We have been visiting friends for lunch on the early weekends of this month, which has been fun. One of my colleagues from NMIT and his wife came out to get firewood a while ago, and invited us for lunch in return.We had a great lunch at Shaw & Suz's place: I laughed so much, my face hurt. They are both so funny and have such great stories.
We also went to a Quiz night fundraiser for the Waimea Old Boys, with a load of our neighbours. We had a really fun night, and came in at around the middle of the pack - without any smart phone cheating.
We also had a good time up at Lake Rotoiti as well, having lunch with Robbie & Janet. We took homemade bread and pumpkin soup, so supplied lunch for everyone. We also had a good walk around the peninsular - and it was AMAZING how much frost there was still on the ground at lunchtime. The eels were right up by the boat ramp, looking for hand-outs, and there was an amazing duck - some kind of Chinese migrant - which had joined the resident mallards on the lake.
Marking, planning, marking, planning, marking, planning: that seems to be pretty much all that I did this month... aside from eating and sleeping. I had to mark flat out, plan all my work, assessments, build my Moodle sites, and do three course calendars for semester two this month as I had surgery on 23 June... and I needed six weeks of 'no work' space in order to recover.
Jan went up to Lake Rotoiti to spectate Gary and Karen, Max, and Tracey did the round-the-lake run (I was flat out on my pre-surgery run-up so stayed home and marked):
The surgery was to shorten my left ulna. For some reason my ulnas are too long, so when I damaged my left wrist two and a half years ago, it has not been able to heal due to the torsion put on it by the very length of the bone itself. Now it is 5mm shorter, with a 15cm plate, a bone graft and 7 screws, and should heal without problems.
My right ulna is not as long as the left was, so probably may never need to be done, but I will be watching out for something similar, and flagging it much earlier.
I have a wrist splint that will help it heal, but basically I just need to ensure that I don't lift, twist or load it until the bone heals over the coming 6 weeks.
Oh, and I can't drive again either, until I get sign-off from the surgeon. I can use my arm a little, but not allowed to lift anything heavier than a cup in my left hand.
All I can say is thank goodness for Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It is voice recognition software that means I can 'talk it in'... so I have 'written' loads of blog posts while I have been recovering at home. I have also been reading and listening to books (mostly murder mysteries).
This has been a truly awful semester. Our school manager is off on leave for a month, and there has been lots of other employee assistance programmes put in place. We have been flagging for ages, but the organisation was fairly slow in responding... but they have responded now, which is good. I am getting a teaching assistant for next semester (which I have also had to factor into my planning for Sem 2). At least for the three weeks of next month I only need worry about myself. I start teaching in that third week, but should be fine by then, as teaching is 'light duties'.
I also created a memorial movie about my Uncle Eddie for my Aunt Diana. It was so good to finally get the time to tinker, even if I was one hand shy!
Hui-Ping came to visit, with Mae. It was lovely to see them, and great that they could drive out and see us. She got cheap flights down to Nelson, and was staying with Bill and Cornish. We made chocolate chip biscuits to welcome her.
We have finally arranged to have our road upgraded, with Malcolm McDonald. We are going to get it done in two stages. The first stage will cost about 10 grand... ouch.
Ah well, it has to be done.
More next month :-)
Sam (& Jan)
