this one time, at band camp

this one time, at band camp

This week Chi-Hi had their band camp, so I've been spending a lot of time there. It has been mentally, physically (and sometimes emotionally) draining. I think camp went well though. We reached all our goals for the band, and the students were able to keep a positive attitude throughout. I'm feeling a lot more confident now about this season. Wednesday night we had a sleep-over at the school. It was like a whole band slumber party. It was pretty fun - there were movies, snacks, etc.

Monday night I finally finished writing all the music for my section. It still hasn't really hit me that I'm done - I've been too busy to enjoy any free time. I think my students like the music, which is good because I spent a lot of time on it!

I think I can speak for everyone on staff when I say that G and Branden weren't far from our minds this week. We've all had to step up and take on more responsibilities this year. I miss having G around to take charge (though Collicott is doing a great job), and I miss joking around with Branden. After Tuesday's rehearsal a few of us stopped at Harmony Courtyard to look at the murals on the wall and share some memories.

Camp went well, but I'm glad it's over. I've been in a lot of pain the past few days. I tried to sit down as much as possible at rehearsals, but I ended up having to walk around a lot, and I didn't really get any chances to rest & elevate my leg. As a result, everything is swollen & aching, especially my knee and the joint where I dislocated my foot. I've discovered that painkillers work okay for post-op pain, but they don't do much for bad aches. I've been told that I don't do a very good job of letting people know when I'm in pain. That's probably true, but I feel like people don't listen to me when I do mention that I'm sore. And I don't want to complain about it. I think people were comparing me to Collicott, who was on his feet a lot. If he can do it, then I can too, right? Well, most of my injuries were to my leg, while his were throughout his body. And I think he was probably pushing himself a little too hard - I know he was in a lot of pain too. Anyway, now I have time to rest for a few days, so that should help.

This week I got sick of my knee giving out all the time, so I finally called my knee doctor to arrange a time for my ACL surgery. I decided on mid-September. I'm going to have to work hard to build up some more strength before the surgery. I wish I didn't have to do it so soon before all the marching band competitions, but mid-September just turned out to be the best time for it (and by "best time", I mean "least bad time"). This way at least I don't have to worry about getting behind in classwork later in the semester when it would be harder to catch up. The deciding factor for me was that I'm going to take a very light class load this semester. It makes more sense to have the surgery early in the semester and spend the rest of the time recovering so that I'll be as strong as possible before going back to school full-time in the spring. Also, I really just want to get my knee fixed and finally get a chance to recover as much as possible.

Lately I feel like my recovery has hit a plateau. Summer is almost over, and I still can't do all the things I couldn't do when summer started. My ankle/knee/leg hasn't been feeling any better. Maybe my progress is just so slow now that I don't notice small differences. I think that at this point in my recovery, building my strength & endurance is the only thing that is going to make any difference (besides getting my ACL fixed), and that's a slow process. As far as the pain goes, I'm hoping it will start to fade eventually.