My Ankle Has Improved!

My last post talked about how I injured a ligament in my right ankle when I was walking down some steps, and although it was EXTREMELY painful at the time, it has improved greatly since then!

For a while I was walking with a limp but now I try to walk as normal as I can. I don’t need the crutches anymore, and pain wise it’s actually fine now. I can’t twist my foot though, or run (which I found out yesterday) but I can walk around as usual. I just have to be that extra careful the way I move my foot.

It’s still bruised and theres still a little bit of swelling, so that causes pain when I touch it, so I don’t know when all that will disappear. The times when it’s sore is usually after I walk for a while, I turn it a funny way and when I wake up in the morning and walk on it.

It will be 3 weeks this Tuesday since I injured it, and at the beginning I thought it would take ages to heal. I could hardly move it, it was bruised and really swollen.

But I’m surprised that it is healing ok though and I can walk on it. I’m still doing the alphabet with my foot (which is a little sore to do), I do stretches and I balance on the bad ankle. Apparently this is to build up muscle so that a sprain is less likely to happen in the future.

I read that now that because I sprained it once it’s going to be easier for me to do it again, which I certainly do not want to happen again!! Thankfully I’ve never broken a bone or had anything major happen me, but this was the sorest thing that happened me, so I really don’t want to experience that again!

I haven’t drove yet but I might go out tomorrow and see how it is. Ireland is starting phase 1 of it’s recovery tomorrow so hardware shops, garden centres and other work places will be open again. But it’s never going to be the same again, at least not for a long long time.

Aisling

My Ankle Recovery

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It will be a week tomorrow since I hurt my ankle, and I’ve improved a little. I can now move it a little more and put more pressure on it, and I can (slowly) walk up stairs with my crutches.

For the past two days however I feel my foot has become a little more sore; maybe I overdone it with the walking or something, but I do feel my foot is more painful these past two days. I was walking around the house with my crutches and trying to put weight on my foot, but I think I may have overdone it!

Lately I’ve also been having troubling falling asleep as it’s uncomfortable.

The doctor told me that it would take around 14 to 21 days to fully recover, and I do believe that is true! I felt great a few days ago: walking around and using the crutches for balance, I thought “Oh this is fantastic I’ll be walking soon!”

But no, now I don’t think I’ll be walking soon! The doctor said my injury was between a Grade 1 and a Grade 2, and after looking online, I think he’s right. A Grade 1 injury means that you can walk on your ankle, it might be a little swollen, but you can walk on it.

A Grade 2 means that it’s difficult to put weight on it and it’s all bruised and loads of swelling. It’s also harder to move it around. So I do think mines in the middle! It’s a little bruised and it was quite a bit swollen.

I suppose I’m afraid that if I don’t do enough strengthening and walking then it will take longer to heal, but then I don’t want to overdo it either! I don’t really know if what I’m doing is right. I may have started walking too soon it, I don’t know… but the doctor did say that I should try and start walking on it as soon as I can. So that’s what I did.

I will keep doing the alphabet with my ankle, put ice on it, and just try and move it so that it doesn’t get stiff.

Hopefully tomorrow it will feel a little better!

Aisling

 

Getting Pulled Over

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Recently the Irish Government gave police, or as we call them here ‘Garda =singular, or Gardaí =plural the power to arrest people who were out driving over 2km from their home and without a good reason. Well, I mean they can arrest someone if they are adamant about getting through or won’t turn around. Usually they just turn people back if it’s not an essential journey. Shopping for necessities or having to go to work (with a valid letter to show this) are really the only two reasons to be out.

My Dad is, as the Government calls it ‘Cocooning’; he’s not allowed to leave the house at all because he is over a certain age. He has been keeping himself busy by:

Cutting the grass

Making birdhouses

Digging up trees

Moving trees

Planting shrubs

Painting the house

Making a compost area

Planting potatoes and peas

Strimming the hedges

So… he is definitely keeping busy! My Mum is also in the high risk group, so she doesn’t venture out either.

So it’s up to myself and my husband to do the weekly shop for the essentials. I don’t particularly enjoy going out; it’s awkward, you always have to dodge people, and it’s just not a nice environment to be in!

Plus it takes extra long because there is a queue to enter places like Lidl and Aldi. One person leaves the shop, and only then can the next person in the queue enter. So you could wait for a while to get in! I’m sure this is the same all over the world!

