Go ahead and tilt your head waaaay to the left, stretch it as far as you can, that’s it! Now stay in that position for 10 hours. The above scenario, unfortunately, was what happened to me. While doing some bedtime reading, I fell asleep with the lights on, a book on my arm, a notebook by my side, and a box of flash cards near my feet. I slept soundly; too soundly, with my neck stretched out and hunched under the pillow like a badly made pretzel. I opened my eyes at 7 in the morning and tried to lift my head up to the pillow only to experience excruciating pain. So what did I do? Instead of dealing with the pain like a reasonable human being, I titled my Quasimodo head back in that pretzel-like position and fell back asleep while illogically believing that the pain will just go away in an hour or two when I am ready to wake up. Yeah, bad idea I know.

And so for the last 2 days, I have been a vegetable. I suppose it’s good that it happened during Halloween, for my movements were (and still are) very much like Frankenstein’s. Just to give you an example, say if I’m walking in front of you, and you yell “Jean” behind me, I will stiffly turn my entire body around with my arms tucked in like a zombie to greet you. Sad, I know.

In the past 2 days I have consumed over 14 pills of pain killers, endured extreme ridicule (my roommate has been giggling and taking pictures of me miserably slouching on the sofa half dead with a neck brace and dangling pain killers an inch beyond my reach saying, “come get it, coooome get it…”) and so here I am, typing to you, venting my misery. I do not think that there is a moral to the story, only perhaps to not fall asleep while reading…