My Created Life

Despite my best efforts, I’m not getting to blog as much as I might like these days. (I’m not getting to sleep or geocache as much, either, but that’s okay. These things happen, and this too shall pass.)

I am out at the university, in a study carrel, and I’ve just finished preparing for a chem quiz I’m writing in about an hour. I think I’m ready — I feel like I’m ready — and now I’m just taking the time to pop in and say hello. Since I have a lot on my plate right now (class, two part-time jobs, my car at the mechanic and trying to get a newsletter to the printers), I’m feeling pretty wound up, but I think it’ll be okay in a bit. I just need to breathe.

Of course, now is when the blog software is in a mood. I usually use the WYSIWYG editor, and only use the HTML one if I’m tidying something up, but for some reason, WordPress doesn’t want me to have access to the WYSIWIG editor today. Not terribly distressing — just typical of how things are going right now. “Easy” and “normal” aren’t apparently in the Universe’s plans for me at the moment.

Incidentally, I got glasses a week ago. Due to popular demand, I’m including a picture (aka the surreptitious self-portrait) here so you can see just how “intellectual” (Hubby’s word) I look.

Yes, I’m still sick, but it’s taking a long time to mend and it’s getting really boring, so we’ll just skip that part.

I can’t believe it’s the twenty-sixth of September.  Where is this month going?  And where has our warm weather gone?  Yesterday it was only ten degrees C (I think that’s 50 degrees F), and it was windy and rainy and nasty.  And just moments ago, we reluctantly passed a milestone in our home: Hubby has turned the heat on for the first time since April.  Almost time to start my yearly countdown to Spring!

On the university front, I went back to chemistry class yesterday for the first time in a week, having missed both Monday and Wednesday.  My brain was a little foggy, but I think the quiz went well, and although I felt hopelessly adrift with regards to what was covered in class yesterday (since I missed the two classes leading into it), I am confident that spending some quality time with the notes will help.  I did know how to do this once, my professor is very helpful, and I have a high school chemistry department head who is more than willing to help me out.  In other words, I’ll be fine.

(As I’m writing this, I can hear the sounds of the latest battle in the ongoing Canine-Feline War taking place in No-Human’s Land, AKA our bed.  I think Zaphod Beeblebrox might be winning this one, but he’s strung out on catnip, so Piper thinks he’s cheating.)

Being a mature student has its advantages.  First of all, we mature students can recognize each other (usually) by sight, and we know we automatically have something in common.  I’m in a bit of a sub-group, because I don’t have kids, but many of the challenges are the same.  There’s also at least one other mature student who’s upgrading to go into dental hygiene, like me.  A couple girls have asked if I’d like to form a study group and I’m supposed to call one of them today.  I want to get a handle on what I’m doing first, though, because I think once I’ve got it, I can help.  (I’m pretty sure it’s just a matter of putting some WD-40 to some rusty hinges in my brain.)

In hockey news, we gave away our tickets to the Saint John Sea Dogs game on Wednesday night.  I listened to it on the radio, and it was painful (6-1 for the PEI Rocket).  We went to the game last night versus the Victoriaville Tigres and it was almost as bad (5-2).  I’m not sure where the team we had last week went, but I’d like them back now, please.

Okay, time to forage in the kitchen and then hit the books.  Moles, molar mass, et cetera — here I come!

Have a good day, readers, and please — leave me some comment love.  I could use a little.

(Oh, the molecule above?  That’s ascorbic acid, AKA Vitamin C.  In the words of Depeche Mode, “I Just Can’t Get Enough”.  *grin*)

When we last saw our heroine (ie me), she was going through a box of Kleenex every two hours and generally feeling miserable.  Well, about twelve hours after that, she decided it was time to call in the reinforcements.

I couldn’t get in to see my regular doctor, which was disappointing, but not surprising.  When you have an awesome doctor and “something’s going around”, that’s the way it goes.  So I called the local walk-in clinic and got an appointment there.  I’d never been to the clinic before, but I figured my faucet face and rattling lungs could speak for themselves, and I could testify to the fatigue, fever, and horrendous muscle aches.

The first thing I saw before I even got to the waiting room was a sign strongly encouraging anyone with cold or flu-like symptoms to please don a complimentary face mask.  Well, most of the time, I’m a do-as-I’m-told girl in these situations, and I didn’t want to make anyone else sick, either, so on the mask went!  Of course, when I reached the waiting room full of sniffling people, I realized that others were much more rebellious than me.

Am at medical clinic and wearing face mask as instructed by sign, “ I tweeted.  “Am only one. Looking ridiculous for my fellow man: priceless.”

You know me — I desperately wanted to whip out my camera and record the moment for posterity’s sake, but it was a little too public.

More and more people came in.  “No one wants to sit near me. Mask = instant social pariah. Interesting social experiment to amuse me while I wait.”

Often I kill time in waiting rooms by making silly faces at the nearest baby.  Well, I realized that the nearest baby couldn’t see half my face, and that my eyes aren’t nearly as good at expressing my emotions as I’d like.  In short, the baby started screeching.  Hats off to the cast of Grey’s Anatomy, since they’re obviously much better at this than I am!

Fortunately the receptionist called my name and I headed into an examination room.  I was admiring the large, bright windows when it suddenly dawned on me to take the picture for the blog!  Well, I had just gotten the self-timer set when the door swung open and in walked Dr. Android.

