How to Barrel into RSI, Lose, and Recover

Step 1: Make your work your hobby. Be a writer in and outside of the classroom, and, when you get bored of that, go draw for a while. Do nothing else.

Step 2: Multitask. Start multiple novels alongside your writing-intensive schoolwork. Start a webcomic with your best friend. Agree to be the sole artist on a 2D game design team. Do an Independent Study that requires several stories and a lengthy paper. Work as an editor. Write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. Volunteer for a club to do weekly art requests.

Step 3: DO NOTHING ELSE. Also, do not stretch, take breaks, or release that pencil. Notice pain but do nothing about it.

Step 4: When the pain is overwhelming, inadvertently take outdated pain medication. Ice your arm.

Step 5: Break down and go see the doctor. Remember that your arm is a muscle too, and even though typing and drawing is not exercise, it actually kind of is.

Step 6: Do nothing for two months. Attempt to become ambidextrous.

Step 7: Attend physical therapy. Learn what the Graston Technique is. Hate it. Liken it to a cheese grater under your skin. Make the therapist laugh.

Step 8: Get out of physical therapy early for good behavior. Work only in fifteen minute intervals.

Step 9: Get an ergonomic keyboard. Never work without a good desk and a chair.

Step 10: Get Dragon Naturally Speaking. Attempt to rework your neurological pathways. Realize that while your writing is good, your eloquence is lacking. 

Step 11: Learn to hate Dragon. Go back to fifteen minute intervals.

Step 12: Actually figure out what Repetitive Stress Injury is. Learn preventative exercises. Exercise daily. Stretch before and after working. Remember to take breaks and to ice after a lengthy period. Start a strength training regimen for your arm.

Alternatively, you could skip steps 2-11. I highly recommend this. As for RSI exercises, here is a fantastic (albeit slightly unnerving) website. 

Moving and Dishes

I don't know how many moves you have made, but if you've made just one, you know how frustrating, confusing, and emotional they can be. I have moved (excuse me while I count this up) ten times. I am officially out of fingers.

As a kid, moving was a little like an adventure: one day, all of you stuff is gone! You sleep on the floor and get pizza for lunch and dinner. You take a long trip and you step outside and everything smells different. Then, it's like Christmas because you get to take your stuff out of boxes again. You find things that you had lost! You get a new room! And, when everything's unpacked, you get to make forts out of boxes! Or ride down the stairs in them! 

Older, not so much. I actually missed out on the last two big moves that my family did. The other moves between then and now were into a dorm, out of a dorm, and between two apartments. No big deal.

But this move was madness. 

First off, my parents have been together for roughly 23 years. My dad was military for 24. They have lived in two countries besides the US. And my mom is a shopper. Not a frequent shopper, like, shop every day or bust shopper, but one of those silent, scary ones that goes to Poland for a weekend and brings back a new set of polish pottery. Or fifteen. Or, say, goes to San Antonio for a week and comes back in a UHaul (true story). And her purchases are not frivolous, little nicnaks, they are either MONSTROUS, hilariously fragile, or stupidly heavy for their size. It's a triple threat. 

When my parents moved to Panama City, they got all of the stuff out of storage. At this point, my parents had three storage places, because my dad kept opting for overseas tours. This translates to a lot of crap. 

I know my mother has a dish problem. Or, at least, I thought I did. I believe the movers packed and delivered no less than NINE DISH PACKS. Do you know how heavy dish packs are? Do you know how big dish packs are? NINE. The guy who was packing the dishes, Mike, had a calf every time he opened up a cabinet because the dishes were almost never ending. And she hides them everywhere, so once he got the cabinets cleared out, my mom appeared with more dishes.

But what's worse is that, out in the garage, there are broken dishes. A shelving unit full of broken dishes. We have been lugging around broken dishes for nearly two decades. Why? Because my mother is an artist and she will make a collage out of them. So she says and has been saying since she started the collection. I have yet to see her glance twice at them. The perk is that instead of apologizing when you accidentally break a dish, you can say, "Hey look, art supplies!"

Sometimes, I wonder if I could actually get away with "inadvertently" destroying an entire set of dishes. If I said nothing, I probably could, because she wouldn't notice for another decade if I chose carefully. There are a lot of dishes. Maybe I'll count them someday. Either way, I can just imagine the glorious sound of pottery against concrete, almost like scoring a goal in air hockey, albeit louder and more vindictive.

I don't hate all the dishes that she has; they're tasteful and pretty. I have an issue with the Polish pottery, mostly because they're heavy enough to break toes. I do not exaggerate.

Overall, though, the move went well. We still have way too many dishes for the amount of cabinets in the house and we have an entire drawer dedicated to tiny teacups that I didn't know existed. I love teacups.