Amy and Monica Take Thailand: Pre-Departure

My initial disclaimer is that this is late already.

     Way back in the month of July, Monica called me up and invited me on an adventure. She called to say that she decided she wanted to teach English in Thailand ... and I should go with her. Obviously, I said yes.

     This decision led to many back and forth conversations with various companies in Thailand. Trying to find the right fit, until Monica brought up taking a TESOL course and the benefits involved with the investment.

     Eventually we landed on XploreAsia and that led to everything we needed to do for travelling to Thailand getting clumped together about 3 weeks before departure. These things included:
  - Booking the flight to Thailand
  - Visa applications, specifically a Non-Immigrant B (if possible)
  - Police clearance form
  - Doctor visits (to hear of the horrible diseases that come from Thailand: Japan Encephalitis, Schistotomaisis, RABIES ... those are the scary ones)
  - Packing up our lives into suitcases

     Our departure date was set: Friday, November 1st. Somehow we managed to gather up everything we needed in the time allotted. Monica and I had been in contact on and off (and on as the date drew closer) determining what the other was bringing, what we should bring, what to leave behind, and how big of a suitcase the other was taking. By the time that last week in October rolled around, we were as ready to go as we could be.

     Then the fateful day arrived. Monica was already in Huntington Beach staying with a family friend, I was driving up to LAX with my parents that morning. My parents and I stopped for breakfast along the way, and as we're preparing to pile back into the car, I get a call from Monica, "So I just heard this from Drew's sister, there's been a shooting at the airport."
     I tell my parents and as we try to figure out what to do, Monica says they've closed the roads and evacuated the airport. My parents don't want to turn back, we're already half way there. So we start heading up to Huntington Beach to meet up with Monica. On the drive we're listening to the news and trying to get any information about the airport. All we learn is that there's been a shooting, the shooter was believed dead, and the news people--in an attempt to tell news while waiting on a developing story--call other airports to see if this affects their flights. The main answer being "not really."
     We make it to Huntington Beach, find out where Monica's staying and move to the shopping center closest to her. We make a stop in a Starbucks to use their wifi and try to find out more information. I tweet at my airline because LAX officials mentioned how following their twitter account would give the most up-to-date information and I hoped the same would be for my airline. No luck. After looking online and seeing all signs pointing to "yes" that my flight is leaving ON TIME at 3:15 PM from LAX International, my mom makes the executive decision to drive closer and be by the airport. Maybe by the time we get there it will have opened up.
     We drive all the way up to the airport and at the exit for the 1 to drive into the airport, there is a police blockade. My mom maneuvers with hopes of finding a back entrance, since all we need to do is get to the International terminal and no news station has cared to mention it during their entire news broadcast. What appeared to be a hopeful back entrance on first glance, turned out to be a staff entrance and gets us nowhere. We resign and park at a nearby shopping center to wait it out.
     My hunger takes over and I request some real food rather than coffee shop food. This lovely little pizza place has 7 tvs on and all are turned to the news station and we sit there and eat our food and watch the news like hawks. Even after we've finished the restaurant lets us stay and keep our eye on the news while we wait.
     At 4 PM there is a press conference with the mayor. On the news scroll on the bottom, it said the road blocks have opened up. At this time, my flight still says that it is leaving ON TIME at 3:15 PM from LAX International. Which technically could mean it hasn't left yet, so we head back for LAX...
     ...And quickly learn that the removal of roadblocks is a lie. We drive around some more, and get ourselves caught in some awful traffic that barely moves. At 4:45 PM I get a notification from Google and (finally!) a tweet from my airline saying that my flight has been DELAYED 2 HOURS and will depart at 5:15 PM from LAX International. I call Singapore Airlines and bombard them with questions: how am I expected to get on this flight, I'm sitting in traffic outside the airport? Is it really leaving at 5:15? How can this plane leave without all these passengers? The woman on the other line says there is the possibility of a little longer delay, but if I think that I won't be able to catch the flight, I can always rebook for tomorrow or later. I tell her that I can't make the decision because I'm not with my partner who's going on this flight with me, so I'll call back.
     I call Monica and tell her the situation. We're sitting in a neighborhood outside the airport and there is a bunch of traffic. There's no way we'll get to the airport at 5:15 in time for this supposed flight departure. I didn't want to rebook our flight in case we wanted to wait it out, but I left it in her hands to rebook and change it as necessary. My parents and I drive back to a coffee shop and wait to hear from Monica.
 
