First full week

Classes started last Thursday. I feel like I haven't slowed down since the Monday before that when I arrived back on campus for more ResLife training (was it only last week?).

I'm thrilled about all of my classes, although I'm more excited about the music ones than anything else. I have a performance class, a music theory class, private voice lessons, Hebrew, and a Jewish studies capstone course. This is the first semester I've had the majority of my classes in my major (and all of them in either my major or my certificate program). The music major takes a lot of work and has some of the highest credit requirements (=max allowed by the university in one department), but it's so much fun even when it's frustrating.

Physically, I've been doing okay, still. I've gotten some tightness in my wrists, but nothing incredibly painful, and I've gotten used to sleeping in a twin bed again. I miss the air mattress; it has more give than any other mattress I've tried, and is therefore more comfortable for my hip. I've even been managing all the extra walking pretty well. It probably helps that the temperature is rarely low enough even to require gloves. Yesterday it was in the low 60s (Fahrenheit). This is Not Normal weather for the area. We should have semi-permanent snow until April-ish. Instead, we have 60 degree weather in February and January, which should be the coldest months of the year. 0.o (Yes, I'm a touch worried about our ecosystem here.) Even so, I'm betting it's helping my body cope better.

And I'm cautiously excited for a Bystander Intervention Workshop that our wellness and mental health centers are sponsoring in a couple of weeks. It's a six-hour workshop, but it's free, and I can see a lot of applications both as a ResLife staff member and as someone whose home-life involves alcoholics. The workshop has two different tracks, one for sexual assault and one for alcohol; I'm probably going to take the latter because of the men in my life who like to abuse alcohol. Either way it will be useful hands-on training.

So that's what's going on with me. How are you?

I get emails

And I send them.

I just spent an hour and a half reading, responding to, and sending emails, all because my time for emailing last night was taken up by homework.

Now I have a crick in my neck.

Oh well, time for dinner and then my first Opera and Oratorio class!

Fall Break

Well, I'm more or less on Fall Break, the first of two my uni has (the other being over US Thanksgiving). I have a four day weekend in which to rest and catch up on work. This morning I had my first midterm, in Hebrew, and I think I actually managed to do well on it. I had a lot of vocabulary I had to learn fairly last minute, but the biggest problem was really spelling the words. However, the test didn't ask me to write a lot of words but had things like lists in which to cross out the word that doesn't fit, verb conjugations, fill-in-the-pronoun or preposition, and answering questions. This as opposed to the quizzes which are on the vocab and require being able to spell, which was made harder as soon as we learned the last 10 letters, several of which have similar sounds or functions to the first 12 letters (there are two 't' letters, for example).

At any rate, that's over, and I'm glad for the break in work. I have a lot to catch up on, but I now have the time to do it in, so I should be okay, and I should still be able to get the rest I need for my body to continue healing.

I only have two minor physical annoyances right now: a mouth sore on the inside of my cheek, and a wart that's been treated on my right middle finger. My hip and knee hurt a little, but as long as I pace myself, I do fine.

On the other hand, I received a letter from my health insurance today saying they won't process my claim for physical therapy until I fill out the form they sent, asking how I was injured, etc etc. Except, I already filled out a claims form in which I explicitly stated that it wasn't an accident or injury, but probably a result of a chronic pain condition they should already know about. *facepalm* The woman at the health center who deals with these kinds of things for students is on vacation until Tuesday, so I'll go talk to her next week as soon as I have time. Bleh. I hate insurance processes. I still don't have any paperwork from them saying they processed my claim for seeing a cardiologist last month, either (it's something minor and common, and unrelated to anything but stress, they think; my heart is fine).