Weekends for English teachers in Taiwan begin on Friday night, since we get off after 9:30, it's a late start, but the mindset begins somewhere around 5:50 for me when I see those sweet little A11 children rushing towards the door. (I'm certain I'm happier to see them go than they are to be able to go, but by the looks of their struggle to get out, you couldn't tell who was happier.) That's not my last class, since I still have A7 at 6:05 and then I have a one-on-one with a teenager at 7:45, but suffice to say the last two classes of the week are giddy with anticipation that it will all be over soon. (Actually, I really like A7, for many reasons, not least of which includes a little 5 year old named Cosmo, who is very articulate and takes great joy in loaning me his cool pen every time we have class. I DO like the pen...but I give it back at the end of each session.)
So, on Friday night last week, I left school very happy but then had to do a not so happy thing. I had to pay a visit to a friend in the hospital. Mari was in a scooter accident on Thursday night (Thanksgiving night) when a car decided at the last minute to turn right and she was heading straight at a light. Her left leg got pinned between the scooter and the car and the leg didn't fare very well. She broke it in two places below the knee, thus beginning another educational opportunity for us all regarding how things are done when something like this happens. Long story short, when I saw her late on Friday night, she had gone through surgery that morning to set the leg, was in a lot of pain but also feeling very woozy from all the medication. She had been given a private nurse, paid for by the driver of the car that hit her, and this nurse was like an angel, so Mari was in very good hands. One week later, she is still in the hospital. She will stay a total of 9 days, then be released to come stay at our house since we have an elevator and her house has stairs. She will be on crutches for 3 months but will be o.k. and in fact began to look much better the day after surgery, so we were all very relieved. Here is a picture of her in the hospital last Sunday evening with my roommate, Annaloe and another friend, Trix.
That's how my weekend began...so it was all downhill from there (I always get confused about that saying...I think you say it's downhill because it is getting easier after something that's difficult, but then sometimes, I wonder if it's downhill because it's all going toward the gutter! Can someone help me out on the proper way to say that?)
O.K., more later,
LC
2 comments:
Wow. You just made me question an expression I've no doubt been misappropriating all these years. I HAVE NO IDEA what it means now. Thank you, Teacher Larissa.
Also--how loosey goosey ARE they with those painkillers, and can one hypothetically nab some from an invalid friend and mail them to another? Hypothetically.
I've always used downhill from there as a negative; it got worse. Maybe that's not right?
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