     Monica calls me back about an hour later. She just got off the phone with Singapore Airlines. The soonest they can fly us out of LAX is Monday and we'd get to Thailand by Wednesday. So her and her mom are looking for other companies to book with but we have that flight booked as a back up. We come to the decision that we should still try to get in to the airport since we still have no idea as to what our initial flight is and what's going on there.
     My mom comes up with the idea to park at The Parking Spot and we can ride the shuttle into the airport. We ask for an estimated time to get into LAX, the woman says 45 minutes. It's 6:05 PM. We go for it.
     The shuttle we end up on has the best driver in the world. She's speeding through and blazing her way and driving like she owns this town. And then, like magic, a roadblock opens right in front of us. And that 45 minute shuttle ride turns into a 10 minute one. My parents and I unload my suitcases at the International Terminal and get in there. We find the desk for Singapore Airlines and not a single worker is behind it. The only people behind the counter are doing janitorial work. We start talking with people in line to find out what's going on. My mom talks to the man in front of her who mentions how when he called Singapore Airlines and they said everything was "going off without a hitch" he asked what country that person was located in. They responded, "India." And he said, "So you actually have no idea what's going on here, do you?" "No, sir." "Alright, thank you." *click*
     There is a larger group of people who have obviously bonded and are talking to each other. My mom goes over to eavesdrop and learns the sad, awful truth: the Singapore Airlines flight left around 5:40 PM without boarding a single person from the LAX airport. They even made announcements through the airport for the flight and took off while all these people were waiting because no one came to work the counter and check in their passengers. So the flight took off with a half-full plane and made it's way to Tokyo.
     I called Monica to share the news with her. She was almost (finally) to the airport, and I told her to turn around, it wasn't worth it.

     My parents decide that we're driving back to San Diego. And if we need to get up early in the morning to get back up to LAX for some miracle flight that comes through last minute, we'll just deal with it. My mom didn't want to be in LA one more second, and, they had to feed the dog!
     We drive back to San Diego under the premise that I'm not leaving until Monday. We arrive home around 10:50 PM and the night is perfectly summed up by this picture.

I give up!

How to Properly Break Your Ankle: 2+ Year Reunion

What's up?! (She said to the 7 people who "follow" her blog)

I'm baaaaaaaaaack.

A quick re-cap of all things left unmentioned. I moved from San Diego back to SLO. I returned to school and spent an entire quarter on crutches.

Hills were pretty terrible

There were some perks, like a van that would take me where I wanted to go (almost) whenever I wanted to go. And, if my hair didn't make me stick out enough, being on crutches made me stick out even more. I even got compliments on my awesome triceps.

I also, was able to get people to do things for me. Like my good friend Nick who helped me replace my shower head in the THREE STORY apartment I moved back into. And my other good friend Spencer who took out all of the batteries in the beeping fire alarms for me.

That's Nick.

The best perk, of course, was the handicap parking. At Cal Poly, I could park in a handicap spot, I could park in a meter spot and not pay the meter, AND I could park in staff spots. Whatever spot left me closest to my classrooms, that was where I could be. I had a field day with this perk.

Boooyah.

And then, in May 2011, I had my surgery to "remove hardware" from my ankle. Some of the metal was removed, granted, but because of this one little bone that was still not completely healed, they also just put a shorter screw in place of two longer ones. And left a little bit of a fragment in my ankle that they couldn't remove, so if I ever felt any "pinching sensations" I should call my doctor right away to get it removed.

Now I'm aaaall better .. mostly. I've went back to bouldering at Slo-Op ... occasionally. And I can tell that my left ankle is fatter than my right ankle, and sometimes it pinches while climbing, but all in all, I'm doing great in the ankle department.

