Well, I felt great yesterday until I got home and started feeling horrible. Horribleness continued through a restless night and two hours of oversleeping this morning. Am suffering from the now-familiar feeling that gremlins are creeping out from under the bed at night and beating my back and legs with baseball bats. Really wanted to make it through a whole pay period without sick leave, especially given my performance review tomorrow, but it was not to be. My only "consolation" is that my two closest work-friends have severe insomnia and small sleepless children, respectively, and are feeling about as rested as I am right now.

Preliminary analysis indicates that the cause of all this is that I am fighting off a minor cold.

I hate this. Disrupt my sleep and I'm not just tired and grumpy, I'm in horrible pain and fogged to the gills. I shed about 40 IQ points and lose the ability to make minor decisions. I walk slowly and with the cane, trying to minimize pain and keep from falling over. My productivity drops to near-zero. If I took a day of sick leave every time this happens I would be deep in the red, so I sit and try to work and ration my paid off-time for the days when I can't even get out of bed.

EDIT: And great, I got obliquely pressured into going to karate, where I was in so much pain I cried. And I was so addled going home that I ended up on the George Washington Parkway and couldn't turn around until fucking McLean, adding about an hour to my normally-six-minute trip. I'm going the hell to bed.

Why, yes, I am horribly ill again, how did you notice?

I'm completely out of sick leave and, while I'm allowed some advance leave, I'd like to save it as much as possible, given that I still have five four and a half months to go this year. Nonetheless, I am taking tomorrow off - in the middle of a highly time-sensitive project that I was nominally in charge of.

Went to Andrew's party last night and fell asleep after about half an hour; because he rocks, Alex drove me there and back so I didn't have to try to make it on my own.

I am so very pissed right now.

Okay, so first of all, I don't know if Swarthmore gets G4 on their cable package, but if they do, then we have to somehow figure out how to watch the beginning of Spaceballs: The Animated Series on Saturday night. This is Very Important.

Second, ( I am having the most ridiculously shitty month health-wise. )

In any case, I feel absolutely worn out, used up, ruined. I was so productive yesterday that I don't actually have a lot to do today, so I guess I'll finish what I can and maybe go home early and nap.

If I could sleep for more than five hours at a time without getting up for one reason or another. Because as soon as I get up, my body decides that no matter how exhausted I am, it must be time for classes, so I'm not allowed to go back to sleep. Then I tool around on the internet for a while, too groggy to be productive, and then I go on LJ and bitch about it. This is how I got four hours of sleep last (Fri) night, in rural Virginia and minus the internet, and how this morning I'm well on my way to settling for five. I was so exhausted Wednesday night that I slept for about twelve hours, but as soon as I had a little energy, the insomnia jumped right in to fill the gap again. This sleep thing is a relatively new development, seemingly set off by my 38-hour no-sleep binge of a week (two weeks? can't remember) ago, but it's sure annoying.

I can't wait for winter break, if only because it will let me stabilize my sleep schedule. Meanwhile, hooray for cranky lj posts at 6:30 AM! *raises empty root beer cup*

EDIT: And so, for the second day in a row, I am awake at dawn. Curse you, Yellow Face! You burns us with your lights!

I was really looking forward to sleeping last night, because it was a hard week and my eyes were sinking into my skull from tired. Of course, I had terrible nightmares all night and got virtually no rest. :(

Tomorrow Lisa is driving me to Petco to pick up a fresh batch of crickets, and we may sidequest to the anime store. Lots to do, lots to do. We're studying radiation in Electrodynamics - fascinating stuff, but it seems like it's near the end of the book for a reason. I guess I'll work it out in more detail tomorrow, assuming that I get any sleep at all. Argh. Goodnight, folks.

Terrible idea. Never again.

*hurk*

I want one.

( On power, pain and stupid architects )

[[4/17/09 - I still get these pain attacks (on top of the usual) but they're either not as bad these days or I'm more able to cope. Still makes walking around a bitch. I keep the happy pills close at hand.]]

This whole summer I kept saying that I had finally recovered from the last two semesters. I said it after two weeks at home, I said it after the long illness, I said it after the family reunion. But it wasn't until this week that the urge to create became so strong that I could no longer ignore it. The art projects, the writing, the natural urge to dance where I would normally shuffle my feet as I walked - they're back, they're back; my illness-induced clumsiness of the past month is gone, and with it the terrible cloud that had enshrouded my mind. I'm alive, so happy to be so, and creating, and every nerve sings with summer, and every breath is a shout of joy. I will soon own the new books by both autopope and Cory Doctorow, and I can't wait to read them.

