Australian 12 Days Of Christmas

So my current Facebook status is 3 French Hens, continuing with my 12 days of Castmas theme. A friend posted the Australian version of the song since there's not much in our song that they have on their continent:

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me…
Twelve parrots prattling,
eleven numbats nagging,
ten lizards leaping,
nine wombats working,
eight possums playing,
seven koalas climbing,
six platypuses,
five kangaroos,
four kookaburras,
three jabirus,
two pink galahs,
and an emu up a gum tree.

The Twelve Days Of Castmas

So a few days ago, I was amusing myself and thought up that since I had 12 days left of having a cast, it was kind of like the 12 Days of Christmas--a.k.a. the world's longest song. I told Tracy about my idea, and well... her genius is too good not to pass on.

On the 6th day of Castmas my dumb cast made me need:
6 new blog posts,
5 calls to mom,
4 new x-rays,
3 toenails clipped,
2 grilled cheese sandwiches,
and a bottle full of advil.

I'm still giggling.

No standing?

Since yesterday a question has bothered me. "Why does he keep saying no standing?" I mean, it's not like I could stand exclusively on that leg anyway, with the ridiculous pose they have my foot in. Even when I do stand, it looks like I have a lil' Capn' in me. (Actually, it's not that bad; I can technically take small steps. And the pose is actually fourth position in ballet.)

"Well he has to know I take stairs," I reasoned, what with having told him and all. Most of the day I spend either sitting in my wheelchair or in a regular chair; the only time I use my crutches is for moving around maybe thirty total minutes a day? No standing, no standing...

Probably a full twenty-four hours later, it dawned on me. I'm a teacher. Teachers stand. Oh, I can go back to work, just no standing. So it's no road to Damascus, but I thought it was cool.

Happy Thanksgiving

more animals
A quick story about my Thanksgiving. I woke up, went to work, ate oatmeal, ate more oatmeal, and grumped about eating oatmeal for Thanksgiving. And then someone brought me a slice of bread that tasted a lot like Samma's almond braid, and I couldn't help but smile. I had Thanksgiving brought to me, even 8,000 miles away.

Please note, this is not encouragement to send fruitcake.

So after work, I went to physical therapy. I was kind of concerned because I've heard people whine about it back home; it's painful, it's hard, blah blah blah. So I go in, pay my $2.50, and was instructed to lay back on a table while they put a hot compress on my knee. Twenty minutes later, the guy checked on me and hooked me up to an electrode machine for another ten minutes. Five minutes under a heating lamp and I was done. I don't know if I got what I paid for, but I was glad not to be in the agony I thought.

Dr. Ticklish (thus named because I giggled the whole ten minutes of the electrodes) gave me a quick lesson on what to do for my knee. Basically I contract the muscle for a count of five five times an hour every hour for the next eight weeks and my muscles magically heal themselves. This is one of those times where I am NOT too lazy to do the workout. If he says it'll work, I'll do it.

So he didn't know the word for "contract." So he looked at me all bug-eyed and grabbed my hand, putting it on his forearm so he could show me. If only the electrodes had still been on so I'd had a reason for giggling again.

Right now I am sitting awkwardly in my apartment while someone else cleans my dishes, laundry, and bathroom after 16 days of total neglect. Cleaning day is a lot more fun when it doesn't feel like your participation should be required. She wasn't big on my idea of throwing out the remaining brown bananas. But I don't like brown bananas. Fortunately, I've been too lazy to find clean clothes, so I only have five dirty shirts, so not feeling too badly on the clothes front. The dishes, though. Hehehe. This is where God pats my mom on the head and says, "Don't worry. She actually WANTS six kids just like her." (Six because "John and Kate Plus Eight" has already been done.)

So the kid I named sort of after Aaden from John and Kate is retarded. He has been in my class for 2 months, now, and still doesn't learn words in a 40-minute period. I point to my eye and ask, "What is it?" in English and Korean, and the blank gaze I get is so FRUSTRATING! So of course it's more rewarding to ask the other three, who are basically yelling the answer anyway, but he is my challenge. He is the one who can't count to ten, pronounce table ("chable?"), nor remember the difference between orange and apple. Okay maybe there was no point there, other than mindless whining, so let me end saying, I am thankful for the other three.

When life's got you down, it really is important to keep perspective. It turns out "keeping perspective" includes "looking at the 99.9999999% of the world that is WORSE off than you." And so, in honor of Thanksgiving, here is a little perspective.
1) I have a shorter cast. Could be stuck in the semi-truckesque green monster.
2) I still have my leg.
3) I will not actually die of a broken leg.
4) I am in another country. That isn't on the continent of Africa.
5) I am learning another language. (love!) (not the language of love, I just.. love languages)
6) I have a cleaning lady. (insert: neener neener neener) (appropriate mom retort: I have a cleaning husband, neener neener neener.)
*A quick glance up and my first thought at the sight of her cleaning the door jam, "oh, I never would have cleaned that."
7) My spell check now includes neener.
8) I do have the internet.
9) My friends here may not love me, but Sara Fladmo's only an hour away. And she still does.
10) People consistently return to my blog, making me a bit of that author I've always wanted to be.
11) I have more money in the bank than I ever thought I would (despite proclamations of being a millionaire by 30).
12) My cast has yet to itch. Everything I can remember since I was a teeny little girl (reading the Kid Babysitter series) about casts is that they itch. Well, mine doesn't. So take that, world.
13) At the end of the day, after all the freaking out I do, I still sleep the peaceful sleep of someone who knows everything WILL work out.