That's me!

I even went OUTSIDE ROCK CLIMBING AGAIN! I went with new friends I made at school, and we went to Joshua Tree. I was a pansy. I started to climb a couple different routes and ended up not getting very far. Austin was yelling at me to trust the rope and even made me go back down and swing on the rope with hopes that I would trust it more.

It didn't work.

But still, I climbed/was pulled up a route because Austin wouldn't let me leave without it. And I made it to the top.

Wooo!

The hard part was coming back down, I refused to move for like 20 minutes.

They got a fair number of photos due to my lack of movement.

But I got down! And I did it! I climbed outside and didn't break my ankle! I'm invincible!

Bad-ass.

Besides that accomplishment, there was a whole graduating and getting a degree thing that happened.

No big deal.

And now the question is, what shall be the next reckless thing I do?

How to Properly Break Your Ankle: Days 62 - 65

Perk number 127 about being broken and shopping: electric carts.

Both of my electric cart experiences were when I was with my dad. The first one happened at a Costco. We were just walking in together, minding our own business, when the greeter stops me and says, "Would you like an electric cart today?"
I light up like a little kid looking at presents and say, "Sure!"
I get in and the fun begins.

Weeeeeeeeeeee!

My dad is a big believer in doing things your own way. It always has some joke side of it, but once I got in this cart, he was all for me running down the slow people. To be honest, if I'm going faster than you in an electric cart, you should consider your walking speed.

And the crowd goes WILD.

Then things got really good when I had an entire aisle to myself. I just kind of swerved back and forth, doing my best to enjoy my privileges.

And you thought this couldn't be cool....

A few days later, I went shopping at the mall with my mom. I tried to convince her to push me in one of those firetruck carts meant for little kids, but she wouldn't buy it. Instead we just went to different stores and I searched for shorts so I can stop rolling the left side of my pants up in this fashion.

Do I see the next hipster trend coming along?

One of the stores we were in, Gap, I had tried on a pair of shorts and my boot was off since it's kind of like a big shoe, and I grossed out another mom. It wasn't on purpose of course, she was just standing there awkwardly and I needed to show my mom to get her opinion. The interaction between me and the other mom looked kind of like this:

 *Exposure exaggerated for dramatic effect.

A huge bonus at the mall was that I get priority on the elevator because we're not risking me breaking another ankle on the escalators. Although, when it really mattered to get on the elevator, it was filled with parents and their children. So I rode the elevator "alone" while my mom took the escalator.

But we ended our day correctly, with a nice red velvet cupcake from the cupcake store.

<3

Why There is a Lack of Posting:

I know mostly friends and family read this so you understand the lack of posting about my amazing ankle. But just in case you were wondering, the story goes kind of like this:

Once upon a time, there was a fearless princess who thought she could do anything.

Don't let the dress fool you.

So when the idea of challenging the most ferocious monster building of them all, all she had to say was "Bring it."

Monster: "Oh it's been BRUNG!"

The fight looked promising in the beginning. You could see that the princess had high expectations and believed she could win the fight.

Hehehe. Suckerrrr.

But then, the monster had a wild card it had yet to play. The princess was bombarded with group projects, bi-weekly papers, and chapter readings.

"My leg!!"

The conflict has yet to be resolved, but the good news is that the light at the end of the tunnel is coming. The princess knows she only has to hold out for a few more weeks and then she'll be free.

I will win this fight.

Until then, this is the best I've got.

How to Properly Break Your Ankle: Day 61

Today was a big day. First of all, I was seeing this crazy girl -no really, she's crazy- I've known since 6th grade and we were off to "The Happiest Place on Earth." That's right folks, this is all about Disneyland: Injured Style.

We get to Disneyland and first things first, we trade in my crutches for a wheelchair. It wasn't the best of all wheelchairs but it was a worthwhile investment.

The first attraction we went to we kind of made fools of ourselves. We were having issues with a self-operational lift and no one really cared to help us. But once we got over that hump we went on much cooler rides, like Indiana Jones.

Go figure they let the broken one be the driver.

