One of those days…

Sometimes, things don’t want to go my way.

This has been one of those times. Weeks, to be exact. I guess it all started last Monday. I started working on building sets for the Penn State Thespians musical, Jesus Christ Superstar. I was assistant tech director, so I had to be there to help build in all my spare time. Well…I didn’t have to be. The brilliant technical director had spent a good chunk of his free time designing the set on Solid Works. It was the most well-planned set in Thespian history, according to the rest of the production staff. I felt like a completely useless assistant (Solid Works confuses me), so I felt it necessary to help out as much as possible during TAPS week. (TAPS stands for Theater Arts Production Space or something like that.)

So my schedule went something like this: wake up around 6, get to TAPS (located on the other side of the campus) by nine, get to my morning classes, run to TAPS on my lunch break, afternoon activities, and then TAPS until closing. The busses at Penn State never show up when you need them to, so I usually walked across campus.

That’s how it started…me running across campus several times a day. In Converse, I might add, which aren’t very good for people with flat feet. Along with that, I’m a klutz, so I was always dropping things on my feet during TAPS. By the time Friday rolled around, my feet were pretty battered and bruised.

What caused my problem was when I got mad at my best friend. After storming out of his dorm, I kicked a door frame. Yes, I know, not my brightest move. I start to head back to TAPS, and realize my foot hurts like hell. I go to TAPS anyways, start working on my film project. One of the carpenters notices my limp, and made me take off my shoe. Bruises everywhere. After much convincing, I end up at UHS.

UHS seemed to think I was making the whole thing up. They looked all skeptical and finally gave me a boot, but ONLY the boot they said. Brilliant. I hobbled right back to TAPS.

Don’t blame the door, though…I’d done a lot to hurt that foot. If it hadn’t been the door, it would have been a set piece or a tool, or me just tripping.

Saturday brought about more problems. Me, being the klutz I am, managed to drop tripods on my foot. I also climbed up to the catwalks three times. Not the smartest thing to do. My foot was getting worse. Some of my friends finally made me go to the hospital.

Long story short, noting broken, just a sprain, and I was put on crutches.

So Saturday thru Monday, I hobbled around on crutches, carting all my camera equipment with me. My foot would be better in a week? Not at this rate.

Monday night was the Nightmare. I won’t go into details about it, it’s too complicated. It was just based off of things going on in my life, and way too realistic for comfort. When I woke up, I had to sit there and convince myself it had never happened. I went to class Tuesday morning, the nightmare sticking in my brain. This lead to me having an anxiety attack and leaving halfway through class. Brilliant.

That night was rehearsal for JCS. I was also doing spotlights for the show. I had brought my homework with me, so I was sitting in the spots booth on my laptop. And then…it happened.

It was just a noise at first. There were several other people in the booth, so I didn’t think anything of it. Then something was touching the back of my head. I thought someone was messing with me, and then my brain processed the pain. There was a tall wooden cabinet behind me, and the door had broken, fallen forward and whacked the back of my head.

The first thing I did was scream. (I wondered why nobody on headset had said anything…later I found they thought it was feedback.) I started to cry next- totally allowed to. The rest of the lights crew was swarming around me, calling for the SM kit, checking for blood and such. They called a paramedic who just happened to be hanging out downstairs (off duty). At that point, I lost it. I started laughing hysterically. This was something that would only happen to me. Or maybe I had finally lost my mind. Either way, every little thing set me off. Just when I calmed down, it would start again.

They called an ambulance. It was a concussion. I’ll be fine, but I’ve been trapped in my dorm for most of the week with light sensitivity and massive headaches. Fun times. They finally let me return to spots today, and it didn’t kill me, and JCS was awesome. The door jokes won’t go away, however… (today just for my first JCS show, I wore my shirt that says “Be gone, before someone drops a house on you, too!” My best friend and I contemplated changing the word “house” to “door”…)

It’s been an interesting week.