Before I get to the subject at hand, I've to babble on about the few days prior to the aforementioned incident, so bear with me.
Friday night was what's subtly known as BOB round these parts. Basically just another opportunity for pictueresque "weheartit.com" type photos (think teenagers, beaches, city scapes, campfires and you're on the right track). I lost my flip flops and had my body invaded by sand during a particularly rough battle of the irish between meself and Aine.
Saturday was scuba diving 10-4 so after a Skype chat with the lawds from ventures who were willing to stay up until almost 3 because they've nothing better to do back at home without me, it was off to the pool. Which was 5 metres away from where I was sitting but sher. After sorting out our weights and buoyancy control devices (that's BCDs if you're in the know) and tanks and fins and masks and snorkels and the like, we quite literally were thrown in the deep end. I only nearly drowned once when Khet's alternative air source decided to go arseways and spit water into my mouth instead. Other than that I was equalising and okay-ing and ascending and neutral buoyanc-ing like a pro.
Tar eis diving I did a bitta homework, and then chilled hung out in the Block 4 dayroom (that's where the party's always at) with Olivia and Jason and Madi and Laura and all the other block 4 dayroom regulars. I made the most delicious banana custard divinity of a dessert of a yoke the world has ever experienced with Olivia. As per usual my improv skills as a chef came in handy when I discovered that I had no milk or sugar. Never fear! I sacrificed the sugar packets I had stolen from Starbucks the week before and smuggled some milk from the canteen under cover of eh, well, grab and run. The custard was mega thick, a bit weird coloured because I'd had to use brown sugar but all aesthetic properties aside it was NOM. We also shared this yellow delight with others so as to improve cultural understanding. A few of us headed off campus to our local potential asbo central and listened to some chooooooons (from my iPod ofc, like dur).
Sunday was inter block swimming competition YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. Block two (woop woop) but because block three are woeful losers they demanded a rematch (they came second again - waaaaaaaaaaay). This was followed by the bellyflop competition. I was block 2's representative. Leila and I couldn't get enough - PAIN IS TEMPORARY, GLORY IS ETERNAL, innit. The rest of Sunday was spent studying physics and we also had a rehearsal for our top secret play. At 7 Jose gave a Voice talk (like a 20 minute presentation) on bullfighting then after that we had a meeting for cafe followed by a talk from Arnett (an priomhaide).
Monday and school and the likes and had a physics test first class and general school-y type things, had a free block which was nice and then the usual business of Monday post 2:30. We had a session on sleep, so learning how to manage time and setting up roomie agreements and talking about the importance of sleep etc. In the words of J Kwok; "I thought we were coming to live in a city that never sleeps, but really it's just a city that stays up to do math homework!" After that we had coral monitoring service planning, where we basically just discussed what we were gonna get up to on the open water dive at the weekend, and talked about project week, which is where we go to the phillipines or malaysia to go diving for a week. As ya do like. I'm fairly excited. Ar a 5 a chlog we had china week planning. My group is heading to Fuzhou, to paint walls in a children's home. We're going at the end of November and it is gonna be epic. Like srsly, srsly epic. We're going with Ming, me maths teacher and he's fairly funny - our homework was to watch a youtube video on how to paint a wall. After that (see how non stop this is?!) I had dinner (meh) then rushed off to the art room to make posters for cafe, the talent show organising group that I'm part of. However we couldn't get any paper so I DMC-ed as gaeilge le Aine until 7.30 when I had photography! This was graaaand, we'd all had to send in our photos for the "Faces Of LPC" theme, then during the session we critiqued each one without knowing whose was whose then voted for the best. THEN we had check in, to make sure we haven't run away and THEN I had lion dance fitness. Gonna be built like an absolute tank, I'm tellin ya.
Tuesday eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhh literally have no recollection. Dinner was bad though. In this case it’s usually a toasted sandwich type job but on this occasion it was too much to bear so I grabbed me din dins in Wu Kai Sha with Mia and Dilene instead.
Wednesday was the day when I have my first three classes off so that was just divine. I didn’t sleep in though, I had one of me early skype calls, put a wash on, did a bit of homework and study and wrote a couple of letters. Then chemistry and geography followed by a trip to the post office to send aforementioned letters – 3 of em! Aaand then I had another rehearsal for me play in the spiritual room follwed by dance practice organized by Quentin for our performance in café tonight. It’s gonna be fair mental, there are about 25 of us singing in broken French and throwing shapes.