Also, this morning I woke up early because I didn't need any more sleep. The mind boggles.

Now we're off to the flea market, if Jamison can remember where it is, and if indeed it really exists. Adventuuuuuure!

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Long-exposure camera + Fourth of July sparklers = awesome!
Philosopher Pokemon. Must be seen to be believed.

[[4/17/09 - ...Yeah, still miss that feeling.]]

I'd actually forgotten what it felt like to have energy. I had some this morning, before work, but now it's more like the possibility of energy, a newly-rebuilt vessel which remains to be filled. Blood sugar's low, I think, and I need to get some exercise. Not yet - I'm still coughing up the remnants of my immune system's latest battle with the outside world.

I want to run, to take a bike ride. I want to draw, to write. The last few days I've had snippets and smidgeons of songs popping to life in my head. My opera, after being stalled for over a year, suddenly contains new material and a new direction, more believable characters.

I still cough. My head and chest still hurt when I do. I'm not quite better yet, but like energy from the vacuum, imaginary particles, my soul is spontaneously regenerating its former level of life.

Reminds me why I enjoy living so very much.

War of the Worlds comic, for free, on the internet. Who could ask for anything more?
Fables from the Morning After - A Webcomic Without Pictures. *hearts* I'm only about halfway through the archives, but this is shiny. If you have a few hours over the next few days, why not give it a shot?
Unlike most of the "free" things available on the internet, this music is 100% really free. CommonTunes.org

[[4/17/09 - :( I miss having energy.]]

I have been using l33t/h4xx0r and IMspeak off and on for a couple of years now, not because my brain is a cesspool of rejected English, but because I found words like "ZOMGWTFBBQ", "4-EVARZ", and "LOL!!!!11!1!!!1on!!!1" to be absolutely hilarious. (Although the Cesspool of Rejected English can still be found far beyond the Forest of Obscure SF Trivia, which lies over the Moor of Imagination and across the Sea of Dreams.) However, I have noticed a certain tendency of late toward using such drivel in a non-ironic fashion, especially the insidious ZOMG, and whether it's the three+ days of illness, the fact that I have barely eaten anything in the last 68 hours due to a hyperactive gag reflex, or simply my Drive To Be A Better Person talking, I find that overuse has dulled their edge from "witty" to "tiresome" on the Elizameter. Therefore, I am for the moment striking all such words and phrases from my personal lexicon. However, I still believe that a certain level of profanity is required in order to remain a well-rounded person, and so readers of this journal will continue to be treated to words and phrases such as (in probable order of severity): "crap", "damn", "bitch", "screw", "shit", "fuck", "ass", "dumbfuck", "dumbass", "fuckers", "assholes", "asshats", "fuckmonkeys", "fuckmonkeynuggets", "Jesus McFuck", and "Belgium", as well as the usual florid garbage which hems in said profanity on all sides.

I have also noticed a tendency of mine to put the most important and interesting topics of my post in the middle or near the end of the entry, usually in a large block of text which half of my 2.7 readers probably skim right over. I shall endeavor to be kinder to my friends list in the future...

...But not this time. BWA HA HA HA HA! In spite of my carefully neutral post title, I do have an interesting anecdote to relate.

So, here is what happens when I bitch about a certain disturbing case of writer synergy on a Livejournal which is read by certain other writing-type folks ("Anonymous Weasels")(you know who you are): someone ferries it right over to the author in question and I get a friendly email encouraging me to write the novel however I want, and damn the torpedoes. Which is basically what I decided to do when I wrote said post nearly a month ago, but it didn't exactly have that ring of conviction about it. What the inimitable Ms. Bishop has done is take a huge load off my mind, because although some writers are incredibly defensive, she is the COOLEST PERSON EVARZ (*smack*) and will not send a ravenous pack of lawyers to eat my face unless, of course, my novel metamorphoses into a blatant rip-off sometime between now and whenever I actually finish it. Yay! She also likes anime, and illustrated the cover of the first edition of her own first novel, which lets me hope that I might someday do the same. So thank you, you awesome Anonymous Weasels out there, for reminding me that 1) The internet is a public place and I can't rely on security through obscurity forever, and 2) 99% of the authors I've met have been rather easygoing people, and so I should spend less angst on whose lawyers will get me first and more on the fact that in two years of college my vocabulary has actually shrunk. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually looking forward to a regular old vanilla English course this fall - if nothing else, it will give me a chance to exercise my writing brain and read fiction for credit again.