Then, we went on other rides. First there was Pirates of the Caribbean, then Haunted Mansion.
The coolest thing about the Haunted Mansion was that we got a secret extra ride. When you're in a wheelchair, you get to ride the Doom Buggy through the entire track and get spit out where you load. Then, you go back through the way you came in and up the elevator and out the front entrance.

Super secret back way!

Then we went on more rides, including Thunder Mountain Railroad, It's A Small World, and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Astro Blasters was awesome! I got a really high score.

I rock.

Next, we found our way to Space Mountain and even watch the Captain EO movie. This of course only resulted in my further desire to one day dance as cool as Michael Jackson.

Overall, a Disneyland experience is made exponentially better in a wheelchair because you don't have to wait in long lines and deal with as many people.

There is the dark side of being in a wheelchair at Disneyland though. You would think people would be considerate of the fact that you're in a wheelchair. Mostly because when you compare wheelchairs to strollers, wheelchairs have a lot less protection for the person in them. But overall, I was treated like any other stroller. We were cut off, no one really tried to dodge us, and we almost ran over a few people.

They totally deserved it.

How to Properly Break Your Ankle: Days 57 - 60

After weeks of being deprived of some of the coolest kids I know (Forrest and Savannah), I was finally invited over to their place for a potluck.
The potluck was said to start at six at their place and for once I arrived almost on time. The moment I got there, it all kind of looked like this:

*crickets chirp*

Slowly, people showed up, and once everyone was there it was brought to my attention that everyone knew about me with the following conversation occurring multiple times in slightly different ways.
Person: "So uh, how did you do that?" *points to ankle*
Me: "Oh, I was bouldering with these kids," *points to Forrest and Savannah* "and I fell."
Person: "Oooooooh! You're that friend!"
Me: *laughs* "Yeah, that's me."

Proud moment #57

The potluck ended as any potluck would, people slowly started to trickle out as the night went on. I finally decided to leave when I considered I still had to make a 40 minute drive back home. But I did not leave without attempting a live action crutch shuffle for Ms. Savannah Russell.

Don't try this at home.

A few days later, a friend invited me to check out the Torrey Pines Glider Port with him. Before I had gotten down there, it seemed to have slipped his mind that I was on crutches and he wanted to take this treacherous path down to the beach below. With one look at it I quickly informed him that wasn't happening.

Cliff of DOOM.

He managed to make up for it though because I got to experience my first piggy back ride as an injured person.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Afterwards, we watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. I proceeded to have my mind blown yet again.

Then I spent my Tuesday eagerly anticipating Wednesday.

Disneyland, Disneyland, Disneyland, Disneyland!!

How To Properly Break Your Ankle: Day 56

On this particular day, I was getting a visit from my good friend/old RA Andrew. He came bearing much wisdom -the best being how I should not go to grad school. Unfortunately, life may pan out in a way that grad school is the only option for me.

But enough about the lame stuff! What really matters is how we decided to spend our entire day together.

Amy and Andrew: Professional Adventurers.

Our day started off poorly.

This lasted a good half hour.

I was determined to show Andrew that I am capable of fun things. We started our day with a healthy, huge, breakfast. And then were on our way to the Air and Space Museum.

We played in the space exhibit first. We learned that you can't go in to space if you're broken, no space colony is complete without a trampoline, and that 4D technology is out of this world.

That last one is water getting thrown in our faces. Andrew had protection, I did not.

We went and played in the air exhibit next. This wasn't as exciting, they just had a bunch of airplanes.

Snoopy as the Red Baron was a big perk.

Once we left the Air and Space Museum we had a long walk back to the car. It was basically Andrew's form of torture. Of course, he played it off as preparation for my days at Cal Poly.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

Then we were on our way to Seaport Village for a quick stop. We went in to the kite shop and the guy working told me about how he broke his ankle once too.

We're besties now.

After our brief visit at Seaport Village, Andrew drove us to hang out with his friends. Where we proceeded to get dinner and then play Boggle for hours.

Andrew is the worst Boggle player ever.

Then, our day drew to a close and Andrew finally dropped me off at my house.