After practice there was a bitta homework to be done and then tutor dinner! So I dunno if I’ve explained tutor groups before but to reiterate it’s a group of about 10 students assigned to a teacher who you can go to in an emergency or if something’s wrong at school etc etc. Kind of like the closest thing to a parent. Every other Wednesday or so (it depends on the tutor) we get together for dinner in our tutor groups, so this week the second years cooked for the firsties. They were an hour late with the food and myself and Shani were desperate enough to run to the canteen and steal some ice-cream beforehand (but don’t tell em that). S’yeah dinner was mega nice, we had meatloaf but halfway through I noticed a rash on my arm, as if I’d been bitten by a mosquito in the same place 15 times. It started to spread and go tobann it was all over my arms. I very casually inquired as to what time the nurse opened at the following morning and Wendy (me tutor) was like *mega suspicious* “….why?” and BAM the rash was revealed and upon further inspection it was all over my arms, back, belly, legs, shnaking up me neck. Wendy was having none of this I’ll sleep on it and get thhe nurse in the morning business so we got a taxi to Sha Tin hospital. After about an hour, I got in to see the doctor. His diagnosis went something like this:
Dr: “So what wrong with you?”
Me: (surprised he hadn’t noticed how unbelievably puffy and red and swollen and itchy I was) “Um. I’ve a rash”
Dr: “Have you eat seafood today, or weird food, or been to strange place you haven’t been before?”
Me: “Um. No.”
Dr: “50% say no! You have urticaria! We inject! And tablets! No need for cream, cream not help!”
So I was ushered into another room where a nurse was gonna inject me so I offered my arm as ya do like and she just pointed to my bum. Oh the mortification but sure I dropped the pants and looked at the curtain. “This make very drowsy ok?” Okay grand, sure I had 6 injections before coming here how bad could this AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
(Hannah blacks out, strangely enough with Band Of Horses’ “Great Salt Lake” playing in my head – for the record, balcking out is epic, it’s like a surge of relaxation and tiredness and nothing)
And next thing I know I’m lying in a bed, and in such a cinematographic way as I open my eyes there are 8 doctors and nurses staring down at me, plugging me into things and shining torches in my eyes, and checking my head for bumps. The only thing I could think of was that somehow between me thumping to the ground and waking up in bed, my trousers had been pulled up and they’d lifted my monstrous western carcass onto this bed. That was so hideously embarrassing as to leave me laughing like ya wouldn’t believe. The doctor’s diagnosis this time was “Sometimes, body can’t deal with pain, so body shuts down”. Sound.
So after leaving me to rest for what seemed like a century (I was so bored I started playing games with the heart rate monitor by seeing how fast and slow I could go just from lying down – my records were 87 and 45) they finally let me get up and go out to Wendy, who by this stage was as traumatized as the poor nurse who administered that injection. Her side of the story was that I’d gone in to get the routine injection, then mega THUD, then screaming Chinese nurse yelling DOCTOR DOCTOR HELP, then kerfuffle, then hysteric laughter on my behalf about a minute later. She told me some more horror stories about previous tutee’s injuries before we picked up my drowsy-making medicine and got the taxi home, where poor Rahael was convinced that she’d poisoned me with her meatloaf. Me, being me, decided to go along with it and make her feel mega guilty. Muahahaha. I went to find Aine to tell her that I was still alive and that she still had a first year before conking out in bed.
Thursday everything was so impossible to handle because of my drowsy tablets. I could barely keep my eyes open and for my free block I conked out in the common room with Olivia, Ilhelm, Paolina and Guillermo. Naps are commonplace round here! That night I went to the global issues forum on data collection, like how google knows everything about you which was fairly interesting before heading back for some study for mandarin and geo. Gotta love tests!
Friday I had all 5 classes then I sent another letter and (!) received one! Euphoric so I was. I went for a swim which was lurvely cause the sun had come out after a few days of rain, made cookies with Liz, went to music night in block 5 (that’s what we call the principal’s house cause it’s so big it could be its own residential block) whereby I was entertained for the price of feeling as talented as a teaspoon. Friday night I got started on me blog then hung out with Dilene (or Dilaynay if you’re james) on the block 3 roof with candles and music and yoga mats and bourbon creams and dried mango and grapes and crisps (which were all gone by the time Oda and Mia joined us). It started raining so we headed to the academic block and found a deserted sheltered place where myself and Mia stayed until 2am. Not because we had anything deep to share o course, but because we couldn’t be arsed to get up.
Terday I was supposed to go diving for the day but because of the visibility it was called off, so instead I went to lion dance in the morning and am just lazing about until café at 7:30 followed by canteen party (think uncensored pre-teen disco and you’re on the right track).
Talk chis next week, ta ta for now, Hannah x
