Let’s Talk About Fear, Shall We?

Oh my, August already.  The end of August, already.  How did that happen?  Who cares, it’s here and there’s nothing we can do about it. 

            Just like that summer is almost over and I’ll be starting the Intensive Program at NECCA in…12 days…12 DAYS!!!  I’m moving up to Brattleboro, soon, too.  I’m feeling a little anxious, excited, nervous, maybe even a little scared because sometimes change can be a bit scary.  But what am I scared of?  Being in this program is something I’ve been looking forward to for over a year.  I’m afraid I won’t find a part-time job and that I’ll go totally broke and not be able to afford food or rent or school payments.  I’m afraid I won’t live up to expectations, my own and my coaches’.  I’m afraid of having severe low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) and causing an “incident.”  That pretty much sums up all my major fears.  Here’s what I keep telling myself: 

Abby, you are employable and there will be a job out there.  You just have to keep your eyes open.  Don’t forget, you’ll still be working at Zoar, zipping until the end of October, you have some time.  Just keep looking.  Also, get over yourself.  You know how to work hard and put effort into the things you do.  Remember rowing?  Competitively?  In college?  Yeah, you did that.  Remember biking across the country?  Yup, you did that, too.  Just put the work in and you will meet or exceed expectations.  Thirdly, just do your blood tests, often, don’t forget to eat, regularly, and take your insulin, but not too much.  You’ve done this before.  Remember rowing?  Biking?  It will be ok.

So there you go.  Nothing to fear but fear itself.  And a big scary spider.  Or many itty bitty spiders.

Many itty bitty spiders = scary.

It's a Roller Coaster, Baby!

And not necessarily a good one, either. Boo.

That, my friends, is a representation of what my blood sugars did between 8:00-ish pm last night and 10:00-ish this morning. “Up down up down.” Or maybe down-up-down-up is more accurate. The funny thing is, when I woke up at 5:00 am this morning, I was totally drenched in sweat. It’s that whole adrenaline-kicking-in-because-my-blood-sugar-is-low thing that results in all that crazy sweat.

This is what happened: I was half asleep tossing and turning and realized, while still in bed, that sweat was literally dripping off me. Something clicked and I was like, “hmm…excessive sweat…probably low…probably should wake up and do a blood test.” Sure enough, 46 mg/dL. And the funny thing about that is that I swear I was not nearly that sweaty at 8:00 pm last night when I had a 45 mg/dL in the middle of my acro/tumbling class. One would think that with all the jumping, flipping, and tumbling that was happening, I would have looked like I’d just gone for a swim, but no. Instead I wake up at 5am looking like I’ve just run a marathon or something. Wouldn’t it be amazing though, if a person could dream their exercise and reap the benefits of that dream exercise as if it was real awake exercise? Aside from waking up in a puddle of sweat, it would be pretty cool.

Annnnd…this is that awkward moment that I realize I just wrote an entire blog post about my sweat…followed immediately by that awkward moment when you just realized you read an entire post about my sweat. Awkward!

P.S. Comments and stuff are welcome! Got a similar story? Or a not-similar story? Want to talk about cloud shapes? Don’t be shy!

Writer's Block and Mysteries

Call it writer’s block. For the last couple of weeks I’ve simply been unable to write anything resembling a post even though there has probably been plenty to write about. I suppose one bit of news, if you hadn’t seen it on the facebook on March 26th, is that I’ve been accepted into the Intensive Program at NECCA. There was also the Showcase of Circus which was held at the studio on March 24^th. Then there was the demo performance at the WRSI Meltdown event on March 31^st. Now that it’s almost mid-way through April, all that news feels like “olds” instead. So, I’ll write about something else.

Do you ever wonder about the lives of people around you? Like in the grocery store, for example. When you go grocery shopping, you see all the other grocery shoppers going about their shopping. There’s also the store employees; the stock-people, the cashiers, the baggers, the people behind the meat counter and the seafood counter. But do you ever wonder what they do in their “other life,” their non-grocery-shopping life? Maybe some of them are artists, lawyers, astronauts, circus performers, doctors, kung-fu masters, Olympic athletes, musicians or any number of other things. And you wouldn’t know by looking at them. This reminds me of an art project I did a couple years ago for a self-portrait class. I made a “quilt” of self portraits which I hung in front of some mirrors with “secrets” hanging in between. It was about what people hide versus what they show. That’s what the photo is of.

The Audition

Auditions were the other day…Saturday the 17^th…St. Patrick’s Day. It ended up being from 11:00am to 7:45pm due to peoples’ travels and whatnot. I started off the day with a blood sugar of 153 mg/dL at 7:45am and pancakes. Mom made pancakes, which was pretty awesome. At 11:15am it was >300 mg/dL. I gave myself ½ the correction because I wasn’t sure what the rest of the day would be like. And my numbers were high for the rest of the day…I never corrected any of them fully because I was never sure what the activity level would be like. I didn’t want to bolus too much insulin then drop really low. At one point Darden, my acro and bungee coach, asked how I was doing when she saw me doing a blood test, and when I told her I was riding high all day (better than being low) she said, “All the adrenalin.” And you know what, I bet she was right (she’s not even a diabetes expert, but she gets it). It wasn’t until the end of the day, when I finally gave myself a full correction, and by the time I got home I reached a better number of 123 mg/dL. Oh well, better to be a little high than a little low. Fainting in the middle of an audition because of low blood sugar doesn’t sound like much fun to me, or a way to make a good impression.

You want to hear about the actual auditions, not just my blood sugars? Really? haha. Ok. So my day started off with the interview, which we did in pairs with one of the coaches. I was paired with Chloe, who is in a few classes with me at NECCA, and Darden was our interviewer. It was nice having familiar faces, but it would have been neat to meet some new people, too. There were 44 audition-ers on Saturday. I did not get to meet and converse with everyone, but it was a really nice crowd. During the tumbling and strength assessments, everyone cheered on everyone else. It was amazing. Ok, so after the interview there was a movement/dance session, a physical theater session, then the acrobatics, flexibility, and strength assessments followed by dinner and open studio time. You could see everyone’s different strengths and weaknesses, but everyone was so good, too. I do not envy the coaches their job right now in having to make these decisions. And, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea where I stand; I just have to wait and see.

Step 1 Results: Eye on the Prize

I got the email on Friday. The one from NECCA. I am officially invited to the auditions for the Professional Training Programs at NECCA. It doesn’t mean that I got in, but it does mean that I’m onto step two of the application process. And I got the “ok” to miss work on Saturday the 17^th. So that’s where I will be from 7:30am to 6pm in T-minus 13 days.