use small gestures

"And the house was *this* big!"

And that's the part where I fling my arms out so wide I throw my right arm out of the socket, cry out like a wounded wildebeest, sink to the floor in front of 20 terrified Turkmen children, pop it back in with a sickly squishing sound, and cancel class. I've never see them move so fast out the door. Then came in the flurry of teachers, a mix of genuinely concerned, genuinely curious, and genuinely gossip-hungry. We called PC for advice, preferably for instructions on how long to hold on the heat pad/ice pack, and got strict instructions to come to the office RIGHT NOW! So, still dressed in my bright floral Turkmen koinek school uniform, I packed up my stuff one-handed (my usually useless left arm appendage got more work than it has in the last year), and came to the city. As soon as I arrived at the office I was hurried to the hospital for a series of tests and prods that seemed more appropriate for a fracture rather than a dislocated shoulder (especially a dislocated shoulder that's back in it's proper joint already): shots, X-rays, and emergency room tendon specialist called in from home. All for poor little old me. The result is that I have to wear a really annoying sling for two weeks, I'm not allowed to raise my arm about my head, and after two weeks I'm going to have to do intensive exercises to build up the muscle so that it will properly hold my bone in the socket. Apparently I have a naturally really flexible bone structure, but that comes at the price of joints more prone to disconnect. Well, I may have to wear a sling, but it's worth the story of reattaching my own arm in class.