sick – Imaginary Sunshine

The end of something, the start of something

Michelle — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 05:48:01 +0000

The past week or so has been a bit of a whirlwind. I got sick, for starters. Don’t ask me how. How does one come down with a cold in the summer? It defies logic (even though, the biology student side of me is chiding me for thinking that a ‘cold’ has anything to do with actually being cold). I had a really good last week at work. They’d finally hired someone (who was actually recommended by me) to fill the empty position and to, well, replace me! So I had 10 days to train her, get her up to speed. Luckily all the little things that she needs to be able to do on her own after I’m gone from there came up so she got a chance to watch me do one and then do one herself.

Tuesday (30th), two of the salesmen treated me for lunch (got permission to take me out and everything). They joked about how I was going on a ‘double date’ and how when I go and retell the story to my friends at school, I’ll be making them both at least 20 years younger. It was good though, I did like the sushi! I was feeling a little bit under the weather by Wednesday but overall still pretty okay. I kept on ‘catching’ people writing in a card. It’s pretty obvious when they were because another person had left to relocate (still working for the company though) and the card was transferred from office to office via a plain manila folder. It’s easy to tell because they keep on reusing the same folder and someone saw me and quickly closed it. Yeah, I knew what they were doing.

Thursday my voice was half-gone, but still useable (heh, useful for answering phones). The fire alarm was pulled Thursday morning though, and there had been a fire at work. A normal fire is worrisome as it is, but an industrial fire is very worrisome considering the chemicals and the type of company that I work for. The smoke that was going up into the air was pitch black at some instances and then (due to what was burning) yellow later. With my stuffed up nose, I couldn’t smell it but I knew (from experience) that it was disgusting. My primary concern was smoke inhalation for my coworkers that were closer to the fire. First thing I had said to the VP when I saw him after the fire was put out and we were back in the building “How are you feeling? Did you get checked for smoke inhalation?”.

My coworkers surprised me with a small pizza party (how sweet!) and they gave me the card that a lot of people had written really nice things in along with (!) a company jacket (it’s a little big on me, and I’m not going to grow into it like one of my coworkers had said) and a gift card to Staples (I jokingly said that I’d be using it to buy nice pens for school – which I ended up doing on Saturday). It was fun though, everyone cracked jokes about me. I think even though everyone that was there said that they expected to see me back next year, I think they also know that there’s a smaller possibility of that now that my graduation is slated for next spring/summer. Obviously, I’d have to see – but I don’t know. That company has been my summer ‘home’ for the last six summers. They’ve watched me grow into the person that I am now. And it’s comforting to know that it’s there and they want me back, but at the same time… That company is the only company I’ve worked for, despite their change in name. At one point, someone commented how when I first started (2006), I wouldn’t talk to anyone and then (and several people said this) “Now we just can’t get you to shut up!”. They kid, mostly. I am a bit more talkative now, but I’ve also grown out of being as shy now, at least I hope so!

Friday was a very relaxing work day, despite my coughing fits. I went out for dim sum with three other salesguys as they wanted to treat me out for lunch. I got the pleasure of ordering and they were a little concerned (while they’d all been to dim sum before, they never went with someone who really ‘knows’ the dishes well). I ordered a few things that none of them had ordered before – luckily they all enjoyed it! Work went well, hugs were exchanged. I handed out a few gifts (hat for E’s daughter – as promised by a little work bet; baby hat for unborn baby boy for C’s future offspring; some small gifts for the girls that I’d worked with all summer long) and got a few more gifts in return (t-shirt, in men’s Large…?, that’s a company shirt; E got me a good-bye card and super cute pink cat stuffie, picked out by his daughter).

Friday night I was just awful. I ran a fever up to 102F and ended up mildly delirious (according to my sisters). We had no Tylenol or any other medication for fevers in the house so they had to run to the pharmacy to get some for me. I was cold (but hot at the same time) and ended up going to bed at around 9pm that night. I woke up Saturday feeling a lot better but still with a fever of 100F. It’s amazing what 2 degrees lower will do for a person. I was fever-free by mid-afternoon. I went out with my family for lunch, went grocery shopping, I also bought new pens from Staples for school (thank you, work). Today, I feel a lot better thankfully! I’d been doing a bit of cleaning and getting things ready. My backpack is all ready for my first day of classes (well, all I put in was some paper, a clipboard, pens and a chocolate bar – what else does a student need?).

My anticipated next post will be either about my first impressions of my professors for my first term of my fourth (technically fifth, officially fourth) and final year of my degree or about a certain someone, whom I love dearly.

Masquerading as a pharmacy

Michelle — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:03:59 +0000

My purse (lovely thing that is) looks like a walking (but not talking) pharmacy. And I don’t mean that in an illegal sense.

