Saturday, January 26, 2013

Still Broken, but not Quite so Bummed

I went to my doctor yesterday, and it seems that things are headed in the right direction.  I'll be brief, but here is an update for ya'll.

So the bone zappers seem to be working!  Doc didn't take x-rays because she said that improvements wouldn't show up on x-rays yet, but my feet are hurting less and (duh) she says that's a good thing.  And I don't have to see her for another 6 weeks!  At that point we'll see what's going on with my broken bits.

NO MORE BOOTS!  I forgot to look back and see if I had mentioned this before, but the boots were for sure coming off this week.  Doc said that after three months in the boots (which just passed) I would have to take them off, even though the fractures haven't healed yet, otherwise I'd be looking at muscle atrophy and hip issues.  I want no part of that and I hate the boots, so I complied.  The plan we made at the December appointment was that the boots would come off the day of my January appointment, however I took them off about a week early because I was starting to get ankle pains kind of frequently and was worried that it was the beginning of the muscle issues.  But that's mostly gone so I think we're good.

So yeah!  My feet are still hurting but we're headed the right way.  Yippee!

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Bone Zappers and Leg Robots

I have some fun new medical gear to play with.  And by fun I really mean horrible.  But whatevs.

I have bone stimulators!  Essentially, my fractures weren't healing so we had to go to the next step, which apparently means bone stimulators.  I don't have a whole lot to say about them, although I did make a video about them so check that out here: click me! click me!

I've been explaining all about them to everybody I've seen since I got them so the story is getting kind of old.  They basically stimulate the circulation which will help the fractures heal.  I have to where them 24/7 minus the time I spend in water.  They don't create any sensations (I was kind of hoping it would be a constant foot massage, boo).  My friend (the same friend who coined the term "space boots) has been telling everyone that they shock me..which is false.  But that's where the term bone zappers came from.  They beep when the wires get messed up.  Which is all the time.  There are numerous wires which is why my friend's boyfriend calls them leg robots.  But that's all the boring stuff, if you want to know more just watch the video.

No on to fun things, like how I'm a pathological liar.  So like I just mentioned, all this gear gets a lot of attention.  Strangers and friends alike want to know what's going on.  And quite frankly I'm just sick of explaining.  So I've been making up stories.  They're all pretty outrageous and no one believes them, but I refuse to offer any other explanation so they don't ask any more questions.  Wanna hear what I've been saying?

When someone new questions the spaceboots I've been telling them it was a shark attack.  That tends to shut people up.  Also at one point there was a rumor circulating around school that my dad had hit me with his car.  That's entirely false and I definitely didn't start it, but I let it run it's course without interrupting it.

The bone stimulators have also drawn a lot of attention, mostly because they're new.  Double diabetes was my go to explanation, and that actually tricked a lot of people.  My one friend questioned it saying that since the zappers said "orthopak" on them they must be for my bones.  I tried to convince her that they were for my orthodontia, I told her they were wireless retainers (even though I haven't had braces since I was 13).  She didn't go for it but it was worth a try.

Monday, November 26, 2012

I'm Practically Un-lovable

I'm totally not ashamed to say that I'm 18 years old and I've only ever been in one real relationship.  I mean, I did the middle school thing where being someone's girlfriend means that you occasionally toss a note to him in the hallway and you hold hands under the table of lunch.  Actually, I was pretty damn good at being a middle school girlfriend.  But when it comes to being in a mature relationship.  Well.  I'm terrible.

First, I do want to say one thing for myself.  For whatever reason people think I know what I'm doing in life and they ask me for advice.  I always tell them what I think, while at the same time telling them that my own life/relationships are in a constant state of disaster so they shouldn't listen to anything I have to say.  But whenever people listen to me, it usually works out well for them.  So while I can't manage myself for shit, I do pretty well with other peoples issues.

So wanna know about my only real boyfriend?  So I kind of knew him before I got to high school but we first really got to know each other my freshman year when we were both in the musical and both in Show Choir.  Like I said, I was a freshman, he was a junior.  He asked me out in October.  I said yes.  I was 14 and I think he was 17.  We were only together from October to somewhere around February.  During the beginning of our relationship we saw each other all the time because we had musical rehearsals all the time.  We had our first kiss in the wings of the stage.  I also got him to dance with me in our town's Halloween parade.  And we always accidentally seemed to wear the same colors on the same day.  We were pretty adorable.  But.  After the musical ended we didn't see each other nearly as much.  And everything pretty much fizzled out.  He tried a whole lot harder than I did.  He invited me to his house and out to do stuff...I never did.  See, I suck as a girlfriend?  We only ever went on one date.  He finally just said that we didn't do enough together to make it worth it.  Which was totally true.  I was feeling the same way.  There was no drama, no hurt feelings.  He actually had really awesome timing because the night he broke up with me there was a massive snow storm and school was canceled the rest of the week.  We're still friends and we talk all the time.  He's actually dating one of my best friends now, and he has been for like two years, and they're pretty much the cutest thing in the world and I really want them to get married.  Here's a picture of all of us on opening night of the musical (it seems like forever ago!).


