Bunionectomy Day 23: Camps, Aches, & Tests

It's been just over 3 weeks since I got my bunionectomy done, and I think I'm doing pretty good. I get to take my showers with my boot off, though I'm still sitting on the bath chair, and I'm hoping that I get to move out of the boot and into the walking shoe on Monday. The stitches are gone, but I'm peeling a bit around the cut. I do ache a bit.

The June Camp of NaNoWriMo starts in about 30 minutes, though I'm planning on be asleep by then. My novel this time is a romance. Not exactly my strongest genre, but I'm willing to give it a go. I'll probably try to put it up on my Figment account as I work on it.

I should really get to bed. I've got a physics test tomorrow morning. I'm hoping to do okay on it. Thankfully I don't think that there's going to be any error propagation questions. Hate that. Stupid lab.

Growing Up & School

A story on the local news has me bothered. At the end of the year, a teacher was giving out awards to students for various achievements. One student got the dubious award of "most excuses for not having homework done". Apparently the rest of the 4th-grade class found that funny. The mom did not. She says that the teacher was bullying her child.

Now, I don't know what elementary school is like nowadays, but quite frankly, the mom needs to grow up. One incident does not equal bullying, and who knows what awards other students got. Also, if it bothers the mom so much that her daughter got "most excuses for not having homework done", then maybe she should have paid more attention. Studies have found that children of parents who take an active role in their education do better.

Of course, the teacher's in trouble as well. There's no news whether or not the teacher will face some sort of disciplinary action, and I hope that if there is, it's mild. I'm not condoning the teacher's action, but is it really any different than the "most likely to..." voting in high school. This is just a bit of growing up, and everyone needs to calm down.

TV & My Favorite Dudes

My mom and I have identified a few people as our "favorite" people. Here's a list of our favorites:

Physicist/Scientist = Michio Kaku

This guy appears in a lot of the science-for-the-public shows that my mom and I watch. He does a good job to make it easy to understand what he's talking about.

Builder = Mike Holmes

Jokingly referred to as my boyfriend. I love watching his shows, and he does a good job at making people's lives better.

Gay Man = Anderson Cooper

Look at that hair! And those eyes! I don't care what he's talking about on CNN, I can just watch him forever. My mom and I firmly believe in the philosophy of look but don't touch. I don't care that he's gay. He's a good-looking man.

Ring of Fire

I went to see the solar eclipse today. It was absolutely awesome! My friend Penny and I went up to Flagstaff first. Our first stop was at the Lowell Observatory, but we literally were standing in line when the last solar glasses were sold. I bought myself a patch and a bookmark, and Penny got a couple of stickers, and then we hung out at Barnes & Noble for about an hour before heading up to Wupatki National Monument.

We stopped at the Sunset Crater Visitor Center to find out where we needed to go and buy our passes. It wasn't too expensive, which was nice. We then drove (the long way) to Wupatki. Penny didn't mind since she got to see the lava flows there. The Lowell Observatory had some people out there with some solar telescopes and I got to see some sun spots through them.

The eclipse started at about 5:30 PM. An older couple had an extra pair of solar glasses, so they gave them to us. I got to take a lot of pictures, and at about 6:30 PM, the eclipse reached its peak. Everyone started to cheer. It was amazing. I wanted to try to get a picture of it by projecting it through my dad's binoculars onto a sketchbook, but it didn't work. I did get a picture of it through the solar glasses, and thankfully it wasn't too blurry. We left a little bit after that.

The ride home wasn't too bad, though we didn't get home until about 11:00 PM.

Mehnu Mehnu Mehnu

Please ignore the title. My brain's having a bit of trouble recently...

I've gotten stuck on my novel, which isn't so bad considering I'm only on the "first" draft, but when you consider that I really don't know where the heck I'm going with it, this draft might never be finished.... It sort of sucks actually. As much as I hate the thought of it, I might have to take a break from writing and just work on some basic outlining. Maybe I'll be able to untangle this mess and figure out where to go next.

CampWriMo 2012

On June 1st, the first Camp of the year begins. It's a spin-off of the National Novel Writing Month, created to give people a chance to participate in the NNWM experience during the summer. I actually participated last year, though that was a pain in and of itself.

This year, they split up the months to June and August, as opposed to both July and August. It'll be nice to have a month to "relax" between the Camps.

I started planning my June Camp today. I've got a few characters starting to shape up, thanks to my Pinterest boards, and I'm working on the plot (very, very slowly). I think it's going to be connected to the story that I'm writing right now, but I don't know if any old characters are going to be popping up very often.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do in August.

For more info, go to:
CampWriMo
NaNoWriMo

Bunionectomy 2: Day 4

I went to the doctor this morning for my first follow-up appointment. They changed the bandages around the incision. I forgot just how nasty it looks (though it's completely understandable). The bruise covers about all of the top of my foot from my heel down to my toes. Only my pinky toe doesn't have a bruise growing on it. The redness made the doctor give me a week's worth of antibiotics, just in case. Other than that, my foot's looking good.

Bunionectomy 2: Day 2

Yesterday was not the best day for me. I got about 13 hours of sleep in about 45 minute bursts, and let me tell you that I apparently have some weird-ass dreams while stoned on hydrocodone. I also got some lovely bouts of nausea, though thankfully nothing worse than that.

I managed to bleed through the bandage on Tuesday, but it stopped later that day. The doctor had the bandage a little tight so my mom helped me loosen it. Got the first follow-up appointment on Friday.

Now the pain is coming in, and my legs itch like the dickens. I took my painkiller for tonight so I'll see how I sleep this time around.

Bunionectomy Take 2

I got my second bunionectomy today, and I don't expect to see my foot more than a quick check-up for another three or so weeks. At the minimum. The pain isn't too bad so far, since I'm keeping ahead of it for now.

The doctor put a pin in my foot this time, though I'm not really sure why. Maybe this doctor just wanted that extra support or whatever.

Hopefully I'll recover just as fast as I did last time.

Prototype 2 Review

I finished Prototype 2 about 45 minutes ago. I enjoyed the game a lot, especially the storyline and characters. I liked how some of the "bad guys" were not really bad guys. James Heller's evolution from a man bent on revenge to a man hunting for what's left of his family was well-done.

The only problems that I had with the game were the lack of variation for the devastator attack and the ease with which it was to get power-ups. I had gotten all of the evolution upgrades available through the missions and hunting, and I had only a few stat upgrades left through the level-ups.

I wish that they had kept the upgrade style from the first game. I liked the ability to buy numerous skills for each power, not the simplistic way they made Prototype 2's upgrades.

The web of intrigue was also one aspect that I liked from Prototype 1. It made the first game deeper, more engaging, but the hunting skill in Prototype 2 was a boost as well.


Final Grade: B

Summer's Here

The semester has finally come to an end, and I'm now waiting for my grades to start trickling in.

The temperature's starting to rise down here in Phoenix. It's definitely the start of summer, or as I like to call it, Hell. It's already in the 90s, and I can't wait to spend the next four or five months sweating horribly.

I hate living down here sometimes.