Be blown away...

I think there's probably one thing in everyone's life that they are always, always going to wish they could have done. For me, that is definitely figure skating! It's basically dancing on ice (really extreme dancing!), plus you can have the dream of someday competing in the Olympics. I've always loved watching figure skating, and I think I am always going to wish I could have done it. But some dreams were just not meant to be...

I came across this video of Yukari Nahano skating to the Bolero from Moulin Rouge. She is amazing. And here is Evan Lysacek skating to the Rhapsody in Blue. I've been a fan of his ever since the Olympics...he's incredibly talented, a great performer, and, well, he's pretty cute too. ;) Then this is a video I came across around the last Olympics, when I was looking at various figure skating videos...Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao skating to this really gorgeous instrumental version of Queen's Who Wants to Live Forever. Those lifts...that requires such trust.

So, if you want to see some incredible skating to gorgeous music, watch those links! You will be blown away!

Day 17.

Day 17: An art piece.

Hmmm. I've always liked art, even though at the moment I'm only mediocre at drawing. That could change someday...I just don't really feel like putting in the effort right now. But anyways. I have tons of favorite artists...I've always especially liked the Impressionists. However, this is a painting by someone with a very different style, which I've also always loved.

"Nighthawks", by Edward Hopper

This has been one of my favorite paintings since I saw it for the first time when I was...7? 8? I just love his stark realism and use of light. Often we'll be driving in the early morning and I'll see light hitting a brick building, casting sharp shadows, and think, "That looks like an Edward Hopper painting."

* * *

So...today was the day! I am now sans all four wisdom teeth, my last baby tooth, and have an odd assortment of rubber bands and chains attaching my impacted tooth to my braces in the hopes that one day (about six months all together, so we hope) it will pop from the roof of my mouth to the place it should be. My face is now square-shaped instead of heart-shaped, and I don't exactly look like myself. Plus, I'm having this agonizing craving for PIZZA. Not more pudding and Yo-J...gah...

My appointment this morning was for 9:45, so I slept in until about 9:15 am. Less time to get nervous! Thankfully my mom saw me starting to take a drink of water right before we left the house and was able to stop me, so my agony didn't have to be postponed (you can't eat or drink anything at all for six hours before the operation). We arrived, I drummed my fingers on the arms of the waiting room chair and obsessively slumped down and sat up again in nervousness for the five minutes we had to wait, and then I was ushered into the torture chamber... *cough* I mean the operating room. The part that really made me most nervous was the thought of the IV...I have this horrific fear of needles (actually, I've been getting it under control lately...getting stitches helped me overcome it!) that stems from my first experience with them. I was eight years old, I got blood drawn, and they hit a nerve. PAIN.

Anyway...back to the present. The nurse, of course, reassured me that it really wasn't that bad, and I, of course, was not convinced. She stuck heart monitors on me and I was entertained for a while by watching my heart rate go up and down...it usually stayed in the 80s, but if I was perfectly still it went down to 64 and if I moved around a lot it started pushing 100. When the time for the IV to be inserted, it went up to 106. haha So I closed my eyes, extended my arm, she tied a tourniquet around it, I started squirming in discomfort, she told me to just relax because the needle would go in much more easily, and then she suddenly remembered the skin-numbing spray she'd told me about earlier and sprayed so much on my arm that it ran down the sides. Then she stuck in the needle.

"Does it hurt?"

"Um...yes!" In lieu of going stiff as a board and gritting my teeth, I was writhing around and groaning. I've also started to actually be honest when the doctors ask me questions. :P "It hurts! It stings! Ahhhh!" I started giggling hysterically...that's my usual odd nervous reaction.

"Oh, it's okay. Ha, I laugh when I'm nervous too!" This, naturally, made me laugh even harder. She pulled out the needle, making me contract into a ball with another hollow groan, and the oral surgeon, who was walking by and glanced in the room right then, do a double take.

After about five or ten more minutes, the oral surgeon came into the room, loudly exclaiming, "So, are you ready? DUN DUN DUN." My mom informed him that was not the atmosphere we were going for. ;) Then we said our farewells, the surgeon patted me on the head and said they'd take good care of me, two more nurses entered the room, and one of them stuck this plastic thing with prongs into my nose without any preamble. I inhaled the cold air, thought it felt like laughing gas and therefore instantly wanted to start hyperventilating, but forced myself to stay calm.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"Oh, fine...just what is this thing in my nose?"

"That's just oxygen."

"Mmmm...I see." I closed my eyes, settled back in the chair, she jammed a huge piece of plastic in my mouth to prop open my jaws, and next thing I knew I was opening my eyes, hearing Cee-Lo sing, "And I thought, forget you...OOH OOH OOOOOH!", and the first nurse say, "Okay, you're all done!"