Of the medication/pharmaceutical variety items in my purse today:

Advil Cold & Sinus – took 2 so far today
Generic ibuprofen – took 0 today
Cepacol (cough drops – honey lemon) – took 1 today
Tylenol – took 0 today
Aleese – took 0 (so far) today

How much medication does a girl need to carry around with her? Obviously a lot.

Of the non-pharmaceutical variety items in my purse today:

mp3 player (Creative Zen Vision: M – poor baby is having issues holding a decent length of charge, it may be time to search for a replacement…)
camera (point-and-shoot Sony – very helpful to have during my labs!)
two pens (purple and blue – the rest of my writing utensils are in my backpack)
pocket mirror
extra hair ties (erm… probably like 20 of them, hah)
comb
lip balm (one is honey rose flavoured with glitter, the other is lemon flavoured with 30 spf)
tissues (unused)
gift cards (2 for Chapters, 1 for Starbucks)
bottle of water

Because, you know, I really need to carry so much stuff around with me all the time. I usually don’t carry all that much – most of the medication was just added into my bag last night/this morning.

What do you carry in your purse?

I am a sick, sick individual.

Michelle — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:18:21 +0000

One of the schools that I applied to for their nursing program sent me a letter with this quote which made me freak out a little:

This letter is a final notice that important communication(s) about your application, registration or grades is waiting for you at [URL], the website for [insert school name here].

Guess who didn’t set up email forwarding from this school’s email to an email that actually gets checked? I did that (now). There were 55 emails waiting in my school email (for that school) which had the exact same things as the letter than I got. Final notice! Turns out it was a ‘communications’ (non-email? What the fudge?) about how that they’ve gotten all my transcripts and additional documents (which were hand delivered) and that my application is now considered complete and is being considered for enrollment. <- That’s what I like to hear. You should have heard my dad. “Why are you getting mail from [school name]? I thought you’re going to [current school name]? You are only allowed to go to [current school name]!”. Then I reminded him that the other school also has a nursing program, so it’s really for ‘backup’ purposes.

Oh fudge, I’d hate to see his reaction when I get mail from the local college I also applied to.

In other news, I’m sick. Last night, I sat down at the kitchen table to take some cough medication and my sisters were both like “Why don’t you just stay home tomorrow?” My reply? “Got a math midterm tomorrow.”

And honestly, I should have just stayed home. I got a migraine near the end of my first class (right before math!) and the migraine made sitting in a very cramped lecture hall (holds ~200 people – all seats were taken) coupled with bright lights very uncomfortable. Half an hour into my midterm (the midterm was only for 50 minutes), I couldn’t focus on my paper anymore because of my head. I knew that the paper had a formula and I knew how to compute the equation, I honestly did. But I’m afraid I didn’t do too well on that midterm, mostly because I just could not focus. Pounding headaches suck, seriously they do. I’m currently sitting in my bed, with three blankets over my lap and around me and I’m going to have some soup after finishing this.

All I want for Christmas… is you

Michelle — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:37:43 +0000

I spent an hour today attempting to teach my friend how to knit and purl as she decided a little while ago that she would knit her boyfriend a scarf for Christmas. Actually, let me amend that: she wants to knit a scarf that is ~30cm wide and ~6 feet long. By Christmas. So ~6 feet is ~72 inches. She got two rows done today, in an hour (because her scarf is so damn wide), which is about… a third of an inch. Meanwhile, I was crocheting away and then wanted to know why my project (a hat) was going so much faster than hers… Perhaps because I know what I’m doing? Because I know how to read a pattern? Because I’m not knitting and dropping my stitches every few seconds?

My sisters been asking me for Christmas lists already… And then they reminded me that it was December already. Argh. That being said, I’ve bought all the ingredients that I need for my cookies this holiday season. They’re going to be very sprinkle covered and embedded with sprinkles, yum. Just need to have time to bake (and bake and bake and bake and bake and bake!) cookies so I can package them up to give away (or eat…). My mom came home yesterday and someone at work asked if I was sending cookies to work again… She remembered the question as “Is what’s-her-name sending us cookies again?”. So they remember my baking, but not so much my name, tear.

Been having a sore throat the last two days.. Which really sucks. I was meaning to attend a review session for my organic chemistry class, except it’s from 5pm-8pm and I was not feeling well today. I got off class at 1pm, and I just couldn’t stay the entire time to wait for the review session to begin – I really wanted to go, but I wasn’t feeling well. Plus, they were going to go over the practice finals that are up online, and they go over exactly how to answer those questions… But I haven’t tried those practice finals yet, and I know if I had gone and just copied down whatever they wrote down, I’d barely give those questions a second glance. So I guess it’s a good thing that I hadn’t gone – makes it better for me to actually do the work.

Only two more days of classes. Crap.

Which, of course, means that finals are coming up… yay? But as soon as finals are done, that means it’s time to relax…. before the next term starts. Mmm, time to bake and time to craft – I can’t wait.

