Laughter Through Tears

There's been a heat-wave for several days, but it's pretty cloudy out. Cloudy and hot, and odd combination. I'm not sure whether it's the odd weather or something else, but my joints have started acting up. Last night I went out to a game event with some friends at the local LGBT center, and towards the end of the evening my right arm was hurting something fierce. Even my hands are giving me trouble. It's something like thirty degrees out and I'm sitting around with fingerless gloves (which really help).

( Life )

Mostly everything is good. I think writing a blog post (which I haven't made a proper one of in a while) will probably help me gather my mind. I'll put on some jeans and pop out to see what the whether is tangibly like. Maybe I'll dash into the city for a few chores.

I would have joined the Dreamwidth devteam if I didn't have a pathological fear of Perl.

Never let me forget how incredibly boring reading programming books is. Last time I did so successfully I was on a plane.

This process is also complicated by the exciting fact that my left hand is fucked up again. Two thumbs up for arthritis.

I have not yet figured out how to execute a complicated breakup.

In better news, I may get an interview for a job in TA. It would seemingly involve more client-side than I might have hoped, but that may ultimately be better.

This open source thing, IDK.

I was trying to turn over a new leaf and so I never added a RAGE icon to this journal. I'm beginning to regret this.

I have arthritis. It was very bad for a while. It got better, much better. It's been about five years since I last (regularly) walked with a limp. Today it took a Pilates teacher ten minutes flat to fuck up my knee so bad I pretty much had to throw in the metaphoric towel and leave. Half an hour later, now I'm home with a heating pad.

My assessment is that it's not too bad. If I don't agitate it it ought to be fine by tomorrow. Mostly it's the shock that got to me, I think? It's been forever since I felt this hobbled. I had gotten so comfortable with my previous Pilates provider that I let my guard down and forgot why I'm innately suspicious of workout culture.

Now is no time to try and solve the bigger issue, I'm still too nervous and I'd just end up driving myself up the wall. I will watch Lost Girl and produce some supper and eventually everything will be back-to-baseline okay.

Should I allow myself to get subsumed in emotion today, and work on my class assignments tomorrow, or the other way around?

Yes, I am still wading in the miasma of uncontrollable erupting feelings that this spring has decided to land on me. No, I don't know how or why. Yes, I am trying to find a more long-term solution for the matter, but it is hard.

Last night I went out to a "lights show" with my brother, but it was sort of a disaster. I had a big panic attack.

I wish my grades more often reflected my level of interest in the material I learned. Sometimes they do, but not enough. Especially this semester, when I basically loved almost all my classes, but I feel like outside factors got in the way and I won't score very well. Sometimes I feel judged by vague external forces with no name. I guess that's an anxiety thing.

Earlier this week, my knee got fucked up right before pilates. The second half of the week I was kind of a mess and that makes buses and trains complicated because I have to sit diagonally. My knee won't go to ninety degrees when it's pretty badly off. This also triggers the "everyone is silently judging me" reaction.

Video games and comics have decided to be ass this week, and I can't really deal with it but I will feel cowardly if I ignore it. The Lara Croft things especially brings up a lot of crap that I seriously don't know how to process at this juncture. Ugh everyone please stop this forever, haven't we already been through this dance enough times?

I pinpointed an orientation that my right arm can't hold, while reading an article about visual perception for cognitive neuroscience. I feel unreasonably proud of this.

I'm 90% sure that it's not my imagination and my hips actually do start getting creaky and sore when the weather turns worse. Luckily, I'm headed to the doctor in two hours; unluckily, it's the wrong doctor.

This morning my knee decided to randomly crap out on me again. Then I carried one (1) not very heavy box from the car to my new place, a total of maybe thirty steps. Now, obviously, I'm paying for my hubris. Plus, my dad's heat pack is mysteriously missing. Last time I had pain this bad I never would have made it without the microwaveable heat pack. And my hot water battle is one of the few things that are still at the old apartment.

So here I am, all ready for Yom Kippur, days away from finally moving into my new home, and all I can think about is "Ow, ow, ow." I wanted to do some brain-searching, but I'm not sure I have the cognitive resources to play Sim ghost hunters. :(

I'm actually... pretty relaxed. This despite developing a sudden and inexplicable sore throat sometime last night. Why? I don't know.

I went to the doctor and he told me that my arm is much worse, which on the face of it is bad news, but the fact that he sees it and not just me is good news, sort of. He gave me a shot, which hurt a lot for a few hours but now is making me feel much better. He'll see me again in August and if I don't improve he'll change my meds, which may be either good or bad news. Most of the other issues I wanted to bring up didn't make it, even though I wrote a list and everything. I still haven't gotten an answer re: G6PD deficiency.

After the doctor, I worked on my genetics for a few hours. I finished and submitted the last exercise and scored 85, which ought to bring my grade up a bit if it substitutes for the 50-something I got a few weeks back. I also only made two mistakes, and one of them was reading comprehension *headdesk* which means I know the material pretty well. There's a bonus exercise for extra points I'm working on. Then there's the lab report, which I'm fairly certain I can finish Saturday/Sunday, then hand in on Monday morning.

Most of next week will be preparing for two tests the following week. I have a lot of time and resources, so there's no excuse not to study whole days. I'm thinking social psychology in the morning (= early afternoon) and cell to organism in the afternoon (= early evening). I should actually be able to get a decent amount of studying in (= minimum 20 hours per test) without half killing myself. Woo! {o/

The weather's been downright chilly (25 degrees C, really?) which was a welcome reprieve from that one long hellfire and damnation stretch we had. Also, my hair is so short that it's constantly confusing me. I ran a comb through it yesterday, just to see if I could. The comb is still in one piece. Is this what hair is like for most people?

When I lean over and the light hits my glasses lens just right, I can see a tiny little elbow rainbow* there.

Strange places where I've felt my pulse: at the crook of my elbow, when I was trying to support the damaged joint without straining the muscle too much. This might be my radial recurrent artery. Previously I've heard/felt my pulse when leaning my head against my palm (frequently), once in my thumb (!) and possibly once in my neck.

I have managed to extend my stay in my current apartment until the end of September. Nonetheless, I will try to con myself into starting packing as soon as the semester ends. Once I am in my new apartment, I'm getting a quality barometer and affixing it to my wall, so I can examine my theory that sudden changes in atmospheric pressure make my knees act up.

My body: an ongoing scientific experiment.

* ETA: Take this as evidence of how much my elbow hurts.

Wow, I haven't updated all week, mostly because I was busy, and I have had a very eventful two weeks and I'm going to be busy tomorrow too. So I guess sometime on Friday I will make a big post about all the exciting, exciting books stuff that has happened to me lately. Because we are not having family dinner on Friday, because it's the holiday and we are all dinnered out (and I am all familied out).

Man, my feet are so sore. At least my knee resolved itself spontaneously, after being horrid for most of the afternoon.