We usually go during the week and get meat, milk, bread and things like that, but my Dad always enjoys reading the paper on a Sunday. That means we have to take a quick spin up to the shop to get this for him.

Myself and my husband (he comes with me just to get out of the house) went to the shop in the morning to get the newspaper (plus some milk), and on the road up ahead we saw a Garda car and two Gardai in the middle of the road. They were stopping every car that was leaving town or heading into town. So they stopped us and asked us:

What is my purpose for being out?

Where do I live?

I explained to them that I was getting milk and that I only live down the road (which is true) and we were let through. When we got our bits we were driving back home and the Gardai were leaving then!

So next Sunday came about, and my Dad asked if I would go and get the newspaper for him, which I suspected he would! So off we went.

This time there were no Gardai about, so that was great!

But as we were coming back there they were again, set up a bit further down the road than last Sunday. I stopped again and they asked me what was my reason for being out. My husband was beside me with the bread, newspaper and chocolate on his lap, and I pointed to it and said “Oh I was getting some bread”. So then he asked did I live far and I said “Oh I live about 5 minutes away”. (It’s actually not it’s prob like 1 or 2 minutes away by car).

So then he let us go. I was kind of glad we bought the bread as I doubt he would think it was a ‘necessary journey’ with me just buying a newspaper!

We decided that on Sundays we would always buy something that is deemed essential, like bread, milk, eggs or something like that! That way we can justify our outing!

On the weekday when we do our big shop we don’t see anybody, so they must reinforce this on the weekends. But it’s good though, it shows they are strict.

I check the time that we got home and it was around 11am, so I’m thinking they must set up at around that time. Next Sunday when we go I will go earlier and see if they are patrolling!

Aisling

No More College??!

So, with all this Coronavirus, my college, and like every school across Ireland is closed for 2 weeks, at least!

At the beginning my teachers were saying that the college might close, and I was thinking “Oh I really doubt that.”

Then they started talking about how we would do exams if the college closed. My teacher said that she would have to send the paper online and give us a time to do it at home. She was saying that she hopes we wouldn’t cheat, but there are a few in my class that would definitely do that, so she added ” It would be very suspicious if I saw everyone get 100%!” But here we are, with the reality being that I may never have class again!

I was driving on Thursday and all of a sudden on the radio I heard that all colleges and schools are closed from 6pm that day until the 29th of March. We were supposed to have 2 weeks off from the 6th of April, then back for exams which were supposed to be held the first week of May, but I think at this rate all that is up in the air now.

It was all quite sudden, so now my teachers have been emailing us stuff to make sure that we do and email them. I still have about 6/7 assignments do, so I will have to do them and email them to my teachers.

Some may think it’s great not having college, but I would much rather go in. I like college, and I know I’m going to be bored stiff because I’m sure the government will want us to stay in as much as we can.

I think it’s good that the government shut all the schools though. I think the first death made them take this action. Unfortunately the schools in Northern Ireland are still open so it’s not ideal taking two different actions on the same island.

And now everyone here is panic buying, which is not good! I haven’t gone into the shops but I’ve seen plenty of pictures of lines of people waiting to pay in places like Tesco, Lidl and Aldi. I think this is just selfish and they need to think of the people who can’t go to the shops everyday, like the elderly, or parents who have babies. My Mum told me that she read online that there was a parent who couldn’t find baby formula because it was all gone.

I know people panic, and even when I heard all these people were buying loads of toilet paper, I started thinking “oh god well we better go and buy loads”, but the News is saying that there is PLENTY of food and it won’t run out. So I relaxed a bit when I saw that.

So people have become very selfish now.

Nobody knows what will happen these next few weeks, but I hope we all don’t go mad being stuck inside!

Aisling

 

 

 

 

Getting Used To The City

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When I first came to Mexico and the city where I am staying with my in-laws, I didn’t really feel comfortable here. I wanted to try out Mexico city; there are lots of things to do, there are more foreigners, there are cheaper places to learn Spanish, and it will be easier to get a job. Although I really like Cuernavaca, where I am now…. I just thought that I would enjoy Mexico city more.

For the past few weeks now however, my attitude is changing! I think I’m settling in more and I’m getting more comfortable with my surroundings.

I know where I can buy medicines in the pharmacy, I know where the doctors and dentists are. I know which restaurants I can go to for cheap food. I know where I can get things photocopied, I know (pretty much) the layout of the centre. I know how to get to my therapist and to my spanish classes. I know more roads and where they lead to…

Although the city is much quieter than Mexico, I’m starting to like it more and more. Before I didn’t really want to find a job here, but now that I’m more familiar with the area, I feel that I actually could stay here if both of us found jobs. We’d have to rent somewhere if we plan on staying longer so that is something we would need to think about!

