Aubrey

I finally created my own blog.  Not because I’m amazingly cool, but just because I want to be cool.  You don’t have to read it, but sometimes I do have strokes of genius.  I wish I new how to link it to the family website.  Maybe some techno-savy brother could do that… (hint, hint).  Here’s the website: aubsadventures.blogspot.com

You know, doctors rarely tell you the full truth, especially with elective surgeries.  If you’re considering PRK, consider this:

-When they say you’ll be able to drive after 5 days, they don’t mean drive comfortably.  They really mean, your brain will remember how to drive, but the lights will be so bright that it makes it quite difficult.

-When they say it will take 3-4 weeks to heal, they really mean 4 weeks.  To the day.  The last day will be killer and you’ll be thinking the $3000 you spent was a waste.  However, the next day, glorious bliss!

-Buy the coolest pair of sunglasses with the darkest lenses.  You’ll be wearing them A LOT.  So much that your students may ask to borrow them so they can be you for Halloween.  Or, when you finally recover enough to not wear them, don’t be surprised if a 1st grader exclaims, “Wow!  I thought your eyes were only white behind your glasses!”

-However, hindsight may have been 20/20, but current vision is 20/15.  Not too shabby…

“I can see clearly now the cornea’s altered

No glasses or contacts in my way….”

This morning I had my PRK surgery.  Yipee!  Danny was a great friend and took me to the appointment.  They did one last scan on my eye to determine how much to shave off my cornea.  Then they gave me a valium.  That was cool.  I just kind of sat there.  Danny looked at me and said I looked drunk.  I admit, I felt pretty good.  My heart wasn’t pounding anymore.  :) They took me back, put a hair cap on my hair and laid me down on a chair.  I even got a teddy bear to squeeze.  They taped one of my eyes shut, put some numbing drops in and propped my eye open.  They put some drops into my eyes to take off the epithelium (or the top layer of your eye).  Because my prescription is so high, my corneas aren’t thick enough to do LASIK surgery (where they cut a flap).  In PRK they take off the epithelium by putting drops in to loosen it from my eye and then they squeegee it off (that hurt A LOT).  Then they asked me to stare at a light and the laser started popping, reshaping my cornea.  They placed a bandage contact lens over my eye (it will come off in a few days).  Then they uncovered my other eye and did the same think there.  It took about 15 minutes.  The doctor walked me out  to the waiting room and I told Danny I was done.  I was there for 1 1/2 hours, most of which was spent waiting for the valium to kick in while sitting in the waiting room.  It really wasn’t painful, yet.

We got in the car and drove to Harmon’s to get some prescriptions filled (why I couldn’t get these prescriptions done beforehand I would like to know).  By this time, my eyes were burning and I was crying so hard from the pain.  Luckily, Danny led me around the grocery store as we waited for the prescription and we got some food.  I had on sunglasses and I’m sure I looked really bad.

$80 later, I had the prescriptions and we were headed home.  I took the meds and the burning stopped and I crawled into bed and slept for awhile.  I’ve been banned from rehearsal tonight, so I’m just chilling at home watching movies and resting my eyes.  Overall, I’m feeling pretty good and see really well.  Unfortunately, as my epithelium grows back, my vision will get blurrier over the next few days.  Supposedly by Monday I’ll be okay and be able to drive.

Anyway, thanks for your prayers and texts.  Just thought I’d let you know how I’m doing.  Hopefully I’ll heal quickly so that I can go back to school on Monday.

You may be asking, “Aubrey, why are you up so late (3:15 am)?”  Good question.  Well, as is tradition, I went to the midnight showing of  Harry Potter with a few friends.  Midnight showings are loads of fun, though I could do without all the teenagers that make a lot of noise during the previews.  The teacher in me just wants to scream at them.  Don’t worry, I controlled myself.  Midnight showings are also nice because it’s a good way to rate a movie.  Is it interesting enough to keep you awake until 3 am?  Last year I saw Dark Knight and Wall-E.  Here’s a hint, a movie without a lot of dialog is a BAD movie to see at midnight…

Now I’m just waiting for a text to hear that friends made it home safely.  In the meantime, I thought I would put out my two cents.  One friend said that she was confused and thought the movie was disjointed (yes, she’s read the books).  My other friend thought it was really good and pulled the necessary points out of the book in order to prepare for the final movie.  My opinion–it was wonderful.  The actress that played Lavender Brown-brilliant!  They did add a part that was odd (with so much to choose from, they use cut or alter, not add).  Overall, the story was built for the next movie rather well (yes, I used “rather”, mostly because I’ve been listening to British actors for the past 2 1/2 hours).  There are a few tense, scary parts (which if you’ve read the book, you’ll know when they’ll happen, but will still make you jump), but it was just delightful!  Yes, it did keep me awake (though I did employ the use of popcorn and candy to help).