Stomach flu or something, rapid onset beginning around 9:00 last night. Barely slept. Wonder whether Carl thinks less of me for taking two Monday sick days in a row. Too tired to devote much angst to the subject. Been making the circuit of web-surfing, gagging in bathroom, and unconscious in bed all day. Fever and body-aches come and go, come and go.

Been reading back-issues of F&SF, Asimov's. Enormous and unconscionable gaps in quality even between stories on F&SF's part. Probably shouldn't say that too loudly, since it may become my favored market while I'm finding a style. Wonder where my latest issue of Locus is, considering that I received the last one before exams. Should go to Borders and see if our ICFA group photo is in the latest issue. And spend contents of $20 gift card found in basement and kindly donated by mother, although my bookstore shopping list runs well over that amount (the complete works of Karen Traviss alone will probably have me dipping into cash). I must be strong.

Remembered most of what I was trying to do in a story started over a year ago, and that its current direction in writing limbo simply will not work. Have to decide exactly what dead aliens wanted with heroine, or indeed all of humanity. Ideas set off by craptacular short in July issue of F&SF, so maybe the occasional shitty story isn't so bad after all.

My DeviantArt homepage reached 1000 pageviews on Saturday, which I think is an important step in spite of the fact that it took approx. three years to get there. The last five hundred were in the past couple months, which just goes to show that if you're active on DA and actually post art, people will want to look at it. News to me. Person on my watch list had one of her drawings stolen by a sixteen-year-old with a serious attitude problem: the thief will probably be banned, which is the right thing to do, but I can't help but wonder what sort of stupidity drives people to steal others' work when it's obvious that with a little work they could be as good or better.

Still pretty tired - may go sleep some more. Have to be better by tomorrow so that I can get the damn data sets started. You'd think that with a summer job as cushy as mine, I'd be able to perform it properly.

[[4/5/09 - Wow, I was already a Traviss fan almost four years ago? How time flies. Also, I miss making art. :( ]]

I'm sick. I'm really frickin' sick. I knew I was feeling more than just normal end-of-the-week tiredness when I wrote the last post. I think my lazy-ass immune system took one whiff of whatever was in that melting wire insulation on Friday and just took the weekend off. It was very sad to be unable to kiss deathbysnusnu on his birthday. However, we had a good time anyway, watching anime and G.I. Joe fansubs and The Real Meaning of Swarthmore, eating Quizno's subs and tira misu cake, reading Sandman. I wish I'd had more energy than just enough to toddle out to the water fountain and back every once in a while.

I'm tired, but not sleepy. I'm going to stay home from work tomorrow. I may still be running a fever, and my sweat smells like corpses. My face is burning off. I'm miserable in the distant sort of way which says Well, you've done this before, right? It was was really shitty for a while, and then you were fine again, right? Ignore it. The cat will have to wait until I'm able to care for it, and can speak to Valerie and Karen in person. Meanwhile, I'm working my way through Mary's Sandman collection. Up to Book Eight, though I'm too tired to read any more tonight. The lizards are much happier now that the weather's warming up. I'm not, as it means that the room will soon be hot and oppressive, and the crickets will have to move outside so they don't stink up the place.

D&D recap tomorrow, told once again from the point of view of my new character.

...student continues to crouch in corner with blanket over head and fingers in ears, humming the Katamari Damacy theme.

The physics/CS/math dept. picnic on Tuesday was nice, although the burgers were rather crunchy. deathbysnusnu and I hung out for a while and listened to Ben filk (my favorite: "Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide" to the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic"), then came home and attempted to work. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Tuesday night's movie was "Wizards of the Demon Blade", which sucked royally, although it was a Troma Team production so it had a certain sense of humor. We generally agreed that KISS was more fun to mock.

Yesterday I had my final "chat"/evaluation with Betsy, who asked me to list my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. I don't actually remember most of this, because my sleep schedule is going INSANE as I try to make up all the sleep I've lost this semester, and I probably wasn't very coherent at the time. She said one thing, though, which stopped me cold - she said she'd been noticing that I got sick a lot. I said I'd never noticed any such thing and tried to think back to how often I've been ill this semester - there was the bronchitis spillover from winter break, one or two instances of the flu, one of which was the Garnet Death (come on, EVERYONE had it), maybe a cold at some point, plus whatever I have now - is that abnormal? Is she mixing me up with someone else? Should I be worried about this, or is it just a side effect of living every day to the absolute hilt and never sleeping until I literally drop from exhaustion? Probably the latter, which means that I won't worry, since there's nothing I can do about it. Betsy's used to working with pansy-ass English majors (dodges hail of thrown objects from English majors) no, I mean the kind who aren't going Honors and aren't trying to collect enough credits for three majors by the time they graduate! Anyway, some people actually have time for unhealthily large amounts of sleep. So there.