But at the moment, In the city I just don’t really see a job here for me. Maybe I’ll be teaching English (yet again), but there aren’t too many schools around here, except drastically overpriced schools for spanish learners.

But as always, everything isn’t concrete, so we’ll see what happens when the time comes!

Aisling

 

Getting Fit From YouTube

I’ve no doubt in my mind since leaving Ireland 4 years ago that I’ve put on weight. From seeing pictures of myself then and now, and due to the fact that clothes from years ago don’t fit me now, I certainly not naive about it.

So because we live on the first floor of our building and we now have an enormous amount of space, I’ve started to do some exercise to try and get fit and healthy. In my old apartment we simply didn’t have the space, plus every movement we made could be felt in the apartment below us, so it just wasn’t really possibly to be jumping/ dancing about in our place.

So now I have absolutely no excuse not to exercise!

At first I was doing zumba dancing which was ok. But then I felt that I wasn’t pushing myself enough. I knew if I wanted to lose weight/ get fit, I needed to sweat that bit more! So I’ve found some videos on Youtube that have really helped me to get motivated!

The first one that I’ve subscribed to is the YouTube channel ‘BeFit’. They have lots of videos on exercise but I mainly stick to ‘Burn to the Beat’ fitness routines that are in the ‘BeFit’ channel. They are HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), so at most these videos are 15-17 minutes long, and they definitely make you sweat!! Check them out if you want a short exercise routine. Plus there are lots of benefits of doing HIIT exercises.

From ‘Burn to the Beat’ I found out that the lady Keira LaShae who does it actually has her own channel; ‘superherofitnesstv’ and she has tonnes of fitness exercises. I really really enjoy her videos; she’s really enthusiastic and she really motivates me while I’m working out.

So atm I try and do two of her videos 4 times a week. Currently I’m doing an abs workout video, then I move on and do a HIIT one. But of course sometimes I’m lazy and don’t do it, but I try and do it at least 3 times a week.

I like doing exercise in the comfort of my home and not having super skinny Chinese girls look at me and think “Oh look at that fat foreigner running” because I know that’s what they are thinking. I know I’m not going to be as skinny as the people here (not that I’d want to, a lot of them are just too skinny) but at least I’m trying to be a bit more healthy.

I just need to make sure I don’t lose my motivation for it!

Aisling

Money Or Happiness?

Unfortunately, happiness doesn’t come easy to me. I worry/ stress over pretty much everything. A lot of times I don’t like myself for whatever reason….and I haven’t done some things because my anxiety takes over and forces me to abandon it. I’m missing out on things because I’m too afraid to do it… and it drives me mad!

So when it comes to money or happiness… which one should you choose? I’ve been at the same company for the past 3 years, but I finally gave in my 1 months notice. This definitely wasn’t because I had too much money.. like everyone else I need to work. But I simply just wasn’t happy. I had my meeting with my manager and told her how I feel. I don’t mind teaching, and my students are all really nice… just I didn’t want to work for the company anymore. Their new changes weren’t going to benefit me,  we had no say as to whether the teachers actually wanted these new changes… and it just felt like I had no opinion on anything… accept it and that’s that.

We plan on leaving China during the summer, so If I stayed, I would only have to work another 4/5 months, and I know some people would say ‘Oh just stick it out…it’s only a few more months’  But for me, I knew I would feel worse and worse if I stayed.

For me, I would pick being happy than money. I certainly need money, but happiness to me is more important. I strive for happiness in my life… but sometimes it feels like I’m never going to be happy. Whatever I do it won’t be good enough. So that’s my ongoing battle with myself!

In a previous job, it made me really unhappy.  I remember crying one night because I just didn’t want to be there. So I left. I then spent the last year looking for jobs… which kind of made it worse!

I know in a few weeks I’ll be thinking ‘Oh why didn’t I stay… I’d have more money now and I wouldn’t be worrying about my finances’… I know I’ll be thinking that… but just at this moment my  overwhelming desire of happiness just overrides these feelings. In a way, knowing that I made this decision by myself… to better myself mentally makes it (at this moment) worthwhile.

Does anyone else have the same opinion, or would some people choose money over happiness?

再见

爱玲