I'm in the red dress, she's in the green dress, he's in the bow tie.  The guy in the cowboy hat was her boyfriend at the time.  Now he's with one of our other best friends and I hope they get married too.  I'm still alone.


And here's a picture of us more recently.  This was taken last spring when the came home to watch me in my role as Mrs. Meers in the musical.  I'm the Asian in the crooked wig, it happens.

So I know I said earlier that he was my only real boyfriend, and I maintain that.  However the history of my love life does not start and end with him.  Ohhhh, there's more.

Shall we discuss my almost-boyfriend?  If I had not done so much to sabotage any chance of him sticking around I'm 100% positive that he would have asked me out.  He told me he loved me and we were never even dating (that's kind of where I freaked out a little and blew up any potential of a relationship).  So anyway, I met this guy in a program that united a handful of kids from different schools in my county.  So I met him the summer before my sophomore year.  We had about a dozen meetings with this program and that was all we ever saw of each other.  He lived about 40 minutes away from me.  Towards the end of my sophomore year we started to talk.  All through the summer before junior year we texted each other.  By the way, at this point I was 16 and he was 17 but we were in the same grade.  By the time summer was over I had gone on three dates with him (two to the movies and once to watch his band play).  I kissed him once...well, actually...he kissed me once and it was disgusting so I kind of didn't let it happen again.  But really, it was bad.  It was just a few days after our first and only kiss that he told me he loved me.  And I ran for the hills.  I actually un-invited him to my homecoming dance.  I just flat out said that I didn't want him to come.  Seriously, I'm the worst potential girlfriend ever, don't date me!

So for a final run down, I'm 18 years old.  I've had one boyfriend.  I've kissed four boys (yes, I only talked about two of them because the first and second guys that I kissed were rather insignificant).  I've never slept with anybody but I've had three people ask if I would.  Pretty much anytime a guy shows interest in me I enjoy it for like a month and then I just turn it into one big mess.  This is your final warning; do not date me.







Friday, November 23, 2012

Quiero Bailar

Soy ensenando un baile por un groupo de competicion.
I am teaching a dancer for a competition group.
And I know some Spanish, Olay!

The song I'm using is the Glee Kate Hudson mash-up of Americano and Dance Again.  I'm loving it.  And the girls think it's cool that I can translate the Spanish in Americano for them.

It's jazz piece.  All of my Jazz 3 (the highest level) class is in it and some of my Jazz 2 dancers.  I really didn't want to put the Jazz two girls in it, but I didn't have a choice in the matter.  Oh well, I'm making it work. 

The piece is really coming along!  The girls are working really hard and I think it looks great.  So far what I've done is I started them dancing in unison as a group and then I split them into different lines based on their class levels.  Then I kind of dedicated the Dance Again portion of the song to the 2's and the Americano portion to the 3's.  So far it's working.

My biggest frustration is the lack of effort.  And I know I should complain because they are working really hard for me, but I still need a whole lot more from them if they're going to do well in competitions.  I try to get them to ask intelligent questions but also to figure things out for themselves, but so far that hasn't happened.  Then again, they are between 9 and 12 years old sooo...

When I say lack of effort I guess I really mean their reliance on me.  For example, if the choreo is to do an axle turn with the right arm in the air, I'll have a student say that every time the do it their left arm goes in the air.  What am I supposed to say to that?  They expect me to have an answer and somethings just take practice...if your right arm is supposed to be up but you put the left one up instead just keep practicing.  There's nothing I can do for that!  I also always have one or two of the Jazz 2 girls telling me that the music is too fast.  The music is the music and I can't change that, and I'm not going to give them wimpy choreography because a) it's an advanced level piece and b) it takes strong choreo to win.  So there.  One more frustration is when I introduce a new move or something and they just look at me like I'm crazy.  Uhh, hello, please practice what's going on.  They don't try it and then they can't get it in the dance and they tell me they can't do it and that the music is too fast...it's a viscous cycle.  I know what they're capable of and I'm not getting it from the so far.

But these things take time.  I'll whip 'em into shape by the time the first competition rolls around.


Legally Legal!

Hi, nice to meet you, my name is Mary Kate and I'm an adult. 

What?!?

Oh yeah, I turned 18 two weeks ago.  Whoop whoop.  I kinda forgot about it for a little bit there, it wasn't all that exciting, but now it's late and I'm the only one awake at my house so I figured I would share about the day.

So my birthday is November 12th and so is my brother's.  Because we're twins.  That morning I got up and went to morning practice (I'm a swimmer now...I still can't even handle that) at 7 am.  Before I left I made sure to wake Liam up to tell him happy birthday, I don't think he really appreciated that.  Then later in the afternoon I had a choreography session for a school event.  We did the whole cake and presents thing but other than that I just kind of laid around refusing to apply to college.  Because who wants to do that on their birthday?