The Phoenix will probably hire me for another semester of comics. I promise to build up a backlog over the summer so I'm not drawing them at 2 AM the night they're due.

Last night's movie, the last in the Schlock festival, was "Destroy All Monsters", a wonderful Japanese film from the sixties which took basically every rubber monster from every Japanese monster movie ever and put them on an island called "Monsterland". From which they subsequently escaped and, their minds controlled by aliens from the Asteroid Belt who all looked like beautiful Japanese women, began to destroy the world's major cities. There wasn't much monster-destroying going on - it was mostly the other way round. I fell asleep near the end (see above re insane sleep schedule) and woke up just long enough to go home, shower and pass out on the bed.

Just woke up. Have to do lots of Physics and study for Econ exam, which is in 24 hours. Out of crickets for lizards, need to find someone to make PetCo trip. Still sick. Want to cry until exams go away. Urggggh.

ban dihydrogen monoxide, before it kills us all...

[[10/3/08 - Okay, in retrospect it's obvious that I was pushing myself way too hard, but I didn't really know how to do anything else. Guess I learned my lesson.]]

This always happens. The instant I decide that it's okay to relax a tiny bit, my immune system reveals that it has thus far been held together with chewing gum and Sheer Force of Will (TM), and collapses with a lot of melodramatic thrashing about. This seems to be the semester in which I finally put two and two together and begin to figure out how exactly I've come to consciously anticipate and control my inner workings; but after a solid week of partial all-nighters I was of course completely unprepared for this.

Too sick to sleep, too groggy to be really productive. I thought this was just a cold, but it must be The Monster Cold On Steroids, because I was feverish all night (and probably all evening, I just didn't realize it). Got up around 7:00 to eat some food & take some drugs & vitamins, and have been mindlessly futzing around on the internet and writing the Monologue of Craptastic Delirium (see below) ever since. I downloaded a 47-minute Star Wars fanfilm called "Revelation" which apparently took 3 years to put together; as I have only the utmost respect for the people who go all-out to make really good amateur movies, I look forward to watching it sometime soon.

I remembered what I was going to say last night. ( It's actually a lot less interesting now than it was when I was really raving delirious instead of just tired delirious. This is mostly for my own benefit so I can remember my insane chain of logic for later amusement. Feel free to make fun of me. )

Sorry, this journal has been highly introspective recently. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program of silly links and fun things.

I should probably go back to bed.

EDIT: MUST...RESIST...BUYING...TALES OF ETERNIA SOUNDTRACK!


[[10/2/08 - ...What the hell was I smoking?]]

Bleh. Just as I was beginning to think that I had dodged the flu epidemic, I got it. Luckily, it hasn't cut down my productivity too much, though I've missed two classes and done a lot of sleeping instead of homework.

My last post made it sound like the world was ending, but everything sort of worked out. The lab notebook was turned in sort-of on time. Massacre went off well, though through a poorly-timed soup-getting venture, I was standing in the wings when the gangsters walked in with their cap guns, and therefore avoided getting shot. I can't remember - is "participated in Massacre, but was conspicuously absent at 6:00" a purity point? If so, I'm down to zero. Go me. :) Anyway, there's a sort of theatric irony in letting the junior waitress survive while the guests, the maitre'd, and all but two of the gangsters get mowed down.

Every once in a while it occurs to me that SWIL has some very odd traditions.

Tuesday was mostly finishing homework due Tuesday, going to lab, and falling ill around 9:30 PM. There was an interminable period during which deathbysnusnu and I both tried to make study sheets for yesterday's quiz while in a violently ill/exhausted state.

I took the test yesterday, reasoning that the more I put it off, the more I would worry about it, and the more I would fall behind on everything else. I think I did all right, perhaps even as well as I would have done normally. Skipped Fiction Workshop and instead checked into Worth and slept away the afternoon. After some extra-strength Tylenol and food, felt well enough to go home. Got very little homework done due to general befuddlement, but finally decided to address the laundry crisis by running two loads. I is productive! :)

This morning I skipped physics in favor of sleeping two extra hours. I'm already beginning to feel less miserable than I did yesterday, though that isn't saying much. Was going to lay out my class plans for the next two years last night, but slept instead. Guess I'll have to make something up for my sophomore paper advisor this afternoon.

