toetwirlerrr

GOT’EM!

Got it just this year, with a High School Diploma Program. 10 pieces, 5 musicianship phases. Don’t really feel like going into detail. Maybe later.

I love coming back and reading my old entries, because it’s been long enough after the surgery now that I’m not angry, mad, or bitter, or pained by it :)

My jaw surgery was two years ago, and from what I remember, I experienced no pain…I don’t think any at all. However, the painful things were the adjustments I had to make to everyday life… the most obvious: EATING!

I had my jaw wired shut, and so I had only completely liquids for 6 full weeks. That means no applesauce, no pudding. Only soups, drinks, smoothies, Ensures, juice, and blended chicken noodle soup (sounds bad, actually very tasty). Sometimes I was just so dang hungry, and I couldn’t do anything about it, because I was already sick of the same old soups and juices day after day after day. That part was very frustrating and you need a tough mindset to concentrate your brain on something other than hunger.

2) The doctor instructed me to not lay down, so the blood will not rush to my face and thus will not cause greater swelling. The result: I slept sitting for about a month. This is also frustrating, because sometimes, you just felt so weak that you want to lay down comfortably and sleep, but you can’t really get fully comfortable sleeping while sitting.

3) My breath smelled BAD, and it was completely gross. The first week I was not allowed to use Listerine, so I could only brush the outside of my teeth with a baby toothbrush. You can taste and feel with your tongue the plaque build-up on your teeth. I remember VERY well the 6th day, when I couldn’t sleep at night because my mouth smelled so bad, and I started crying. Lolz. Be prepared to feel utterly gross!

4) Ice pads for the first weeks, heating pads for the last weeks. Can’t remember the numbers. This wasn’t so bad. You just have to sit there….

I’m pretty small – I started off at 100 lbs. I remember losing a pound a day the first week. I tried to reaaallly eat fattening things, such as a smoothie every couple hours (endless milk and ice cream – yummooo) and bottles of Ensure. By the 4th week I think I was 90 pounds, and stayed around 90 until the 6th week. I gained back those 10 pounds pretty quickly after I could eat again though.

So guys – for anyone who has to experience jaw surgery – don’t be scared!! The actual procedure is really not bad at all. They put you to sleep and when you wake up, you’re all done. All you gotta do is lay there :) There is virtually no pain, just swelling and tough life adjustments. But as long as you’re prepared to make some big sacrifices for a few weeks, YOU’LL DO GREAT!

Wow! I made this whole 43 things around two years ago and just found this while cleaning out my OLD e-mail.

When I wrote this, I had no idea what ‘Governor’s School” really entailed. It was a name, and it CERTAINLY lived up to all its hype.

Let me explain what Governor’s School is, for you guys who don’t live in places where you have one:

It has nothing to do with Governor’s or politics. The Gov school I went to is a 4-week summer residential program for high school jrs and srs, where you go and focus on one study – I focused in piano (others can do Humanities, other performing or visual arts, math, tech, etc). It was held at the U of Richmond in VA.

That’s the technical definition, but the actual place and environment is AMAZING. especially for teenagers. it’s just a bunch of the most talented kids in the state, who will keep you constantly amazed at their abilities.

Here, everyone is so passionate about their art or study. Everybody has the inner motivation to practice hours a day, and everyone is so talented! The humanities students could all play the guitar, the pianists could sing, the singers could dance, etc etc.

Everyone here is also so nice. There’s like a special “Gov School personality” i would say. It means that they’re all nice, talented, fun, relaxed, creative, and intelligent. But the thing is, I only believe that because in this environment, hardly anyone dislikes each other. When someone has a “weird” personality, we still appreciate it, accepts it, and like them anyway.

Only at Gov school can you walk in to the cafeteria by yourself, sit down at a table full of complete strangers, and start chatting, and not feel socially awkward at all.

My classes were also AMAZING. My piano professor loved to talk about unorthodox ways of playing piano (like the LH fingering of D Major scale as 2-1, 4-3-2-1, 3-2-1, I mean what the heck right?) and just made us think in unique ways. My course 2 was an inter-disciplinary course, and not only were the activities fun and mind-stretching, everyone in the class was so open to share their secrets, and basically, we learned about life.

So that is Governor’s School. I can talk about it for years. Anyone who has the opportunity to go, especially in VA, you should definitely, definitely go. I believe this now, and I think I’ll probably believe this forever, that this is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity.