The Beadbonny Ash

So, I just realized that I've been SO remiss in updating my LJ that I told you I was going for MRIs and never told you what the results were, even tho I got them back almost a week ago!

Well, the MRIs were normal, so there's nothing torn or anything, and he said the chondomalacia didn't look bad (altho he said that many times it's worse than it shows on the MRI). He gave me what I assume was a cortizone injection in each knee (he didn't actually tell me what it was: the place was running 2+ hours behind as usual--I had the appt at 4 and was one of the last ones out as they were closing! so he was in a rush AS USUAL). It started working right away, but my knees were giving me a lot of pain in the afternoon for the first few days. That's calmed down now, and my knees are SIGNIFICANTLY better, tho I'm still having trouble with some of the same things--climbing hills, sitting too long, etc. I go back to see him again tomorrow afternoon so he can check up on how the injections worked. I read online that it can take a month for cortizone injections to work at their full power, so I think this is gonna be one of those wait and see things. Meanwhile, I'm (generally) feeling much more cheerful about the whole thing, because I know that there are still options. If the injections ultimately don't fix the prob (which I still have hopes they will), we can still try braces, and if THOSE don't work, we can do arthroscopic surgery. But hopefully it won't come to that.

Meanwhile, it's week 10, the last week of the quarter. I'm conferencing with my students on their rough drafts today and Thursday--two and a half hours of conferencing at a time. O_O I don't know why I didn't schedule myself a break in there, esp since I can't sit for 2.5 hrs straight and will have to get up and walk a bit at some point. I'll figure it out. As far as my classes go, we had off yesterday, and tomorrow I think we're taking the suicide class period to conference on our paper topics. I hope she doesn't have any big problems with my proposal, because I'm more than halfway thru my rough draft already! I want to go home as soon as poss next week, and if I get my paper done early, I can leave as early as the 7th!

It has also been BROILING HOT this weekend--I went to bed at 1030ish last night and it was still 78 degrees out! We've been sitting in the ONE AIR CONDITIONED ROOM IN THE HOUSE quite a lot the last couple of days. But it's only supposed to get to the upper eighties today, and it'll be even cooler tomorrow, THANK GOD. I can't wait to get home to the central air...

Virtual haircut! Put on your headphones and press play.
RAPTORS EXIST.
14 punctuation marks you never knew existed

Apparently, when you drop a gummy bear into potassium chlorate it opens a portal into hell.

And you thought mentos and diet coke was amazing!

Dr. R, on Wordworth's Prelude and how it applies to other Romantics: Godwin's kind of a phase every Romantic has to go thru and then grow out of. And people like Shelley never grow out of him because they die.

Becky, on Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft: I mean, having been married to her, he has a more personal connection to her than MOST men…

In Mary Wollstonecraft's biography (by Godwin), Mary is not allowed to nurse her newborn daughter, so they get puppies to nurse to relieve the pressure. No joke.
Dr. R: That's an image you do not shake easily.

Becky: Dying in childbirth—that's a very womanly thing to do!
Lorien: yep. kind of hard to do if you're not a woman!
Ashley's brain: Oh, the visuals… BABY SHOOTS OUT OF THE WOMB AND HITS THE DAD IN THE HEAD!

*Lana and I are in our third floor office when we realize that we need to go to class. Lana rushes out. I take about 30 seconds more to gather up my stuff, and also leave the room. I head directly to the elevator and wait about 30 seconds for it to arrive. The door opens… and Lana steps off.*
Ashley: HOW DID YOU DO THAT??

Mom, telling me about her day working with third-graders:
So the principal walks in, and I tell him, "We have a student melting down all over the room and we can't take it anymore."
The principal asks, "Where is he?"
"He's in the coat closet."
He goes, "Okay." He walks over to the coat closet and opens the door. "…Come with me."
"I don't want to!"
"You will obey me."
And the kid got up and went with him!

One night Priya and I had to walk our classmate's dog for her. Sadly, we could NOT get the door open, and probably stood there and messed with it for five to ten minutes trying to get it unlocked.
Priya looks in the window at the cat: Thomas! Help us!

Speaking of Priya, it got pretty hot last week. Now, in August, when we first all came to live in the house together, it was ridiculously hot all the time, and Kyle and I ended up shutting ourselves up in the study, which is the only room with an air conditioner, while Priya was wearing jeans and sneakers and a tshirt and a hoody and saying she wasn't hot. But one evening last week, after I had been sitting up in my room sweltering while doing my homework, I caught her alone in the study in shorts and a tank top with the air conditioner on.
Ashley: YOU CHEATER!!!
Priya: *laughing*

Student 1: I think it's poison ivy.
Student 2: That's not poison ivy.
Student 1: Then what DID it?
Ashley: THE IMPS. I BLAME IMPS FOR EVERYTHING.
Student 1: ...What are imps?
Ashley: They're like evil little elves.
Student 1: ...
Student 2: ...
Student 2: YOU'RE RIGHT! IT'S IMPS! IT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING.

( Quote with Avengers spoilers under cut )

Had my checkup this morning. The doctor took me immediately (which is amazing, b/c the other two times I've been there, they've been running two hours behind). I told him that the physical therapy didn't seem to be helping and that I had developed pain in my hips and hamstrings, he said it sounded like something else was going on and ordered MRIs for me, and I was out again! Here's hoping that the MRIs turn up something definitive, I get an accurate diagnosis, and the treatment actually works this time...

