In sickness and in health

NOTE: Due to time constraints from work and school, I will be dropping this down to one post a week on Mondays only. I would much rather have quality reflections and stories up here than rushing to get slipshod tales completed. Apologies, but life takes precedence. And now, on to the story!

     Looking back, this past week has been pretty dang unpleasant. My life was centered around being sick, and scheduled in between time to take medicine, time to attempt sleep, and time to doze off while getting not very much done. I got out of the house only twice- once to go to the doctor/ pharmacy, and once on Thursday when I couldn't justify skipping another class. For someone who usually likes to be doing or accomplishing things as much as possible, it was not good times.

Being sick

     To start off with an understatement, I don't take well to being sick. I'm the kind of person who tends to go from perfectly healthy to falling over ill, and I've never been one to take a lot of medication, so my reaction to any kind of drug is to become loopy and out of sorts. In the past, I've tried to just tough it out, but these days, I'm done fighting those fights. I'll save my energy for something that really needs it.

     This past Sunday saw me being sniffly and generally blah. I put it down to the nasty weather of the first week of school, took some sudafed, and went to bed. By Monday morning, I looked sufficiently horrible that I got sent home from work before I could spread whatever I had to everyone else. More sudafed, tea, hot bath, tried to go to bed early. I ended up staring at the wall all night, as the sinus infection started crawling down into my lungs and making my life miserable. I got up long enough to write letters to my professors asking to be excused from class, and tried for another couple hours to fall asleep, to no avail.

Loyalty vs selfishness

     One of the things I am really bad at in life is deciding when to call things quits. As I've noted before, I will give people second, third, fourth, and even 108th chances sometimes. The first guy I ever dated was with me for eight years; every year I'd re-evaluate how things were going and convince myself that while things weren't great, they were at least improving, and someday (that mysterious someday), it would all work out. What finally ended that relationship, even after he cheated on me multiple times and almost drove me to bankruptcy when I was 20, was him declaring his love for my sister (who wanted nothing to do with all this), suggesting the three of us live together forever, and then accusing me of not being supportive of him and his desires.

Off to a meh start

     Discovery: I'm not fond of writing first thing in the morning. Due to my crazy schedule, and my tendency to put things off to the last day but not the last minute, I realized that I will be writing today's post on Thursday mornings, rather than at night as per usual. Unfortunately, a number of things that have happened lately have really driven it home that I'm kind of a night person. Mornings usually take me a little bit to get going, and I don't tend to have strong opinions until I run into something that requires them.

      Which is not to say that I haven't had opinions this week, not at all. The first day of school, as per usual, was horrible weather: 14 degrees (plus whatever the windchill was) compared to the 50 it had been the week before, and is again today. Russian class was slightly intimidating, but all the extra work I'd done over break translating news articles and such really paid off. Dance class was fun, especially as I'd gotten new "dance sneakers," so my feet didn't hurt. All-in-all, it was a pretty decent day, with only one exception.

Blank slate

     Usually, when I sit down to write a post, I have something in mind. Either a recent event that I'd like to share for the laughs, or something I feel very strongly about for better or for worse. Despite the injunction to "make me laugh" from a friend for today's post, I find myself remarkably empty of ideas or opinions today. So instead, here's the chaos that will be my upcoming semester:

Oh those Russians...

     Sometime in December, my friend Rita invited me to a 'Christmas' celebration at her (Russian orthodox Catholic) church. She had written two plays in Russian for the kids there, and wanted to know if I would be interested in seeing them. Free Russian practice, food, and a chance to support my friends? Sure! Sign me up! All unsuspecting, I headed out there this past Sunday, with no clue what to expect other than crazy Russians and good food. And boy, did I get both.

     To anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of encountering Russian food, let me just say this: Paula Dean would approve. Everything is either cooked or soaked in butter, and while it has more vegetables than I care for, everything is absolutely delicious and filling as can be. Which makes sense, considering the weather out there and the need for stick-to-your-ribs food. They also tend to go heavy on breads/ starches, which I adore, and desserts are less sugary-sweet, and more honey-and-fruit varieties, and again, I approve.

The two stooges- my maintenance team

     When I first moved into my current apartment, I was thrilled to finally have my own place. It was the first time in my life I'd gotten a place without roommates, and I was tickled pink that I could do exactly as I wanted. Naturally, the excitement of having such a blank slate meant that I let a lot of minor inconveniences go, but as time wore on and I got accustomed to my own company, I started fixing up some of the more troublesome ones.

     One thing in particular that required some pretty speedy fixing was the shower head. I realize that, living in a hispanic neighborhood, I tend to be taller than most people here, but when I moved in, the shower head was literally at chest height. Very handy for cleaning the rest of my body, but absolutely heinous for things like washing my hair and face. When my parents came out this past summer, they helped me change the shower head out for one of those handheld, flexible ones. The height of the new head put the water coming out about 1" above my head- not perfect, but better than before, and I didn't have to kneel down to wash my hair. A livable situation, so I moved on to other projects.

No fun for tall people...

A revisitation on negativity

     Last night, as I was replying to a friends' post on Facebook, an unfortunate conversation happened with another person's replies, and left me in a kind of 'meh' mood. It's not that I'm feeling down or upset, per se, simply that it got me to thinking about this post that I'd done about people's attitudes and facing reality.

     To sum up what had happened on FB, the initial post was about the hope for Obama challenging an obstructionist Congress in the coming year. The first reply was a very polite one about the disappointment caused when the President signed the Defense Act of 2012 on New Year's Eve, which included a proviso for the government to seize anyone on suspicion of terrorism and hold them indefinitely without trial or due process. I'll admit, I'm not thrilled about it, but I decided it would only be fair to point out that it's not entirely Obama's fault, as that's the only version of the bill (which includes things like how to pay the military...) that cleared said obstructionist Congress, and perhaps more of the blame should be placed there.

Testosterone, utilitarianism, and estrogen

     As a brief interjection, Happy New Year's! Here's hoping that 2012 brings us better news than did 2011. That being said, on to the real thoughts of the week.

     Since I moved in to this place, almost a year ago, I haven't done much in the way of decorating, aside from hanging the few pictures that I had either brought with me when I moved away from my ex's place, or clocks that I had bought out of a chronic need to know what time it is. Moreover, since I'm living off of student loans and a recently-acquired part-time job, my budget for niceties has been, well, nonexistent. So I have the bare necessities for living, and that's about it. For a variety of reasons, however, I decided to get curtains for my bedroom this week, and that's when the trouble began.

Utilitarian, but pretty plain.