Orthodontist and school

On Thursday I had an orthodontist appointment. I've had a few meetings with my orthodontist so far, but on Wednesday the date was set for me to have my braces fitted! I've always known I need orthodontic treatment, but until now my health has always been my main priority, and getting my teeth sorted out was just pushed aside. But as my health is stable at the moment, I've begun trying to get my teeth fixed. Apparently my jaws are too small for all my teeth, so I need 4 teeth removed and fixed braces. I'm going to have the braces fitted first (at the end of March) and then the teeth will be extracted at some point after that. I'm quite apprehensive about it all (especially as a very helpful friend has been telling me how much braces hurt), but it'll be nice to get my teeth sorted :) I'm scared about the extractions (as I've only ever had one baby tooth out before) but I've not got a date for that yet, so that's something to worry about nearer the time.

Then on Thursday night when I got home I found a message on the answer machine from hospital B, saying that they'd phoned hospital H for my blood results, but they weren't complete. They want a full set of bloods doing before I go to Japan, so I've got to have them redone this week. I only have a few good veins on the back of one hand, but that hand is still very bruised from when I last had blood taken, so I'm hoping the bruising will go down over the next few days. I'm surprised that some bloods were missed out, as I took the blood forms from hospital A directly to hospital H, so the forms must have been wrong. The forms were written at my transition clinic, so I think it was probably confusion between my two consultants that caused the problems. Hopefully that wont happen again though.

School has been interesting this week. Since I dropped 2 subjects just before Christmas I've gained quite a few free periods, which is nice :) So I'm finding school easier to cope with now and I even got to come home early on the bus a few days this week. I've still got a lot of coursework though and lots of deadlines are looming around half term. At the moment it's science coursework that's the biggest worry as all environmental systems coursework has to be completed before I go to Japan. We need to have done 40 hours of practical work, but at my last count on Friday I only had 29. So I've got to somehow get 11 hours of coursework in 2 and a half weeks! Eek! Biology coursework all has to be completed one week after I get back from Japan. I should have enough hours, but I've got a bit behind on my experiment write-ups, so I've got 5 outstanding at the moment. And we've got English individual oral commentaries a few days after I get back from Japan. We're given an extract from one of four texts, have 20 minutes to plan and then have to give a 12 minute oral commentary on it. We've studied 2 of the 4 texts so far and I don't really understand either of them, lol.

On Wednesday in biology we did an interesting experiment investigating maggot behaviour! My experiment involved seeing whether maggots preferred the light or dark, but my maggots seemed very random. I didn't mind handling the maggots, but I was one of only 2 in our class of 15 that wasn't scared to touch them!

I'm getting very excited about Japan now with only 18 and a half days to go :D
However, my Japanese teacher (who is running the trip) had to fly urgently back to Japan on Monday (no-one knows why, but we guess that someone in his family is probably ill), so we're a bit concerned for the trip as we don't know when he'll be back. We're supposed to be having an information evening next Tuesday, so if he's back by then I'll find out a bit more about the trip.

On Thursday I went to an electrical shop in town to enquire about transformers and adaptors to enable me to charge my electrical equipment (phone, iPod and camera) in Japan. The cheapest transformer I could buy cost me £25! But I bought it as I couldn't see another option, and Catherine has said she'll put some money towards it so we can both use it in Japan.

Tomorrow I'm going to the cinema with my parents to see Will Smith's latest film, called 'Seven Pounds'. It's about organ donation so should be interesting. Critics haven't given it very good reviews, but I know some transplant recipients who have seen it and liked it, so I want to see it to make up my own mind about it. I'll let you know what I think.

Sorry this post is another long one. I just can't seem to write short blog entries, lol.