Day 18
“Five, six, five six seven eight!” I call out as I press play on the CD player. I spend the next hour and a half running through the counts of a three minutes song. It’s a little tiring at times but I really can’t complain because I love what I do with these girls.
After class they all rush up and hug me. I guess I’m that cool teacher that they’d prefer over any of the other instructors here. I’ll take that title any day. I want these girls to love ballet as much as I do.
After I declare one of the girls dancer of the week they all file noisily out of the room. I switch the CD to my music and start my own practice. I only have until Sunday to perfect my dance for the scout that they’re sending. Right now I have a half scholarship but if I do really well I could win the other half of tuition. I’m putting my whole self into this dance. I’m including almost every technical skill I know
I’m going to show this scout what it really means to dance.
March 5th, -0- total days till graduation, -0- days left of school
Today my whole psych group is meeting up at the school to do our experiment. Ethan printed off lists of all the words and Melissa brought blank paper and pens so that everyone can write down the words that they remember. Justin tried to complicate the study even more by suggesting that we read back a list of 60 words to half of the group but he was immediately shot down for trying to overcomplicate the experiment. Only Alex thought it was a good idea.
Once we’re in the gym we explain the experiment to everyone and then pass out the lists. Everyone has two minutes with the lists before having to hand them back to us. Then they sit and talk for ten minutes and we pass out the blank paper so they can write down all the words.
We all decide to sit and start analyzing the results during the game. We start a tally of every time someone lists the words. It’s funny because some people actually write down words that weren’t on the list. We’re not sure what to do with that exactly so we decide to bring it up with Mrs. Lavene on Monday.
After the game (which we lost 47-64) we all head out to the parking lot. Its snowing like crazy; big, wet flakes that stick in my hair and in my eyelashes. For once we all seem to be getting along. We cling to each other as we slip and slide along the side walk laughing at some of the crazy things that people wrote down. Even though we didn’t include her on the list three people wrote down Paris Hilton and two others wrote down Lindsay Lohan.
“Maybe we can change our question. Change the experiment too. Ya know, make it what do people THINK they remember,” Christopher suggests.
I don’t necessarily like the idea of this because it sounds like a lot of extra work but everyone else seems enthusiastic so I don’t say anything. Then my foot slips out from under me. Pain shoots through my leg as I fall. I cry out as I fall onto my ass hard.
Everyone starts to laugh not realizing that something is seriously wrong with my ankle.
“Guys! My ankle,” I half squeak half scream. I look down and my ankle. The bone is sticking out at an odd angle and my foot is twisted totally inward. I groan. Please, please let this look worse than it really is. “I think I need to go to the hospital.”
Everyone stops laughing abruptly.
“Oh my God. I think it’s broken,” Christopher gasps.
“No shit Sherlock. Here, I’ll drive,” Ethan offers.
Christopher decides to accompany us to help get me into the hospital. Ethan has a spare towel in his car from swim so Christopher wraps my ankle with it. Not sure what good it does exactly but both of the guys thought it was a good idea so I let them. Christopher sits in back with me and props my leg up onto his lap.
Once we’re at the hospital the guys help me inside and a nurse immediately gets me a wheelchair. I called my mom on the way here. She has to wait until Dad gets home to watch my sisters but that should only be about an hour or so. I tell the guys they can leave but they insist on staying. The ER is almost empty so they get me to a room pretty quickly. The guys wait in the room while I’m carted to x-ray.
It doesn’t take the doctor long to determine that it’s broken but according to them it’s a clean break. They’ll put it in a cast and I should be fine in six weeks according to them. When I hear that I immediately start panicking. I have a performance next Sunday. I try explaining this to the doctor but he is unsympathetic. He even tries giving me some bull shit about how, if I’d just eaten better, my bones would have been stronger and probably wouldn’t have broken in the first place.
That’s total bull shit. I eat. Maybe I don’t eat as much as everyone else but I eat. And I’m very healthy when I eat. I don’t snack like other people but that’s not what caused my ankle to break. They send me back to the exam room to wait and the doctor hands me a bunch of pamphlets on eating disorders. I’m pissed about that almost as much as the broken bone so I dump them all in the trash as soon as I get back to the room.
Christopher and Ethan look at me expectantly waiting to hear the prognosis. “It’s broken,” I announce as I lift myself from the wheelchair to the exam table. “I’ll be on crutches for over a month.” I don’t normally show emotion. I feel that showing too much emotion is a weakness but I can feel myself tearing up.
“You’ll be okay,” Ethan walks over to the exam table and hugs me. It’s really awkward at first but kinda nice at the same time.
When he pulls away I respond, “no, it’s not. There’s someone coming from Juliard to see me next Sunday. And now I’m not going to be able to dance,” the tears are welling up even more and I wipe ferociously at my eyes. “I have to call and tell them not to send anyone now.”
Ethan looks like he doesn’t know quite how to react but he’s trying to be a friend. “Can’t they send someone later?”
I shake my head. “Probably not. It’s Juliard. They don’t have time for broken bones.” It sounds awful when I say it but I’m almost certain it’s the truth.
Ethan frowns then grabs hold of my hand and squeezes.
My mom arrives just then toting Caty the youngest of us seven girls. “Bethany, what happened?”
I’d explained on the phone but of course she needed an explanation in person. So I explain to her what happened. After I’ve given the story, once again she thanks both of the boys for driving me to the hospital. Ethan gives me a hug on his way out and this time I return it. Then both of them leave.
“So I have to wait for a cast but after that we can leave.”
Mom sets Caty down on the table next to me and then hugs me. Its ridiculous how many hugs I’m getting and I tell her so. By now they’ve given me a pretty powerful pain medicine and my ankle is just a pulsing pain instead of shooting pain. I’ve had worse pain just in dance so I’m pretty much able to ignore it.
When my leg has finally been cast Mom brings me a pair of crutches and we finally leave the hospital. On the way home I press my cheek against the cold window and cry silently. I’m not sure why this happened but I’m seriously pissed.
Once I’m home I go upstairs and call Juliard’s admission office to let them know that they shouldn’t send anyone to see me on Sunday. The woman I’m talking to wishes me a speedy recovery and then hangs up. My chest is filled with a sense of deep foreboding. I’m praying they’ll give me another chance.
March 7th, -0- total days till graduation, -0- days left of school
“Alright, so we have to design a new experiment,” Alex seems overly enthusiastic about this.
Look, while this seems like a good idea I’m not sure how we go about testing for things people THINK they remember. Melissa hits the issue right on the head. I’m not sure how we go about testing for this either and I say so.
“Well, I have an idea,” Alex announces.
“Better not involve Milgram,” Christopher says. I can’t help but snort.
“Actually,” Alex turns and glares at Christopher, “it doesn’t. Okay, so we show people a bunch of pictures of people’s faces. And then we ask them about the pictures. Ya know, like what color was the hair of the person in the third picture. The idea is that people will immediately invent a color if they don’t remember,” by the end of her explanation she’s talking so quickly that I have to really focus to understand her.
“So then who do we get pictures of?” I ask.
“Well they can’t be people they know so maybe we should get pictures from the internet or something.”
This sounds like a far better idea than our other two experiments so I’m actually a little excited about this experiment. The only problem is going to be who to perform this experiment on but my group doesn’t seem too perturbed by this so I won’t spend time worrying about it either.
In our letter this week we include our previous experiment and how it’s inspired us to start a new one.
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