I blearily sat up, and then my mom came in. My memory is a bit foggy, but I remember the nurse replacing the gauze between my jaws and handing me my teeth in a little paper cup contained in a plastic bag that said "Biohazard". After that she handed me some paper and a pen to write on, since I couldn't talk, and I asked and answered some questions for a while. The operation took about an hour and a half...longer than expected...the surgeon said my teeth did not want to leave me. Then the nurse tied ice packs around my face and I sat up.

"Just wait a second...I'll get the wheelchair."

"Wheelchair? What the heck?" I started to stand up. Oh.

So they wheeled me out the car, my mouth started hurting worse and worse, and eventually I started crying and felt absolutely, utterly miserable and in pain for about half an hour. Only being able to communicate by paper didn't help any. Oh, and neither did the fact that it was about 1:30 pm and I hadn't eaten or drank anything all day! But then I got situated at home, ate and drank, and then had an absolutely wonderful iced coffee my wonderful mother had bought for me, and my good spirits were restored. I was also cheered by the fact that the space where the incisor on the right side of my mouth should be didn't look quite as horrible as I'd expected, and it will be gone in a few months!

So there, my friends, is a pretty much blow-by-blow account of my oral surgery. Wellllll, maybe not exactly...I wasn't awake for that part. ;) I'm happy it's gone so well so far, and hopefully the pain and swelling will go down and I'll be able to go to work on Friday!

* * *

And wow, I feel dumb. I totally forgot to wish you all a very happy and blessed Easter! Even though I had to work from 9 to 5, my Easter was wonderful, and the Easter Vigil Mass the previous night was absolutely gorgeous.

HAPPY EASTER!

O happy fault, that merited for us so great a Redeemer!

There was a man named Jean Valjean...

We just finished watching the Les Miserables 25th Anniversary concert on PBS. It. was. AMAZING. My dad had told us there was going to be a special about Les Mis on tonight and I was expecting the usual hour-long documentary. But when we turned it on and I saw the stage and heard the first notes of "Look Down", I started literally dancing with excitement...it was going to be the entire show! I've been wanting to see it again since we saw it when I was 11. So yes, it was amazing!!! The concert format was a bit odd (for the most part, they were all singing to the audience in front of microphones instead of to one another), but even though it was different it actually worked quite well, and everyone was wonderful. I was actually quite impressed by Nick Jonas's performance...I cannot stand the Jonas Brothers' music, but I thought he did a fantastic job as Marius (I really think he should just stick with Broadway!). Perhaps he sounded a bit young and undeveloped, but I actually thought it was nice that Cosette and Marius both seemed about the age they were supposed to be.

One of the best parts came at the very, very end, after you'd suffered through about 20 minutes of the lady who, in my dad's words, had certainly had her coffee that morning, excitedly exclaiming, "Did you know that it took Victor Hugo 16 years to write Les Mis? Well, it doesn't need to take you 16 years to call and pledge your money! Call now!" and "One more day...well, it doesn't have to take you one more day! Call now!" until you want to throw something at the TV screen. *cough* Anyways. The original cast was there! The four original Jean Valjeans sang "Bring Him Home" as a quartet, joined at the end by tonight's Valjean, and then everyone sang "One More Day". That was amazing. I can only imagine the emotions that were flooding everyone, to be back on stage singing this incredible music from this incredible musical 25 years later. One of the best parts was when Michael Ball (the original Marius) sang, "My place is here...I stand with you!", and this huge smile lit up his face as he gestured expansively to the stage and the cast. That was just completely awesome!

So...I'm on a Les Mis high right now. :) That is my favorite musical! Someday, somewhere, I will perform in it.

On a slightly different note, I've been reading some of my favorite books lately! My mom bought four Agatha Christie novels from the library booksale last week, and I hadn't read any of them. I love her books! They're almost pure suspense, her descriptions of people are brilliant, some parts are absolutely hilarious, and in the end, even if it seemed that the crime was going to have some mediocre resolution, there is always some fascinating, often heart-rending story behind it. That's one thing that sets Dame Christie's books apart from other mystery novels...she always deeply explores the underlying reasons that murders are committed, and they are many and interesting.

And then my other favorites...I have discovered that I LOVE the Percy Jackson books! I saw the movie a few months ago and greatly enjoyed it, and then I read the first book and enjoyed it even more! I just finished book two last night, and I'm so glad there are four more! I really love the way Greek mythology is adapted to modern times, it's so much fun to figure out what mythological people or creatures they're running into (especially since I love Greek mythology), and the books are well-written, very well paced, and often completely hilarious! I must admit it...if something or someone makes me laugh, I'm bound to love it. haha

"Rats are delicious." The Sea of Monsters