Mmmm, Tylenol...

[[7/29/08 - I believe that was actually a purity point.]]

I'm tired of school. I'm tired of being tired and sick and in pain and worried all the time. Every time I set foot on this campus I am immediately and violently assaulted with viruses, injuries, a workload just barely manageable if I don't ever sleep or talk to anyone and just frightening if I try to have fun occasionally, and the tantalizing thought that there is so much more to life than this. Fuck you, Swarthmore, fuck you and the Quakers you rode in on - you are not healthy. Your food is shit, your non-science teachers suck ass, your healthcare "professionals" are well-intentioned but incompetent, your so-called "challenging" program of forcing less-than-brilliant students into a cycle of coffee, all-nighters, inflated deadlines and deflated grades and obsessive behavior, living in constant fear of being five minutes late for class or *gasp* less than perfect, isn't worth the bullshit on which it's based. I want to have enough free time that I don't have to worry constantly whether I'll still be able to squeak by if I watch some anime with friends once a week, or play D&D, or attend an occasional special event such as Renfaire. I want to be able to go to sleep at night without wondering whether I could have been able to squeeze in a couple more pages of class reading before my eyelids got too heavy to lift. I want to wake up at the crack o' noon on a Sunday and know that I'm a whole two days ahead of my homework, and that I'm allowed to relax now. I want to be able to sit down without immediately remembering something else I have to do. I want to stop being bitter and start being upbeat again.

All right, Swarthmore, it's been two and a half weeks, and I'm ready for my break now. You can give it to me anytime, I'm not picky, as long as it's really fucking soon.
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<.<
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>.>
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Oookies, now that that's out of my system, I will mention that I am sick, injured, and overworked. I have a bad cold, a sprained ankle, a relapse of this summer's illness, and a set of Java classes to write for Sunday (when I will be gone all day for Renfaire). Because people are dumbasses, two students in our Education study group spontaneously didn't show up, so now I'm wondering whether our teacher will blame me for suggesting that we ditch them, even though I just finished the reading myself. The phone at CVS is always busy, so I don't even know whether the pills that will make me marginally better are available, which means that I can't walk to CVS and get them, whine, whine, whine, bitch, bitch, bitch.

I can write this now because this is the least scary part of my homework week - I just finished my physics & education homework, we finished our lab assignment in lab, miracle of miracles, linguistics isn't assigned until Thursday, physics shop has no homework that I know of, and the Java is simply an ever-present spectre floating eerily around my head. No, I am not thinking of quitting school, as attractive as that sounds. I'm not even dropping a class. I am, however, disgruntled with the entire system of education as we know it. Why is college so stupid? It's like the further I go with my edumacation the more I realize that about 98% of everything I "learn" is worthless, i.e. dead and forgotten immediately after the test, unmourned by all. If I could just take those two minutes of each class which is vaguely interesting, condense them into some sort of super-class

public class Education extends Sucktacular {
public static final int learning = brain_hurts;

public static void main() {
if(class_starts < eleventhirty) {
super(Eliza, stress);
return scream;
else return sleep_precious_sleep;
}
}
}

and then skip that class, every day, think of all the learning I could do.

( Things I want to do in the next few days )

( Quizzes for your time-wasting pleasure, amassed during my only real spare time over the past week )

I apologize for the unbelievable length of this post. It will not happen again...this week.

we all write our own endings and we all have our own scars, but tonight I think I see what it's all about

[[EDIT 6/21/08: Yeah, this attitude would never actually go away for the rest of college. I am so glad to be out of there.]]

So I've actually been home for almost seven full days. I feel sort of silly for not posting until now, but there was a lot to do, there's a lot still left to do, and there were extenuating circumstances. Long story short - I'm going to miss Vermont, but...it's great to be home.

Slacked off for a while, worked on my paper for the KNAC symposium for a while. It's almost finished. Going to spend about 24 hours starting tomorrow at a lake house belonging to a friend of sorcerygenius' family. thrillho47, ephoenix, and sakusha will of course be there, and sorcerygenius will put in an appearance after a short stint in Pittsburgh. Afterward, intensive paper-finishing and packing to follow. My little brother's birthday is on Monday, so I have to budget some time for that. Jeez, school hasn't even started yet and my life's already speeding up incredibly.

( Unidentified maladies suck. )This evening, dragging slowly up to bed after staring blankly at the Olympics for several hours, I remembered that I used to check email quite a lot, and it might be a good idea to do so once again. Running my eyes down the list of new messages, I found one from Myrt Westphal, the college housing coordinator.

