Drama mama

Monday I didn’t sleep well; I was a little tired. Z made me a batida (taxo, I think) and I had my OB&J and went to the bus. I had my class with AM and we did poetry, which I love. I felt really cool because she said you know you know a language if you can understand poetry and/or jokes. So cool. I imagine that I checked email or something in between… in Survey we talked about a little novel that is made up of letters written by this woman to Diego Rivera (famous Mexican painter, google images) and it’s kind of sad because this woman is absolutely obsessed, and he never writes her back. I got down to business in the library after lunch at Wok the Chinese place, then ran to the bakery to buy carrot bread that they didn’t have for Z. Oh well. Afterward all of us travellers got off at the stadium and we walked to the travel agency. While running across the street (something you have to do in Ecuador) I felt my knee twist out of the socket again, and it hurt so bad I actually felt kind of nauseous. I limped over to the agency, which was a minor disaster because our hotel wasn’t booked; after arguing for a while we decided to come back tomorrow and pay then. I limped back to my house and iced my knee, trying to start my huge final paper for Academic Writing. I don’t remember what I ate or anything, only that I was tired and my knee hurt. So I went to sleep. In the morning I ate my breakfast (raspberry batida this time) and still walked to the bus stop. I gave Brenden my credit card so he could pay for Colombia while I was in class, went to the clinic with Ana Maria, realized that I would need my credit card for any copay, walked to find Brenden, got my card, walked back to the clinic, tried to make an appointment, walked to Ana Maria’s office for advice, walked back to the clinic… I remember doing a lot of walking because the people wouldn’t let me make an appointment because I was “trauma”; I had to either wait for three hours or come back at 2. I gave up, gave Brenden back my credit card (more walking) sent a whiney email to Mom, and worked on my project. Before Survey Brenden gave me back the card because we’d be paying after school. More depressing novella in Survey, lunch in the cafeteria (minestrone soup, salad, lemon chicken, rice, nice dessert, strawberry juice) and got and excuse from German so I could miss class. I worked on the computer more and went to the doctor at 2; they took my blood pressure, temperature, height and weight (in meters and kilos) right away, then I waited for about an hour while watching the discovery channel in Spanish, then the doctor saw me. He asked what happened, pushed on and moved around me knee, I THINK he said I should get an MRI but I explained to him that I would only be in Quito for two more days, so he asked me what I wanted so I asked him for a brace and he gave me pain/anti-inflammatory pills, too. And this brace? It’s frickin huge. It looks like a robot leg. I used to think that people stared a lot before, but I was wrong. It’s impossible not to stare at this thing; something this bionic isn’t exactly normal here. But my knee doesn’t hurt anymore and I can take it off to swim in Galapagos, so that’s fine. My pessimistic side says I’ll have to have surgery, but what the heck? It’s not like I have anything better to do once I get home, and I’ve survived without running this long. Anyway, I got a lot of nice reactions when I walked into class late and before getting on the bus. I probably shouldn’t have waited so long to get it checked out, but it’s too late now. We went to the travel agency after school and we’re all set, although a bank fee made it a little more expensive than I’d thought. I thought I’d have to stay up all night writing my paper, but I didn’t. Z was feeling terrible because they took out 3 molars, so I ate my broccoli soup (which is SUPER good), lentils, and fish by myself, plus I had issues with my shower; the hot water has been finicky lately. I pretty much finished up and went to bed on time. It’s a miracle.