Questions:

What is something material that you want for Christmas/Hannakuah/whichever winter holiday you celebrate?
If people were to donate to a charity in your name, which one would you want people to donate to?
What is one thing that you like about the winter holidays?

My answers:

A Blythe (Ice Rune…), or books, or sock-weight yarn, or more knitting needles in more sizes.
Probably Room to Read or WWF.
Snow on Christmas Day, Boxing Day sales (because I’m absolutely crazy at times) and copious amounts of hot chocolate.

You’re doing it wrong.

Michelle — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:04:48 +0000

Why do I know people like this?
I’m officially friends with the biggest idiot that I have ever met. Officially. Now, I was friends with her before, but I never realized how little things clicked together in her head. Why is she an idiot? (And no, it is not the person who landed herself in the hospital for overdosing on caffeine!) Because her favourite method of contraception is using Plan B. Which costs between $30-40 per dose, depending on the pharmacy. Plus her boyfriend has only paid for it once. And she’s used it 15 times (she’d previously said 17, then clarified it with the BF and gave me a call so I wouldn’t think that she was stupid or anything). I mean, really? She’s a biology major and has taken a human anatomy and physiology class and so she knows things about half-lives and drug absorption and the effects of high dose hormonal drugs on the body. And she thinks that Plan B is a lot “healthier” than going on the Pill. It was laughable. Really, it was.

And also like this…
Also, in the running to be one of the most hilariously silly people that I have ever had the pleasure (displeasure?) of knowing… The girl who did consume way too much caffeine? She saw me today and started asking if she could take a “look-see” at my biology term paper (due on Wednesday) because she has the exact same topic and wasn’t sure how she should go about writing the paper. Erm… Yeah. No thanks. I politely informed her that I’d have to decline on the idea that I didn’t feel like screwing myself over academically. Honestly! She then decided to tell me that I was being “selfish”. Like that was going to make to me really want to let her read my paper (read = copy). No, thank you!

This is how you know that you’re not feeling well…
You walk into your house. Lock the door. Toss your backpack down and your jacket. And then you promptly decide to fall onto the couch and curl up in the fetal position and fall asleep while watching television. Yeah, it was a great moment. I’m not feeling well… How could I describe the ways? However, I checked out my symptoms with the H1N1 symptoms. No fever, just not feeling well. Pretty sure it’s one of those 24-hour bugs. But still not feeling 100%. Feeling a lot better though, right now. Currently sitting in my living room with organic chemistry problems and a cup of tea and my laptop. Mmm, tea.

“Good” morning…?

Michelle — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:38:57 +0000

Today’s blog entry is brought to you by the number 100.9. Which also happens to be my current temperature (in Fahrenheit, of course – I’m pretty sure I would no longer be capable of brain function if my brain was boiling in Celsius – 100.9 F is about 38.3 C. Normal body temperature is 98.2 F and 36.8 C).

Needless to say, my heat-addled brain allowed me to sleep through my alarm at 6am. I didn’t get up until a lovely 8am and my first thought was “Mmm, is it only 8?” and then it was “Fuck, it’s Tuesday, isn’t it?” Of course, it is Tuesday and therefore I’m all like “… I have a lab today, don’t it?” which turned into “I was supposed to be at school by 9am…”

Granted, I had a quiz (worth 15 marks, not much in the grand scheme of things) and I needed to hand in an assignment (worth more, in the grand scheme of things). I got to school at around 10am. Obviously, everyone was gone at that point as there was only a quiz today. So I shoved my assignment into the box then toddled over to the library where I staked out a table (where I am right now) and have all my awesome organic chem models out (shall take a photo later) and I’ve sent off this really pathetic sounding email to my TA (we had a sub today, or else we would have started at 11am and then I wouldn’t have been late – I’m silently cursing him for being away this week) and basically explain that I’ve been sick and therefore been really tired and sleepy and, silly me, didn’t get to school on time but I would really appreciate it if he could pretty please accept my assignment as-is (as it was, technically, handed in during the time that my lab is scheduled, so technically it’s not late) and that I’m, of course, sorry for the inconvenience and promise to never do it again.

I don’t think that I’ll get a reply until at least a few days from now. But that’s okay. I’m patient. And it’s been handed in (I even tracked down my biology prof, who was down the hall, and got him to sign the corner and write the time that I handed it in, with the date, just to verify).

Now I’m going to be awesome and be productive. Not sleep though, as I’m not sure if I’ll sleep through my alarm for my chem class or not…

Edited at 7:24pm, same day

Hey Michelle,
Can you come to the Thursday lab at 9am? I’ve CC’d [Substitute bio lab TA’s name here], the TA covering for me, so she knows you might be there. Email us both to let us know if you can make it then. Otherwise you won’t have a chance to make up the quiz.
[Awesome bio lab TA’s name here]

Have I mentioned lately how absolutely awesome and wonderful my bio lab TA is for this term?

