Boo. And I will spend my entire 34th birthday on a plane. I won't even get home until the day after my birthday. Lucky Stephen... he can forget the day and it won't be a big deal at all.

While I am in the States, Tristan and I will be staying at Mom Holen's house. The plan is to go crazy with seeing everyone. I am not going anywhere or doing anything that doesn't involve spending time with the people I love. And Tristan's 7th birthday. I'll have my old cell phone number while I am there, at least until the beginning of August. I would love to see everyone. I am really looking forward to seeing people. But most of all, I can't wait to hug my little boy (who is not so little and graduated from 1st grade yesterday.)

Hope this fills everyone in on what is going on in my world. I hope to get back into the swing of posting, especially as there is so much I could be telling to you. One more paper to go, and then it is just the day to day things. Hopefully there will be a post from Kelley soon, and I intend to force Ashley onto the computer to fill you all in on what is going on in her world too. She has been a busy little beaver lately too.

kisses, and missing every one of you...

2 Weeks of...

In the last 2 weeks, I have been sick, busy, sick, studying, sick, still sick, and more sick. But I am better now.

This was the first round of illness that I have had since arriving here, and boy, was it a doozy. I'm sure it was just a cold, but it crawled up into my ears and made its home in my throat and called itself happy. I haven't felt a sore throat like that since my years of tonsilitis. I had forgotten how miserable they were. I though about heading to the doctor, but every day I decided that I would tough it out just one more day... and I made it through. I drank a LOT of really strong lemon and honey tea, took a LOT of echinacea and just as many airborne tablets. I love airborne tablets. I wish we could get them here.

So now I'm back to 'normal' as it were, with an interesting little thing I have noticed. Acetaminaphen, here, is called paracetamol. And it, along with asprin and ibuprophen, are 1.) not available in bottles of large quantities, for fear of overdose... and 2.) between 15 and 35 pence a package of 16 tablets. That is 30 to 70 cents. So there is a trade-off. Yes, you have to go and buy them a little bit at a time, and yes that means no stocking up, but the price is so minimal. It makes me wonder why the US has to pay such high prices for pain relief in the states. If 'everything is more expensive' in the UK, are pharmacutical companies in the US really giving people their best prices? Or are they milking people to pad pockets? Just a little something that I had never thought about before.

Miss you all!

Brrr... and Other Stuff.

I have never known cold that goes down to your toes and stays there.

Granted, I haven't been feeling well, and the radiators in the house are not turned on. So it is partly my own fault for feeling the cold creeping into my bones like death. I'm sure it has actually been colder outside in the States... but I can't seem to shake the cold. I can't seem to really get warm enough, until I'm huddled under the duvet and wrapped up in Stephen-warmth.

The temperature here is currently, according to the weather-woman, surprisingly low for this time of year. At least 5 degrees C less than they expect it to be. May not seem like a lot, but in Fahrenheit-speak that is about 10 degrees colder than 'normal'. And normal is such a loose term. My 'normal' for this time of year is about 35 degrees more than that.

It didn't help that today was rainy... and while I love the rain, it is undeniable that rain, especially cold rain, makes things so much colder. Plus there is such a wind here... it blows into your ears and freezes your brain.

Today was also my first day of University. A lecture that was really only basic information, and a seminar in the small group I'll be working with for the rest of the time I am there. And I was surprised. First at the fact that everyone was SO much more friendly than I expected, and second because of a cultural fact that I saw in action today.

I had read a book by Kate Fox called, "Watching the English". Kate Fox is an anthropologist, who picked apart the behaviour rules of the English people. A lot of them were silly and really difficult for me to accept as being truth, and easy for me to dismiss, being Non-English. (Stephen kept saying things like, "Oi! I do that!", so there must be at least a lot of truth in them, as un-understandable as they are to me.) But one of the things that she said was that names are not something that are given up at first meeting.

We played one of those silly ice-breaker games in our seminar. There are about 30 of us, and we had to pick a number between 1 and 30 and answer questions. Silly questions like what is your favourite movie; things like that. Nothing was said about names at all. And noone gave their names. They all answered the question and at the end I might have known something about them, but not their name. So I guess I'm down to saying things like: "Hey, you, girl who doesn't believe that pastry should be savoury! Come here!" I, being American and loud-mouthed, did indeed tell them my name. And they all stared at me blankly. As though I were the insane one of the group.

One person of note sat behind me at a table full of gigglers. I have to admit a bit of a bias towards those silly girls as mentioned in one of my previous posts. Well, her question was about her favourite movie. With a gusto, she ranted about "High School Musical" for maybe 10 minutes. We couldn't get her to stop, and I now know that she has the pillow and the pajamas and the poster and the DVD and everything else under the sun, that it is the best movie EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, and that not only does she squeal like a pig, but also her accent is so thick as to be almost unintelligible to me. And that she is 19. Our tutor actually compared her to his 6 year old daughter, who also loves "High School Musical". And we all laughed at her, because that is what English people do. They laugh at themselves. (And yes, this girl giggled madly along with the rest of us.) The most disturbing thing about it was the fact that the entirety of her table were chirruping in the whole time in agreement with her, in equally squeal-ly voices. Some of them were a bit more understandable, but all were equally high-pitched.

On a less soprano note, I was not the oldest person in the class! There are a whole group of us 'mature students', as we are called. They are all fairly nice, they invited me into their group, and they seem to have some grasp of what is important in education. NOT that I am saying that HSM girl doesn't... I'm just not entirely convinced that she could carry on a conversation without mad giggling. Imagining her in a classroom... not nice, Amy. Not nice.

Anyway, I have no opinions yet on anything. I have at least the rest of the week to get through. And perhaps a few more before I'll make any sort of judgement. I'm just really glad I'm not the only grown-up.

Now... where the heck did I put that hot water bottle and really heavy blanket? I'm freezing!

In Which Amy is Sick... (Myspace Blog)

Being sick sucks.

Lying in bed feeling miserable (or in this case, in the bathroom feeling miserable), nothing to do but remember how awful you feel...thinking about all the things that you should be doing but instead you are stuck too sick to manage to move.

Being sick sucks.

Luckily, this semester has been mild as far as my encounters with being sick. A cold earlier in the semester, this stomach bug (though NASTY) only lasting 2 days. That's not at all bad compared to the semester that I spent the whole time sick, never actually getting any better until January.

But that doesn't make being sick any less sucky.

Mi hija was kind enough to pass this one on to me... and now she has it again. But I've decided that I have done my time, I won't end up with it for another round... I had it so bad that I've built up immunities, baby! Yeah!

Besides, it is a holiday week. I can't get sick... I want to go home and spend time with my family... Anna is cooking. :) Jimmy and Erin are coming home. Maybe Bethy too.

Being sick would suck.