I got out of the doctor's office so early that I actually finished my grading batch! (Of course, they have another paper due at noon that I've got to get started on next... >_< ) I also need to start working on my term papers, since it's WEEK SEVEN ALREADY! We have 10-week quarters; week 11 is finals. I've got a group presentation due Monday (14th), a proposal for history term paper due the same day (and he hasn't given us any instructions on that and we're not meeting again before it's due... I think I need to email him). Proposal for romanticism term paper due the 25th (also haven't gotten any instructions on that one), History paper due June 4th, Romanticism paper due June 8th. Meanwhile, I've got to figure out what the heck I'm doing with my class for the next few weeks. We're starting on the final essay already (I just finished grading the rough draft for the second essay, and the thing due today is their final draft for the first essay! Darned quarters...) and I don't even know if I'm going to make them do an annotated bibliography. I need to get on that...

Just got back from seeing The Avengers with Sally, Jeremy, Tanya, Priya, Elizabeth, and her roommate Jess. I had seen Thor and thought this movie would be like that, but I was pleasantly surprised: I think this might be the best action film I've ever seen. Joss Whedon delivered. (If you go to see it, sit the whole way through the credits. ALL the credits.) It was also funny seeing it with people from the Ukraine and Calcutta, since Russia and Calcutta were two of the three international locations involved. Apparently they got the Hindi right, but the Russian accents were pretty bad. Tanya was laughing.

Also, a quoteboard from the evening:

Sally, offering bag: Popcorn?
Jeremy: Yes. It is.

Later:

Sally: Let me rephrase that. Would you like some popcorn?
Jeremy: Yes, thank you!
Sally: Too bad.

7 question meme answers for bookaholicgirl

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Meme answers under the cut. The meme is still open!

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Push "play" to add drama.

Meme thieved from wyldlittlepoet and lexixanatos487-- ask me 7 questions, and I'll answer in another post.

[Conversation with the Pastor's son, who's 12ish? i think]
Cole [to Elizabeth]: I ran around the church ten times like you told me to, and when I came back in I couldn’t find you!
Ashley: Wait: which way did you run around the church? Clockwise or counter-clockwise?
Cole: Huh?
Elizabeth: Did you go left around the church or right?
Cole: I went that way. *points left*
Ashley: Oh no, counter-clockwise! You know, in old stories they always say that you shouldn’t run counter-clockwise around a church! YOU’LL GET TAKEN BY THE FAIRIES! Never run around a church widdershins!
[I had him almost half-believing me. The following convo was repeated two or three times:]
Cole: I won’t get taken by the fairies!
Ashley: That’s what everybody says… until the fairies get them.

Cole [to age-mate]: Brianna! I dreamed that James was throwing a knife at a tree, and then John stepped in front of it and the knife hit him and it was sticking out of his chest, but he pulled it out and ran away!
Brianna: How pleasant.

Cole, reading the projector in a creepy whisper: We’re glad you’re here!
Ashley: We WERE hungry this morning!

Liz: Yeah, Brianna and the other girls call Cole “The brother we never wanted”.

*Ashley takes another roll*
Martha: Now Ashley, I thought you said you were full!
Judy: The roll was calling to her! I heard it!
Ashley *squeezing the roll to make it “talk”*: “Ashley! Eat me!”

[Discussing "The Sign" by Ace of Bass]
Kate: I always thought it was "I saw the sun."
Person 1: Well, it WOULD open your eyes.
Ashley: And then it would burn them.
Person 2: "And then it would burn them". You MUST be in academia.

[In a discussion of medieval woman author Julian of Norwich, who was an anchoress. Anchoresses were a bit like hermits; they would get somebody to wall them up in a little portion of the church and live there alone for the rest of their lives, getting food through the window and giving people advice. We discovered that Julian of Norwich kept her cat with her in her cell, and the cat is often depicted in pictures of her.]
Lorien: She never goes outside and she has a cat! I AM Julian of Norwich!

Leah, in a discussion of the awesomeness of Dr. D: I feel like Dr. D's one of those people that she could stab you and you'd be like, "Yeah, I guess I deserved that."

[on the phone]
Me: Are you talking to the cat?
Mom: Well, sort of. The hassock just started walking away.

[a posse of about 7 emergency vehicles, lights flashing and sirens blaring, goes zooming down the highway outside our window. Sumi, Warnica, Priya and I all exclaim over it. A minute later, one lone emergency vehicle follows them.]
Ashley: [moving her hands like she’s driving] Wait for me, guys! Wait for me!!!

Cole, trying to get his dad’s attention so he can pray for the meal: Dad! Hey Dad! Dad! PASTOR!

[In a discussion of Lucretia. She was raped by the king's son, and afterward she gathered her friends, told them what happened, and asked them to revenge her, then stabbed herself to death. Brutus (no, not that Brutus) picked up the knife and made everybody swear on it that they would take down the monarchy.]
Dr. R: It's a great stab—ouch, sorry—for Rome.

Mom: This student of mine was patting my leg one day saying “Mrs. B__? Mrs. B__?” I told him it reminded me of Ozzy [our cat], especially the patting the leg thing. I showed him how Ozzy does it—Pat-pat-pat! Pat-pat-pat! So now when he wants my attention while I’m working with another student, he comes over and pats my leg like Ozzy. I’ve taken to petting him. I rub around his ears. He thinks it’s hilarious.