Concern

Is anyone else concerned about these jean styles?

These are popping up at places like Gap and Nordstrom.

Incident

Last night was the big show for the studio I teach at. Everything went really well until the finale. Usually the finale consists of the older girls doing a dance number and then all the kids filing on stage to take a bow. However, the other day one of the teachers decided it would be a good idea for the instructors to do a little piece for part of the finale. I was thrilled, I haven't performed in just over four years. Since we only had about three days to get the dance down we did a very short number to a song the Company girls picked -- Matchbox 20's "How Far We've Come." I wasn't exactly pleased with this choice, I can't stand Matchbox 20, but whatever.

Back to last night. Everything went great. I had a one child (an 11 year-old, meaning way too old to be confused about this) that had a really hard time understanding what side of the stage she was to enter on, so she went running on the stage after the dance had already started, I wasn't exactly happy about that. My class of 11 three year-old tappers did a great job, they looked awesome. Anyway, it comes time for the finale and the teachers go running on stage. We do our little number, and as I am doing my eight counts of dancing off the stage I realized I had injured myself earlier in the dance. I had to switch what I was doing and leap off the stage as big and as fast as I could. After that I ran on, took my bow and then made my way to the dressing room. After a few minutes of refusing to take my ballet shoe off, I did it, and there was my second toe, sticking straight up and sideways, I just knew I had broken my foot. I was not very happy.

Dawn gave me a piggyback ride out to her car and got me to Instacare in record time. I went back and got my x-rays from a man wearing lavender scrubs. He took a ridiculously long time x-raying my foot and at one point taped the rest of my toes down to the table which just about shot me threw the roof it hurt my foot so bad.

Then I returned to my exam room and the doctor came in and had great news, no broken foot, just a dislocated toe. I was thrilled. He then said he could give me two numbing shots and then put my toe back in place. I declined the shots (I had a dinner party to get to) and just had him go for it. I am surprised Dawn is still in once piece I was squeezing her so hard as he pulled my toe up and shoved it back into its place. He then sent me back for another set of x-rays to make sure he had done the job correctly, which he had. I asked how long this baby is going to hurt for and his answer was "It depends on your body, however long it wants to hurt." I am hoping that means no more than a week or two, however I was just reading about dislocated toes and lots of people take up to six months, this is slightly concerning to me. I am just happy I am not in a cast and using crutches for the next 10 weeks.

Notice the zig-zag nature at the top of the second toe.

Microbiology

I decided to take microbiology for the first block of summer semester, what a joy. The class consists of a 2 1/2 hour lecture and then a 2 1/2 hour lab. The lecture isn't so bad, my professor is impossible to listen to so I usually end up just reading through the chapters and taking notes from the book while he goes on about topics that will never be touched on the exam.

HOWEVER, lab is a whole different game. My lab professor is possibly the most wordy person I have ever come in contact with. He takes close to two hours to explain something that could be said like this "Take a swab, swab the culture plate, put it in the incubator, come back tomorrow add the reagent, if it turns red it is positive." So we sit there for two hours while he draws pictures on the whiteboard of things that are sitting right in front of us, such as, swabs, tubes with bacteria in them, petri dishes, bunsen burners, gloves, etc. He has to color each diagram completely. Each time he starts his drawing on the board it is like he has never seen one before and just has to use it. After sitting in lecture for all that time and then sitting through this man I am almost driven insane.
Today I just about snapped. After sitting there for an hour listening to him go on and on and on about anaerobic bacteria I was losing patience. And then all of a sudden this man was able to draw me back in. He started talking about germ warfare. Wow. This had loads to do with lab. What really caught my attention was, "One of the most exquisite forms of germ warfare was in the 17th or 18th century, the Chinese dumped bags of lice infected with the Plague on their enemies." EXQUISITE? How is dumping bags of Plague infected lice exquisite? Someone enlighten me.

Then he went on to open a tube of Clostridium, the bacteria that causes gangrene. He walked around the room wafting the smell this way and that so we could all have the "privilege" of smelling it. I just about died. Does he realize no one wants to have to smell something that stinks that bad? What on earth. After that little escapade he went on to tell us that the jars we were using to seal our bacteria in cost anywhere from $100-$400, "All it is is a little plastic container! And it costs that much, class can you believe that a little plastic container costs anywhere from $100-$400?" I nearly screamed at the top of my lungs "DOES IT MATTER?" Every lab he has to stress how much each container costs, "This little thing cost $45, $45." "Now these gloves are expensive, they run around $5 per box class, please only use one pair." "This particular tube costs about $200." Give me a break.