Now, to be fair to Dr. Android, we did not get off to a good start.  Here’s this woman wearing a face mask (and likely the only face mask he’s seen all day), holding a camera up to her face and looking guilty (because my guilty eyes and my embarrassed eyes look about the same).  Add to that the fact that he doesn’t know me from Eve, the last appointment for his shift was supposed to be 2:45 and mine was for 3:15, who knows what kind of colourful characters wander by for his services in the run of a day, and well, no wonder he looked like he thought I made my living from litigation.

Yeah.  So.

Dr. Android took exactly six minutes to examine me, including throat check, ear check, lung check, sinus check.  He pronounced it a “sinus infection”, even as I was explaining how I get this twice a year, describing my lungs filling with gunk and the all-over body aches and fever.  Dr. Android wrote me a prescription for penicillin, and since I get bronchitis enough to know that it would fix me up, no matter what he decided to write down on the paper, I didn’t argue.  I just thanked him and went on my way.

Have I mentioned how much I love my regular doctor?

Anyway, the next morning my “sinus infection” was miraculously cleared up (as it usually is after a day or so) and now my lungs were full (as they usually are after a day or so).  I also had a headache the likes of which I had not yet seen this millenium.  I even slept 22 hours yesterday, which, even for the Napping Queen, was a bit much.

So the question I’ve been getting is do I have H1N1.  Well, not officially.  Officially, I have a sinus infection (even though we’ve established that my sinuses are clear).  And remember — I’m not a doctor.  But between working in the educational system and taking classes at a post-secondary institution, I can now pretty much recite the symptoms of H1N1 by heart (and create a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile of the proper hand-washing technique poster).  Given that I seem to have almost all of the symptoms, that I know my body well and I’ve never experienced anything quite this intense before, and that the only flu strain circulating right now is the H1N1, let’s just say it wouldn’t surprise me.

Incidentally, the souvenir face mask is still getting lots of use.  I’ve been wearing it to bed so that Hubby doesn’t get sick too.  I can handle me being sick.  I can handle him being sick.  But nothing brings out the “SUCK IT UP, PRINCESS!” in me quite like both of us being sick.  Fair warning — if you live in this beautiful city, you should all being wearing face masks or risk incurring my wrath. 

In all seriousness, though — be well, everyone.

… and I’m still awake.

My nose is running like a faucet, my back feels like I simultaneously carried all the furniture in the house upstairs, and my head is a big bass drum…

… but I made an ATC!  What do you think?  I’m sure there’s a story behind it.  If you have an idea what it is, tell me in the comments!

I probably should go to bed, but I don’t want Hubby to get sick.  We don’t have a couch or a spare bed, so I’m just hanging out in my office.

I don’t think it’s just a cold.  I’m pretty sure it’s the flu.  As for whether or not it’s just the plain old seasonal flu, or the infamous H1N1, I’m not sure, but there’s a whole lot of achy going on.

(And now I’ve got Billy Ray Cyrus stuck in my head … my achy breaky head …)

Yeah, I think maybe it’s time to toddle off.  Night!

Summer is precious, especially when faced with a long, harsh Canadian winter.  Although it’s positively balmy outside right now, and the sun is shining, I know what’s coming.

When Hubby and I took Piper to the beach on Saturday morning, I ran over to these wildflowers to take a photo.  I have literally hundreds of pictures of flowers, but I was suddenly seized by the urge to “save” these ones before they were gone.

I was shocked to see that I hadn’t posted here in a week.  Just a lot on the go, I guess.  Between classes and the search for employment, time has just gotten away from me.

There were two hockey games this past weekend, with the Saint John Sea Dogs winning their home opener against the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles (or the Shrieking Tweeties, as I like to call them to razz my Caper friends), and then another victory against the Halifax Mooseheads.  So far the Sea Dogs are undefeated this season, having won four games.  It’s nice.

You’ll probably be hearing a lot more from me the next few days.  Any guesses why?  … Yep, that’s it!  I’m sick.  (Any minute now I expect the Guinness Book people to show up and award me the dubious distinction of “wimpiest respiratory system on the planet”.)  As regular readers of this blog know, cabin fever will quickly set in.  I’ll be looking for distraction and reaching out to the world via laptop.  Started with a sore throat on Saturday and now I’ve got a full-blown head cold to go along with it.  I knew I was doomed when I heard the girl behind me in class coughing and sniffing, and then I stupidly threw out her orange juice bottle after she’d left it behind.  So far I don’t think I have anything too serious, but with all of the H1N1 worries out there, it wouldn’t surprise me.  Oh well.  With my sniffly history and inability to get a flu shot (I’m allergic to eggs), it’s not a matter of “if I get the flu” each year, but “when.”  Better to get sick now than when I have a job I’d have to miss.

Bah — enough of that. 

University is going well and I’m settling into the routine nicely.  I’m understanding the work so far, and I’m really enjoying being surrounded by academia again.  I think I’d be quite happy working at a university, actually.  It’s all those books and all that knowledge in the air.  Generally speaking, people who are at university are the people who want to be there — not kids just putting in time because the government says they have to.

One thing for sure — I’m thoroughly enjoying not having to be the Cell Phone Police anymore.  That issue really was the final straw for me in the classroom.  Last year there was a period of about three weeks where I had to confiscate at least one cell phone each day, and half the time the kids wouldn’t just hand them over and be done with it, knowing they could pick them up at the office at the end of the day.  Half the time it would turn into a real hassle, with the kid eventually being suspended for defiance because of the fuss they’d kick up over my asking for their phone.  (You’d swear I was depriving them of oxygen.)  Nope — don’t miss the cell phone thing at all.

Well, I think I’ll go for now.  Piper is looking at me as if the sound of the laptop keys is disturbing her beauty rest.  We’ll talk again soon!