School starts tomorrow!

It's 8:15. I woke up at 7. I should still be sleeping peacefully... waking up at 10 or 11... haha... WAKE UP! BACK TO THE REAL WORLD! Ugh... I don't like the real world.

I've been going to bed earlier at night, which has helped. I've been in bed between 10 and 11 the last few nights, because I need my mom's help to get the heating pad on my feet and to get covered up.

The past two days I've woken up at 7 when my mom comes to bring me water. It is essential after surgery to keep hydrated, and I am SO thirsty by about 3 am because I haven't had any water for hours. I set my alarm for 7:30, but it didn't go off this morning. That's not good--I'll have to set my phone alarm as well since my iPod alarm didn't work today.

Tomorrow I have to get up at 5 am. I have to leave here by 6:45. NOT looking forward to that. I have class from 8-10, lunch plans at 12, meeting at 2:30, pictures at 2:50, and seminar from 3-5. Then I have to drive home. Wow.

Yesterday we finally got the Lyrica (pain medicine). We had to fight the insurance company, but my mom finally was able to get somewhere and get some. Here's the problem. The prescription says "take 3 times a day for pain". Great. So a one month's supply... 30 days x 3 times a day = 90 pills. Not so hard... except they only gave me 42 pills! Um... what? That's not even a 15 day supply! UGH! I think my mom is going to wait until my doctor is back on Monday to deal with it... I know it sounds like I'm complaining... it IS frustrating. But, I am thankful we got what we did so I can at least get some relief. The medicine helps for a couple of hours. I took it yesterday at noon and it helped for about 4 hours... then the pain started coming back. So at least I can get some relief... but I do have to pick and choose when I want the relief, since it doesn't help for a full 6 hours.

I won't get the other results until my doctor comes back next week. He's testing for rheumatoid arthritis and some other things. I am praying that I don't have RA or something else... because that's an autoimmune disease.. and your body is basically attacking itself. I DON'T want to have to deal with that. I do, however, want to know what is causing this and how it can be fixed. So we'll see what the results say.

Yesterday I went to meet my cooperating teacher, Mrs. McMacken. She is SO wonderful. She's nice, and we seem to have a lot of the same teaching styles. She seems like a woman who will be encouraging and helpful, especially in the tough times! I am so looking forward to working with her this semester. The class is awesome too. There are 19 students, and not a single one leaves the classroom for speech or special education. That's rare. In the last classroom I was in, there were always kids coming or going. It's a bit hard to keep track of everything when they are always walking out of the room! So these 19 kids are in the classroom all day! Perfect! She said there are two kids that like to act out a bit, but in general, the kids are very well behaved. Sounds great to me!

As I woke up this morning, I realized something awful. This summer, I was filling out my financial aid packet things. I accepted all the help for fall. I circled "d" (decline) for everything for spring and wrote that I would be graduating in December.

Oops. That didn't happen... and now I have absolutely no financial aid! That's not good at all! I e-mailed Melinda (the woman I've been working with since I went to DSU) and explained. I asked if there's any way I could get some financial aid still.

She said that this is the busiest time for them (of course--they are getting the aid to students and dealing with getting payments and such), but she would work on it. So, it sounds like she can work it out--but it may take awhile. That's fine with me... as long as I get it sometime. I do need to pay my bills!

Today is my last day of 'freedom'. I have quite a bit I want to do today.

* switch dressers with my mom
* fill out my forms for student teaching (that I turn in tomorrow)
* pack my bookbag with all my paperwork
* decide what to wear tomorrow (we take our student teaching pictures tomorrow and must dress up)
* charge my camera
* tidy up my room
* finish the book I started this morning (308 pages to go)
* get to bed early!!! =)

We'll see if I can get it all done!

I think I'll be going to Sioux Falls this weekend to get clothes. I'm excited for that. ALL my pants are too big... though I can still wear 3 pair. They are huge on my legs, and I am stepping on the bottoms of them. I definitely need some new clothes. I just hope I can make it there and get the pain to stop long enough to go shopping.

I'm going to get something to drink and sit down and read my book! :) Things are going pretty well, and I will probably be updating again soon. School starts tomorrow--pray for strength to get through tomorrow! I'm a bit worried about how I will do 13 or more hours (plus homework... and including 2 hours of driving) without anything to help me stay awake!