Because I will be leaving my job soon, I will need to relinquish my laptop because the school owns it.  The plan is to buy an Apple laptop of my own in the next few months, however my budget is preventing me from doing such presently.  So, in your opinion, what’s the best way to pull information off my laptop and store it, ready to dump onto my new computer when I get it?  When I got this laptop in November, I used a memory stick to SLOWLY dump everything across.  I ended up losing some pictures and music in the process.  I have a lot of music (5 GB) and pictures (7 GB) along with some files.  I don’t really want to spend the money on an external hard drive as I don’t have that much data, however, I want to make sure the information will dump across successfully to my new computer.  Will DVDs be sufficient?  Oh great computer geeks, what is your wisdom?

Since I missed the last conference call (although it didn’t sound like I was the only one), I thought I would give you all an update on my life.  

The school year is almost over and we’ll end it with a bang, including a Shakespeare performance, Renaissance Faire and Castle building.  We just held the 6th grade dance and the kids were so cute!  They did such a good job.  I’ve started in on my next show.  I am in “Once Upon a Mattress”, which I’ve done before (I played the Nightingale and Ensemble).  This time I’ve moved on up to the role of the Queen.  It’s the story of Princess and the Pea, but it’s a fractured fairy tale where I (the Queen) am trying to sabotage the princesses passing of the “test” so that my son never marries.  I’m a bit young for the part, but the director saw me in Big Bad Musical and figured if I could play an old judge, I could play a middle aged queen.  It’s quite a fun role and I’ve had a blast ad-libbing thus far (always a perk to having a part with lines).  I perform for the month of August if any one plans to stop by!  :)

Thank you for all of your prayers over the last few weeks.  Jordan School District has not relented on giving pay increases to teachers improving their education.  However, I have been offered, and have accepted a job in the Salt Lake District.  It’s not where I thought I would teach, it’s not even close, actually, but I think it will be good.  

Next year I will be teaching 5th grade at Edison Elementary, which is a Title One school that scores in the 50th percentile on their end of year tests (compare that to Jordan Ridge which scores in the 80th-90th percentile).  The majority of the students are Hispanic and very few of them speak English as a first language.  So, why would I want to teach here, even if it pays better?   Honestly, I don’t know, but it feels right (plus a little nerve-wracking!).  I excited to have a new challenge and to teach a new curriculum.  I really think this change will help me become a better teacher.  We shall see.

Thanks again for your prayers.  Since you did so well with that assignment, can you pray I get a date with a cute, worthy guy with some ambition/goals in life (beyond living at home)?  Seriously.  I could use it…

I just read this study online about the influence of mothers on the social skills of their kids.  I so see that in 6th grade.  Whoever the primary caregiver is of the child really affects the social skills of the child.  Interesting reading…

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/15/mother.children.social.skills/index.html

It’s true.  I’m about to graduate.  I would like to toot my own horn since no one else is around to do just that.  In the past two years I have:

-Taught full time

-Put on two school musicals (including choreographing, music directing, directing, props, scenery and costumes)

-Directed the school choir

-Went to graduate school (full time, which evidently is unusual)

-Had lead roles in 3 productions and 1 supporting role in another and attended the necessary rehearsals and performances (and was quite adorable, I must say!)

-AND GOT STRAIGHT A’s in my master classes!  Yup, 4.0 is what I’ll be graduating with next week. (of course, that’s assuming I get at least 50% on my final that I take this weekend).  Graduating is a loose term as I will not actually be walking as I will be opening our show that night.  However, my cast has promised me a graduation ceremony that night…

Rock on.  Toot!  Toot!

Maybe it is a sign of the times, but I bought a half gallon of milk today for $.75.  That’s right, a quarter less than a dollar.  I haven’t bought milk for two months, so I haven’t noticed the price decline, so I was very surprised.  When did this happen?  I can buy groceries for less than a dollar?!?!  Maybe Wal-Mart should consider making a dollar menu for grocery shopping…