29 April 2011

concussionista

This spring, I co-captained an intramural soccer team with a nursing school/soccer buddy. It was an interesting experience, since only three of us were there to play because soccer is vital to our mental health. Everyone else was either good-naturedly dragged or literally begged to play. We played every game, despite frequent forfeits by one or both teams due to lack of numbers. This week, we had a game Tuesday night and another one on Wednesday.

In Tuesday's game (which we won by forfeit), the other team had recruited some DI (read: better, faster, stronger) players so we could scrimmage. I was positioning myself to control a ball headed toward me from the sky, when all of a sudden there was an explosion of light and I was on the ground, my skin stinging in strange places. Apparently one of the other players had full-on body checked me or something. Anyway, my teammates who saw the collision were laughing, describing it as an "epic" fall. Got up, carried on, got body-checked real hard again later by another guy, spent the rest of the game trying to protect my head with my arms when the beefy guys came close.

Had a headache that night, put the pieces together and figured out I most likely had a mild concussion. Told my dad, he agreed, but said I could play Wednesday anyway. I've never had a concussion before, but I've played soccer for 16 years.

Wednesday night rolls around and it's pouring rain. We got the game started, but no more than five-minutes into it I was taken down by a two-footed tackle by some overly-zealous midfielder. Hit my head on the ground.

Haha.

We went out to one of our favorite pubs after the game. Some of my nursing friends were concerned about my head and agreed with my decision to stick with water instead of beer, you know, just in case. The others tried to peer-pressure me into drinking anyway, because "it can't be that bad." They thought it was funny to spontaneously perform neuro checks and vision tests. Right. Hilarious. I did appreciate one of the guys asking me to text him when I woke up the following morning so he'd know I was ok.

Apparently at school on Wednesday morning, my co-captain had mentioned to my favorite peds faculty that I'd been concussed, to which the reply was "She should take it easy this week." Of course, my co-captain knows me better than that, so she snorted delicately and pointed out is was me that they were talking about. A fair assessment, really, since I hit my head again in the game that night.

Play every game like it's your last game.

Anyway. The headache is manageable, but now I have to study for finals.

25 April 2011

Lest we forget. ANZAC Day, Monday 25 April.

Click here for my long post on ANZAC Day and what it means to me and to Aus. In the meantime, listen to this beautiful song about the brave young men who gave it all almost 100 years ago.

 
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; 
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. 
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.
-- from Laurence Binyon’s “For the Fallen”

23 April 2011

In which I speak nonsense

This blog has been becalmed in doldrums of my nursing school life. I will probably never turn into one of the 20-somethings that blogs daily about their dogs or their husbands or their shoes, but since I'm two weeks away from pseudo-graduation and three and a half months away from finishing nursing school forever, the least I can do is update. Topical updates today, for lolz.

School:
The much-loathed classes of this semester are over. I have only a single final (in OB/peds) and I'm feeling rather ambivalent. Less so on the pediatrics front, as I spent Wednesday night in a pediatrics emergency department and ohmygosh I love the kids. We get along well, mostly because I never really grew up. And I like dinosaurs.

Love life:
Currently non-existent. Unless you include the rumor mill drama (wasn't that supposed to fade with high school?) and the "helpful advice" of various and sundry girlfriends on how the men find you when you're not looking. Sure they do. In other news, Downtown Bestie and I had our entire bar tab picked up by a couple of Lonely Boys during the Timbers match on Sunday. It's not all hardship on the singles front!

Other news:
Since my Camry finally died last month (for good), I am borrowing my parents' car, which meant a crash course in driving a stick shift and a month of grinding gears and trying not to stall. Now I feel all accomplished and successful and prepared to drive a car on any other continent.

Going to the east coast and Canada at the end of next month. Especially excited about going back to Boston, going to Montreal and Québec City for the first time and eating poutine with Boston Bestie.

I've gotten back into running and hiking, not to mention intramural soccer. I'm captaining a team with a friend and it's such good fun that we might carry on playing into summer on our own. These other athletic endeavors alleviate the disappointment that has been my ballet class (no mirrors, plus an unfortunate foray into the world of modern dance... turns out it's "earthy" and "natural" and you have to swing your arms and stomp around a lot. I think I'd like it better if we were T-rexs and not monkeys).

22 April 2011

explodey things go boom

I had a conversation with a fellow nursing student the other day. It went something like this:

Me: "...now we're at war with Libya."
Her: "I didn't know that we're at war with Libya!"
Me: "Well, that's generally the idea when you drop bombs on a country."
Her: "Bombs? I thought we only dropped missiles!"

/facepalm