We got the Barn Double.

The barn double is this ridiculously large room on the second floor. Through a bizarre set of circumstances involving some people spontaneously transferring to other schools, the two people with perhaps the WORST housing lottery numbers in our entire school have ended up with the BEST room in our FAVORITE dorm at the LAST minute. I mean, ONE WEEK before school starts. IS that not NIFTY? :) So now I'm on the same floor as deathbysnusnu and too many other LJ/SWILfolk to list. This was, needless to say, enough to spring me straight from depressive to manic. I've been organizing, packing, and taking an actual interest in the Olympics ever since.

Incidentally, Diana Munz, a girl from my hometown who goes to my family's church and trains at my high school's pool with my eighth grade swimming instructor, won a bronze in the Insanely Long Swimming Event in which the participants traverse the pool about 16 kajillion times. Yeah, try taking a basic swimming course with an Olympic-level trainer and you'll know the full exent of PhysEd hell. There's a reason why my high school swim team is the best in about fifteen states. Anyway, GO DIANA! Whoo!

My family's fostering a new batch of kittens with their mother, Mia, a beautiful and personable Maine Coon-type with whiskers the length of my hand. We named the kittens last night - Zeus, Phoebe, Apollo, and Hermes. Hermes is my favorite because he looks like some kind of weird throwback - the other three have wide, cute little kitten faces, but he has this tiny hatchet-face alternately reminiscent of a rat's head or a skull. He looks a bit like a pure-white Siamese. He has a very penetrating stare even at four weeks, loves people, and is very curious and interested in everything. I think the other three are going to be great cats, but I think he's going to be one of those cool, eccentric "characters" - the kind I want to adopt when I have a home of my own to populate with furry creatures. Pictures to follow.

It occurs to me that I'm supposed to be getting up in about five hours. Come on, stupid internal clock - I've hardly slept in days, shouldn't I be tired?

Random Funny Thing: This is hilarious.

[[3/25/08 - Oh, Hermes. I still miss him, years later. I hope he went to a wonderful family and is even now sleeping on someone's face.]]

The virus is back, and about twice as bad as last time. Called in sick and got a ride to the ER again, since nobody else seems inclined to treat me. Now I have oral drugs and a pending culture to find out whether this is actually what they think it is. I feel like shit; that's all I really have to say about that.

( Naturalist Notes and Kingdom of Loathing fun )

tell me everything's not lost

[[3/21/08 - I had a lot of naturalist adventures in Vermont. I miss it often.]]

( I HATE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE SO MUCH, Take II (slightly graphic, super-long ranting) )

Feeling fairly shitty, but I have groceries now so all I have to do in the next few days is work, eat and sleep. I emphasize the work because I feel really bad about barely getting anything done in the last two days. I suppose it's just bad luck on my part, but I really want Prof. Steve to, you know, like me and appreciate my contribution. Is that too much to ask of the universe?

high above the mucky-muck, castle made of clouds

Hmmm. Remember that list from yesterday, which is technically still today? Seems I haven't done a single thing on it yet. When I regained consciousness, I proceeded to spend a good chunk of the day huddled in a cocoon composed of all of my pillows and blankets, shivering and in severe pain. Began hallucinating around three-ish, thought there was a giant penguin in a tank top and beach hat standing outside my window. Didn't say anything - figured that hallucinations go away faster if you ignore them - but it kept watching me, you know? I think I've had my freaky limit for the week. Fell asleep at some point, woke up when the ibuprofen finally kicked in. Penguin was gone...probably off opening a Linux con. I wish him well.

Feeling better now that I'm taking on average a gram every five/six hours. Mmmmm...drugs. The school's free painkillers now come in 10-packs, which makes me happy.

You know what I hate? Having so much work that it seems pointless to even get up tomorrow. It's like trying to stop a tidal wave with a snowshovel. Or something. Thought I could do stuff today, but with my brain slowly roasting over the fire of my innards and giant penguins and whatnot this day has been almost a total waste. Not much I can do except work even harder tomorrow. |^_^|

Tomorrow...tomorrow...I love ya, tomorrow...

QotD (Probably not word for word, but close):
mumbly_joe (to Matt): "I meant no offense when I compared you to Satan. After all, some of our greatest world leaders have many Satan-like qualities."

[[1/22/08 - The penguin never came back. Eventually I got better period-regulating birth control and stopped having fainting spells and pain hallucinations nearly every month.]]