Well, we finally got back from the wind ensemble trip at about 7pm, meaning we were travelling back for about 20 hours from 10pm last night until 7pm here (we had a time change), and then it took until almost 8 for me to get home from the university. It was a good trip, although so many people entered the bus with colds, etc, that I now have something getting started myself. Two of my three roommates may have had strep, and given that my throat is bothering me, I'm hoping it's not turning out to be that, as I am flying out to BC with my dad for a trip tomorrow! Two of my friends had some bad experiences though, one came down with food poisoning just after our attendance of a wonderful concert of Mahler's 2nd symphony, and it was pretty severe...she was absolutely miserable, and of course, a bus travelling at night in the middle of nowhere is a horrible place to have food poisioning sending your stomach into agony every ten or twenty minutes for a while. She eventually ended up falling asleep in the tiny bus bathroom at about 1:30 am, slept most of today and is doing better now. As much as I feel bad for her for getting food poisioning, I'm glad it was not a simple stomach bug that could easily have spread through a lot of us then! And then one of my other friends lost her wallet (again) on this trip, so I'm feeling bad for her too. One of the things that this trip showed with both of these young women however, is how much the Wind Ensemble is like a family. We took care of my friend with food poisioning, making sure she was okay, getting her water, helping her out to the bus (yes, it was that bad...what a wonderful experience of food poisioning meaning time in a gas station bathroom and then so sick you need help into the bus), giving her multiple doses of gravol (obviously not doing too much though...), making sure that she had a full two seats to herself...and for my friend with the lost wallet, we made sure that she had money for food...I had plenty on my debit card when we went shopping on saturday afternoon at a gignormous mall and was fully prepared to pay for something if she wanted to, but it's not quite her nature to accept that kind of help. My friend with the food poisioning, later this afternoon got up and spoke on the bus microphone, thanking us for caring for her and "maintaining my dignity even as I was ....in a bus bathroom". I felt pushed to do my own thank-you, so I got up, and practically crying, thanked my fellow Wind Ensemble members for the cards and all the messages of support that they sent me in November...I said, very truthfully that they could not imagine how much it meant to me. Of course, in true style, my WE director as I'm going past him back to my seat gives a gentle hand on the shoulder, and in typical fashion, I then trip and practically fall on another member's lap! Ah, bus trips :)
We played at five different schools and then had a couple of clinics with instrumental instructors and then another band director, which worked out well. It was overall, a lot of fun. I even challenged myself to break out of some of my comfort zones, surprisingly one of those comfort zones was food. I ended up eating at three restaurants in the food court that I had never had food from before. Generally, in food courts, I tend to stick to one or two restaurants, like my trusted Subway, and even there I usually order the exact same thing. I surprised myself and found out that I could still find things that I felt 'generally' okay with, especially the BBQ Korean restaurant, where I found a grilled salmon with ginger sauce option, and it came with two sides you could pick, so I chose the green beans and the Kim Chi (pickled cabbage). It was actually really good, although I had to space the green beans and the Kim Chi because the Kim Chi was so spicy! Another breaking-out-of-my-comfort-zone came when I decided to try the water slide at the pool. The water was ALMOST over my head (neck height) and it was a pretty large water slide, and I'm not the greatest of swimmers and was afraid that I would panic if I had my head go under water. Well, my friends pushed a bit, and I built on my own desire to try it ONCE, and so, with them standing by in case I panicked at the bottom, I went down-not too fast, and because I was purposely slowing myself down with my hands on the wall of the slide, I cut two of my fingers slightly, but it was JUST FINE! I didn't go down again, but I felt good for trying it. And no, my head didn't go under water! I also didn't feel as bad in my bathing suit as I thought I might, although with that the ED voice started saying, you're not allowed to not feel bad. Kind of frustrating. But what is more frustrating is that my friend who was out-of-province in an eating disorder program has been kicked out of the program (in both our minds unnecessarily), wrongfully convicted and sent home. She's exhausted the resources here, although perhaps not the Women's Health Clinic program but I just now am REALLY fearing for her life. She's a fighter, a survivor as she says and posts, but I am just feeling like, if that program says she's too sick, and she's done six hospitalizations here...I'm beginning to feel like perhaps this is never going to get better for her. When I get back from BC I'm going to go over and see her, and give her the package I had meant to send her over at the treatment centre. I don't know if our province would pay for her to go to Remuda Ranch in Virginia, I know other provinces do...but it's the only option that's coming to mind. I care about her so much and it hurts so much to hear of the failure of this attempt, especially because she came into it with such an amazing attitude. I guess when I see her I'll get the full story, right now I just have the bits and pieces that were posted on Facebook.
I finally got the digital camera taking some nice shots, as shown below:
This one is a Big Granny crochet blanket that is in the works for Project Linus. It's only the second crochet project I've done, so I'm pretty happy about the results so far!
This one is the Easter Squares blanket, knit in garter stitch as laid out on my dining room table...it needs to be sewn together, which I imagine will take some time!
This one was my first crochet project, it's called a Wavy Ripple blanket. I'm happy that at the top and bottom it stayed the same width and am pleased that it evened out as I went along.
This is the Wave Stitch blanket, knit up really fast in a super bulky baby yarn by Bernat called "Baby's Breath". It is really really cuddly soft!
And this is the start of another blanket...done in a pattern that's very special to me, because it's the pattern my mom used to make my baby blanket, called a Fan and Feather pattern.
Well, I have to unpack and then pack for my next trip and then get some much needed sleep!
Oh, and finally one mark came up, and I got an A in my Vietnam War history class :) It was one I was more worried about because my essay was kind of cobbled together at the last second...I always worry too much.
No comments:
Post a Comment