And now I leave this list, having completed item number thirteen, tempting fate. Happy Thanksgiving, mom, dad, Molly, Tracy & family, Gammy, Samma, BopBop, Wiggy, Angus, Rira, Pam, Rick, Ashley, Gharret (haha I still don't know, 4 years of college later), James, Amber, Tamara, Miss Chris, Sue, Dan, Mel, Ashleigh (thanks for the turkey!), Sara, and thanks.

A truly disgusting discovery.

I reiterate, for those faint of heart or pre-breakfast, this is a truly disgusting discovery.

I am molting.

That gross grayness I talked about a few posts ago? That's a month of dead skin cells.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

I won't go into further details, but I thought that since NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT THIS VERY DISGUSTING EVENT, I would post it for eternity so that someone else knows.

P.S.

There are all sorts of wonderful new things to go with the shorter cast. I can sit without needing 2 chairs, now. One for me, one for my leg. I can sit with the foot on the floor and it is just such a marvel.

Today I got into the van and I sat behind Troy because I could. I was like, hey, look at me, I don't have to take up the whole bench!

The cast is obviously lighter because it's 3/4 the size.

I just lay down on my side and can finally, after four weeks, curl up on my side in the proper fetal position. Ahhhh.

What a great day.

Today started off as any other day for the last four weeks. Get up, glare at the bathroom (because it is the source of the shower), hobble, cover up, soap up, rinse off, sigh, get up, hobble and drip dry until I'm just about to be late for Troy picking me up, throw on clothes that were once clean but really, I don't care how I look/smell anymore, find my one shoe and turn the lock in my door just in time to hear the *THUDTHUDTHUD* of his bass arriving down those five delightful stairs.

The trip nor the arrival were eventful; I breezed through the morning classes and half-dozed through lunch, returning for an afternoon of, well, bullshitting because I worked through the materials too quickly on accident. Oops.

I get downstairs around 2 o'clock and Troy's already there to wheel me to ECC. But it's so unlike him. On Monday, I didn't actually leave kindergarten until 2:47 (ironically, the time I broke my leg 4 weeks ago) because they were concerned the building was too cold for me. (Okay, maybe I have things a little easier than I've been telling myself.) He gestures off in the direction of Haiti and says, "Hospitur," which is of course Konglish for "hospital." Well, by my watch we still had another 48 hours, but okay, let's go to the hospitur.

There's a new X-ray guy, and he's handsome, but not handsome enough to break something.

Waiting waiting waiting... They gesture for me to go into the back room. At this my already elevated heartbeat speeds as I realize I'm getting a new cast! Woo hoo! I hobble on back, a small part of me hoping no cast at all, but as they pour the steaming bowl of hot water to wet the plaster, I see that dream is a bit far out. The ambulance driver pulls out the saw, and judging by their reactions, my face went white and my eyes got huge. As he started to drill holes into the cast, the doctor actually touched the moving saw with his bare hand. Dr. Stoic is a much cooler guy in my book, now. Once there was a cut up each side of everyone's careful artwork (there was much smirking/gasping/disbelief at Ashley's Korean proclamation of loving me), they pulled it off.

What I saw was the most disgusting thing in the entire world.

My leg wasn't pleasantly pale like I was expecting, much like skin is after leaving a band aid on for too long. No, it was the gray of something sitting... in the morgue too long. Well, gray except for the bruises. Apparently a cast doesn't mean your leg is impervious to all beatings, and I really do need to be careful. :) I was completely shocked by how I was unable to hold my leg up for the new cast to be applied. First, I couldn't hold it up even if I had wanted to, and second, it could not stop shaking. I willed it to stop, but it actually kind of looked like it was shaking its head, "I don't wanna!" The new cast went on well, and they repositioned my foot so it's more in a "Kate's standing" position as opposed to "Kate should try to do ballet on tip toes" position.

The doctor was very pleased with the progress. He was so distracted by new bone growth that I had to remind him that I shouldn't be standing on that leg. :) Two weeks from today, the cast comes off all together, and I get to learn how to walk all over again. Because my knee has been immobilized for a month, I start physical therapy tomorrow. It was supposed to be today, but... I am sleepy.

Two notes I want to make, more for my future self since this is my blog about my life in Korea. First, while mom and I were talking last night, I realized that this woe-is-me, why-can't-things-be-perfect, I-need-to-control-and-fix-and-do-everything-myself attitude comes from Gertrude, and that Gertrude's negative points are a lot of what makes Sheldon Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory. After seeing that, I'm definitely ready to bring Debbie back out.

Second, I tried really hard to keep perspective on my kids' positions in life today. On the one hand, it's really easy to say, "I'm in Asia and all teachers are hard on the kids." On the other hand, are they really learning from me by me screaming and wearing myself out and not having fun and just getting frustrated and writing bad sentences? First, in each class, I reminded myself of how old they are. Not how old they say they are, but how old they are by Western calendars. Most of the kids I teach after kinder are 9 or 10 years old. Then I considered where I was, what I was learning, and what I did to goof off when the teacher was talking when I was their age. That actually helped quite a bit, so while we didn't necessarily play games (okay, in one class they played Duck, Duck, Goose after a test), we talked, we spoke English, there was even some laughing. They're not little adults. They haven't even hit puberty yet. Why make life hard before it actually is?