Hey everyone, today I just wanted to make an appearance and sincerely apologize for not posting in a while. I’ve been fighting off a nasty cough and I’ve been super busy during the last week, so I haven’t had a chance to open up wordpress. I’ll give you a quick list of what’s been happening:

• Starting on Thursday of last week, I developed a cough that I originally thought was just a cold and it would go away eventually, whatever. On Friday upon waking up, I kept coughing and I felt like I was going to cough up my lungs, quite frankly. So I stayed home from school that day which would have been really nice (besides the relentless coughing) but I kept thinking about all the assignments I would have to make up upon returning to school.
• On Saturday, like an absolute idiot, I went over to the rink because it was the first day I was supposed to help out coaching Learn to Skate, which is basically what it sounds like; I help kids stand up on the ice, I draw smiley faces on the ice in marker, I try not to cry as I pick up a child and feel my back giving out while saying “Okay, stand up on your feet! Let’s march over to the red line!” So I did an hour of that on Saturday and another two on Sunday. So that’s 3 hours of being in the cold over the weekend. My respiratory system was not exactly happy with me.
• On Monday, I was feeling equally as terrible so my mom made an appointment with my pediatrician and pulled me out of school right after a double period of chemistry (I am not missing this class; I have learned my lesson after my week-long Cancun trip, after which I cried inside trying to teach myself the concepts I missed out on). My doctor said I had a virus and if it lasted more than 10 days to come back. Awesome.
• On Tuesday, some exciting stuff started happening. It was the first day of a super important competition that determined the skaters who were going to be competing later in the US Figure Skating Championships (Nationals). I’m surprised it was held at our rink, as we were not all that prepared, but oh well. I didn’t end up going to watch any event because I was still sick at this point. However, there was the rest of the week to look forward to..
• On Wednesday, I braced myself because I had signed up to volunteer at the competition from 5pm-9pm, where my job would be to stand at a registration desk, hand out ID badges and goody bags to incoming skaters, and answer questions like, “Hey, do you know if that Italian place serves pasta?” or, “Hi, I lost a room key and wanted to know if anyone found it?” Nothing super exciting happened aside from a father that stormed out of the front doors after being informed that the only rink with available practice ice was 30-40 minutes away from the venue. Like, sorry, I didn’t exactly make this happen, please don’t take your anger out on me or the doors, thank you.
• Thursday came around and, fast forward to 6pm, I was at the rink volunteering until around 9:30pm (because I’m just such a philanthropist). This time, I was out in one of the arenas basically opening and closing the door out onto the ice for the skaters. I got to watch some awesome skaters and got hit on by a college kid, so… there’s that.
• Friday was similar in structure; school, home, rink to volunteer. My job was the same thing as yesterday and at the end of the night, around 9pm, my friends and I snuck upstairs to where all the food for the judges was stored and had some cold pizza and coffee. It was a nice way to end the long week.

And that’s it. Sorry if this was insanely long and I just don’t realize because I’m still sick and a little loopy. I know I’m posting off schedule, but hopefully you at least mildly enjoyed this and it slightly makes up for all the days I’ve missed posting. I don’t guarantee a post on Thursday, but who knows, maybe this week I’ll have enough time to write something nice among the back pain from picking up children, endless coughing, and non-stop tests and projects courtesy of my civics teacher 🙂 🙂 🙂

I’ll see you soon, and thanks so much for reading!

Anna xx