Blood, Sweat & Music

This glandular fever thing is really kicking my butt- have I mentioned that I have glandular fever? I'm not sure. But a couple of weeks ago, after my tonsillitis-turned-strep-throat-infection wasn't getting any better even after a dose of antibiotics, my doctor suggested I get a blood test just to check.

So off I want to the pathology lab- the very same day (that is a big thing for me, usually I put it off because I hate needles so much, and I need to give myself time to get used to the idea, and then get enough guts to actually go).

Two days later, the results were in- a definite streptococcus infection (which had already been confirmed with a nasty throat swab of my tonsils) but also- the big G F (or as my Med School friend Elise calls it, "The Glange"). Bummer.

Even worse is that there is nothing that you can really do to treat glandular fever, just rest and fluids. And with a new semester of university upon me, r-e-s-t seems a bit unlikely.

I feel fine, the main symptom I have is this utter exhaustion I feel at the end of the day- so bad that I haven't even made it to dancing once in the past two weeks. The thought of a 2 hour dance class that lasts until 9pm just makes me want to curl up in a ball and squeeze my eyes shut tight.

However, as I am no rest upon my laurels kind of girl, I have taken up a new, less exhaustive hobby. My friend Keisha has been teaching herself to play the piano for a while now, and I've decided to do it too!

I bought a keyboard off eBay for $50, completely spontaneously on Saturday, picked it up on Sunday and now it is Monday and I am teaching myself (with the help of some YouTube videos). I took piano lessons for a year when I was 14, so I'm hoping I get lucky and it all comes back to me... or it could be a total fail and I remember nothing at all. 8 years is a long time. (Yikes, has it really been 8 years already? Oh yeah, I'm 22 years old! When did that happen?!)

Since I've been getting violin lessons for a year and a half now, I'm pretty confident with reading music so that should help too. Fingers crossed. I have headphones that plug into the keyboard so if I'm really bad, at least no one will ever be able to hear me. If only I could plug headphones into my violin... I sometimes get really subconscious about playing, because there is no way to quietly play the violin, so everyone can always hear you, good day or not so good day.

Anyway, here I am, printing off sheet music and figuring out what those really low notes are- because they certainly never feature in violin sheet music! It's been a long time since I've seen notes that low! Violin stops at G, and even though it is quite a deep and low note, it's got nothing on some of the notes featured in the sheet music I've downloaded! No wonder they say learning piano is good for stimulating your brain- there's so much to work out!

Here's hoping my brain can take it, what with starting a new semester of classes and all!