As for the gifts.  Birthday's aren't really a big deal in my family, but I got a few nice things.  Liam got me a pink snuggie, which I am sooo loving!  My mom got me tickets to see the So You Think You Can Dance tour...eeek!!  I got a bra with butterflies on it and some orange underwear.  Oh yeah, my dad got new tires for the truck which just happened to be a few days before our birthday, so he said they counted.  Hahaha.

I have yet to do anything cool that I couldn't do until I was 18.  The only thing I really wanted to do was go skydiving, but after my dad got the bill for my MRI he said we'd have to wait until the spring.  It's okay, I'm sure it'll be worth it!

And one more thing.  My brother stole all the candles!!  I was smiling so my mom could take a picture and he just up and blew them all out.  All but one, actually.  So I used my one wish to wish that none of his seventeen wishes came true.  Ha!

Thursday, November 22, 2012

I'm Still Kickin'....Flutter Kickin'

So I've been on the swim team for a few weeks now and I haven't drowned yet.  I guess that's a plus!  We have our first meet (actually it's a scrimmage) next weekend, which is kind of exciting, kind of scary, and I've really been enjoying myself so far.  Here's a run down of what's been going down...

My coaches like me!  They say I have a lot of potential.  One of the coaches was the coach of the community swim team I was on when I was a kid.  I didn't think he remembered me, but he does.  He was making fun of me the other day, saying I never should have quit swimming to dance (we're talking like fourth grade here...it's been a while since I've swam) because dancing is terrible and it broke me.  Which is true I guess, but I still don't care.  Anyway I've had a lot of great compliments so far.  The whole team tells me I swim like a dancer, which means that my strokes are pretty.  I don't know if that will help me in a race but it's nice to hear none-the-less.  One of the team managers asked me yesterday if there was any stroke I couldn't do...so I guess that means I look good doing all four?  Also, both of my coaches said that I have a great wave ahead of me when I'm swimming butterfly...I'm not really sure what that means but they say it's a good thing.  I hate butterfly.

I can't do flip turns at all.  I'm not even supposed to be doing them because of my feet, but I tried for the first time the other day and I failed miserably.  I'll keep at it though, because I want to be able to do them at the meet. Also, every time I dive in my goggles fill up with water.  I need to figure out a way to fix that.

Speaking of the meet!  I picked my events the other day!  Actually, I made the coach do it because I still have no idea which stroke and what distance I'm good at.  My coach told my I'm good at every stroke.  So I asked her which one I'm best at and she said freestyle, back and breast.  Thanks for narrowing that one down, ahah.  I didn't know which distance either.  Finally she told me I should do the 100 back and 100 breast.  So that's what I'm doing.  We'll see how it goes....yikes!

Bye Bye YouTube...For Now

So I delete my YouTube channel.  Mostly due to a moment of extreme frustration.  Here's what happened:

I created the channel years ago, before Google accounts became a thing.  And then when I made this blog I tried to make it with a Google account, but that messed up my YouTube account.  So I made this blog on a regular email account.  Then my family changed our internet provider which deactivated our email accounts, so we all made gmail accounts...which then became attached to entire Google profiles.  So now the count is up to one email for YouTube, one email for blogger and one gmail/Google account.

Next step.  To try to connect all three.  Apparently it is impossible to link a YouTube account made without a connection to Google to a new Google account.  Same goes for blogger.  THEN I made an AOL account for a project in my economics class just a few days ago.  My AOL account not only provided a new email (which I use just for internet things and not for emails to actual people) which attached itself to a new Google profile.  Care to count that up again?  Four email addresses and two Google profiles.  So what was happening was whenever I was signed into YouTube on my acrobaticallyapt account, I couldn't sign into blogger or check my email because it would sign me into YouTube from the Google accounts that my other emails were attached to.  AHHH.

Are you still with me?  So anyhow.  I decided to delete my acrobaticallyapt YouTube account and everything but my gmail and AOL accounts.  I now have blogger hooked up with AOL and my email and new YouTube account hooked up to gmail.  Each has a Google account of it's own and if I can find a way to connect both emails to the same Google account you can betcha I'll be doing that.  It's still a little frustrating because if I'm on blogger I can't access my YouTube or email and vice-versa.   

As for the videos, I haven't decided yet if I'll be re-uploading them.  My channel didn't have a lot of subscribers or views or comments so I don't think anyone will miss me.  And I haven't decided yet if I'm going to make new videos to put up on the new account.  There won't be any dance videos in the near future because..uh..I have two broken feet.  But whatever happens, I'll keep ya posted.

By the way, the new YouTube account is named misssmarykate.
You can find it here:  misssmarykate
Don't get your hopes up though...there's nothing to watch yet.

****UPDATE*****
About 20 minutes after I posted this originally and said there would be no videos soon...I added some videos.  Sometimes I accidentally lie #sorrynotsorry