Delirious crafting is not fun

Michelle — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:35:22 +0000

Thanks to everyone who wished that I get well soon. Last night, I think I went to bed at around 11pm-ish, and then woke up briefly around 4am and didn’t get back to sleep until around 6am-ish. Then I woke up again (because someone woke up me for lunch near noon). Oh, and having to move clocks forward an hour really screwed me up this morning because I needed to turn my cell phone off and then back on again in order to get the time change, but I had my laptop on before I did that, so I was looking at the laptop time and getting so confused.

And just a few things that I’ve learned while being sick this weekend:

It is not a good idea to do any form of bead crafting as you will leave beading needles on your bed and you will end up with one in your leg (or arm, or hand) while sleeping and wake up in pain because you just jabbed one into your leg.
It is also not a good idea to crochet anything, because when you’re slightly loopy (or more than usual, whatever), you end up with horrible tension and have to take out the last five rows that you did.

In other words: crafting in general is a bad idea. Even if you’re absolutely sure that you’re perfectly well enough to handle it. Because you’re not. Because you end up with beading needles in your leg, or a few rows of single crochet to undo.

That being said, I also got some great life lessons today from my mom. I’ll type them up later when I can actually think about it without laughing too hard.

I’m sick (still).

Michelle — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 04:25:19 +0000

So far my day has consisted of: waking up, eating breakfast, going out shopping, coming home, eating lunch, the internet, sleep, sleep, sleep, eating something that resembles dinner and then drinking lots and lots of water.

And now I shall go back to sleep. Have a good day/night and have an excellent Sunday.

A bit ill

Michelle — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:29:18 +0000

@ Shola – I had password protected posts pre-outing myself, so it’s not like they’re new or anything.

@ Lauren – To be fair, I’m sure there are 13-15 year olds who look like they’re 18-20 so they think that it’s okay. Because, you know, ‘age is just a number’. That being said, I could be mistaken for being under 16, so I don’t know where I fall in the whole scheme of things.

Anyways, my opinion on the ‘sexting’ thing (wow, that word looks lame). Sending photos to random strangers when you’re a minor (in all countries concerned) is a no-no. Sending sexually charged text messages to your boyfriend/girlfriend is good to go and you have my full stamp of approval. Provided that neither of you are minors in whichever country that you’re from. Or whatever.

So my biology exam. Biology, biology, biology. Why must you fail me? Of course, I’m sure it doesn’t help that I’ve been around really sick people all week long (thanks, mom and dad!) and then I woke up this morning. I was pretty okay. Had my breakfast (toast, strawberry jam, banana, tea – for all those really curious in my food intake), started reviewing my notes. Noticed that my throat hurt a little bit, but didn’t think that much of it. Wrote an email to volunteering to inform them that I’m not going in tomorrow (due to the fact that I’ve been around people who are sick and have gotten coughed and sneezed on, and have touched things that have been coughed and sneezed on). Had a bit of a headache, went to school. Studied some more, had a noticeable fever by the time my chem class ended. By the time I finished my biology midterm, I wasn’t feeling that great, pretty sure that I had just failed (but luckily my midterm is only 10% of my final grade!) and had a fever.

Ugh. So now I’m home, pretty sure that I failed, plus not feeling that great. But… I don’t know. I can’t bring myself to do anything productive. I’m waiting for my parents to be done watching television so I can watched my recorded programs (mmm, General Hospital…). Plus, I have soup! Vegetable soup (canned, has those little alphabet pieces in them – I’m currently trying to spell my name but I can’t find any C’s!) is really nice. And makes my throat feel a bit better. Which is always good. But I can’t really spell out my name without a C… Maybe I can get rid of the middle bit of an E and just call it a day… Or get rid of parts of an O… Or a G… Decisions, decisions.

I do apologize if I seem a little disorientated today. I blame it on not feeling well.

Questions:

What’s your favourite canned soup?
What’s your daily caffeine intake look like?
What sort of words have you tried to spell out with the alphabet pieces that come from soup (or cereal)?
Name one thing that you’ve done with your cell phone that you would not want your parents to know about.

My answers:

When I’m sick, I like vegetable (like right now) with the letters. When I’m not sick, I like cream of mushroom.
If I have time in the morning (and I rarely do), I’ll have a cup of tea. I usually have one after dinner. It’s 1 tea bag (orange pekoe), with 1-2 spoonfuls of white honey and enough evaporated milk to make my tea a few shades darker than my skin tone.
My name, names of my immediate family members, names of countries (I’m a geek, what can I say?).
Ahem. I’m going to quote something that I wrote near the beginning of my entry now. “Sending sexually charged text messages…”.