Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Grad Life & The Never-Ending Flu

Dear Readers,

You may have noticed that I've been MIA from the blogosphere for almost two weeks now. And for this, I'm sorry. I've completely shirked blogging priorities for the mere reason that I've been fighting the ever-so-irritating flu. For almost two weeks. That's right, I've had the flu for two weeks. Perhaps that 5AM jog at the crack of dawn (as described in my previous blog post) in 5 degree weather, no less, wasn't the best thing for my immune system.

Friends, fighting the flu in the midst of busy grad school season is awful, to say the least. There's nothing I want to do more than crawl into bed for an entire day to watch episodes upon episodes of How I Met Your Mother with (multiple) bowl(s) of soup and cup(s) of tea to tide me over until the cold weathers away (and maybe throw in a couple of hours of blogging in there too. Yes?). That's probably what I need most at the moment.

And yet I can't.

Essays need to be written. Emails need to be responded to. Students need appointments. Tutorials need me to be their TA. Readings need to be completed. Presentations need to be presented. I really don't have the time to rest. My reasoning lacks common sense, and yet it makes the most sense. Make sense?

And so today, I did what I should have done a week ago. I walked to the Queen's University student walk-in clinic and booked an appointment to see a doctor about this never-ending flu. The good news? Well, I don't have pneumonia. Let's pause for a round of fist pumps. The bad news? Well, behold the conversation between my doctor and myself:

Doctor B: Well, you don't have pneumonia.
Me: That's great!
Doctor B: The bad news is that it'll take more than a week to fully heal your body if you don't get enough rest. You need to take it easy and relax for a few days or your virus won't go away.
Me: (with a hint of uncertainty and denial) Oh. So what should I do?
Doctor B: (with a hint of exasperation) I just told you. You need to rest and relax. You don't need anti-biotics. You need to eat and get enough sleep.

Sleep? Rest? Relax? The words are foreign to me. After a week of writing an essay and preparing a presentation worth 40% of my mark, I haven't had time to rest. Let alone breathe. Or eat anything beyond pasta and oatmeal. But, grudgingly, I suppose I'll take this weekend to do just that. Doctor knows best.

Words of advice? Take care of yourselves and don't catch the flu. You'll end up wasting more time trying to get rid of it than being productive. It isn't worth it. Take your vitamins. Eat. Sleep. It's the best advice I can give you, coming from someone who spent the day in my office coughing up a lung. You'll end up giving up activities you really enjoy. Like dodgeball. How sad am I that I can't attend my dodgeball game tonight because of the flu? Extremely disappointed, actually. True story.

In other news, I have much to blog about, my friends. And I can't wait to get back into the blogging swing of things. As I'll sit forlornly in bed this weekend, trying to get over my flu, I plan to begin blogging away about my adventures from the last couple of weeks. Halloween adventures? My meltdown at Fort Fright? My second meltdown after watching The Shining for the first time? My moment of epiphany after a lecture (I initally wasn't looking forward to) on the evils of neoliberalism? My absolutely fantastic weekend at Skate Canada? There's much to write about, friends! Back to blogging I go!

Yours Truly,

Your Apologetic Blogger

"Were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults in the first."
- Benjamin Franklin

"You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses, and he wears a beret. He is French, people."
- Conan O'Brien, 2003

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