The Life Allergy

I am exhausted.

I don't know why, really. I mean, I haven't done anything exhausting. The most physical activity I've done in the past two days was go to Walmart last night, and even that only took me about 45 minutes or so at the most.

Still, this afternoon, I couldn't get warm. At all. It was actually warmer outside (62) than it was in the house (54) and it wouldn't get any warmer inside. I couldn't justify running the furnace when it was in the 60s outside, so most of the day (for some reason) I was unnaturally cold and uncomfortable, shivering, fingers cold and numb, the works. It was like I'd just sat outside in freezing temperatures for hours on end. After I graded all of my students' papers -- yes, all of them, in one sitting -- I went back downstairs, turned on the electric blanket, and went to sleep.

My body needed a "reset," apparently. I don't know how to explain it other than that. When I woke up, I was okay. Well, mostly okay, anyhow. I'm still tired. Not like, mentally tired (at least, not really) but physically, I-could-sleep-for-12-more-hours tired. I can't really explain it. I'm not sick; I'm feeling perfectly fine otherwise. I'm just inexplicably exhausted. And thirsty, too -- I must've drank half a gallon of water in the past few hours, though that's probably because I drink too much coffee (which is about the only thing keeping me awake right now).

I got up, made nachos for dinner, and watched two episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which I got the first two seasons of at Walmart last week for $10. I've fallen down the proverbial rabbit hole, there -- getting those two seasons on DVD was a huuuuge mistake, as I now want to watch the entire series...and there are now nine full seasons now. When I really like a show, I almost have to watch it beginning to end. I'm a perfectionist like that. I'm also at least a full season behind on most of the shows I keep up with via DVD releases -- Eastbound & Down, Archer, Breaking Bad (still have the last two seasons of that to watch), etc. As I mentioned, I don't watch TV, I don't have cable television, and I don't have Netflix. DVD sets are how I do it if there's a series I like, because while I do have Amazon Prime and can stream a lot of stuff through there, they don't usually stream the stuff I want to watch and I hate watching things on my computer. Thankfully, there aren't a whole lot of series I do like, so I don't have to devote time and money to a lot of different ones.

Anyway. I'm getting off track.

I feel okay now, I guess. I told Daisy that I think my fatigue and tiredness is my allergies messing with me more than anything else. Again, the warm-again, cold-again weather is brutal on my allergies until Kansas just picks a season and stays within the normal weather for that season. So, basically, for about six months out of the year, I'm just allergic to life -- to being alive. This isn't as bad as Daisy's allergies can get, though. She once asked her doctor what she was allergic to, and said doctor replied "Nebraska." My allergies just make me tired and make my face/head/sinuses hurt...and occasionally give me sinus, ear, or chest infections. Those are relatively rare for me, though.

I've been so tired that I've barely touched the 2DS today. I played it for a little bit this afternoon after I finished grading, and as I was falling asleep. I like it a lot, but it's rather annoying that it almost incessantly needs to be connected to the internet for updates and system upgrades and the like. If you turn off the connectivity feature in a game like Pokemon X, it still plays fine, but the game will bug the shit out of you on the lower screen to turn it back on. The problem with leaving it on all the time is that it drains the battery much faster.

However, it has a Youtube app. It has apps for Netflix and Hulu Plus (which, if I had those, would be awesome). You can buy games for it wirelessly through the eShop, and have said games download right to the system. The first one it suggested for me was Bravely Default, a game that basically everyone with a 2DS/3DS has been telling me to get ASAP, because I apparently have all the time in the world for gaming, right? Permit me to roll my eyes. It's only been with great self-control and great tiredness that I haven't played Pokemon X to the point where I give myself blisters on my fingers, but that's also because of the game itself.

The game itself is fun, yes, but the wholly-redesigned graphics and the 3D-styled character/texture mapping is somewhat of a pain. They perfected their styling of it with Generation V, and now they've completely changed it all around again for Generation VI, making your environment somewhat hard to navigate and hard to see all of it/what's around you. I know I'm missing hidden items simply because the game zooms in on you so closely that you can't see around you anymore. Little things like that frustrate me, as I'd gotten so used to the normal-style Pokemon games. But, again, I'm a nerd, and I'm also very particular.

I'm sure I'll get used to it soon enough. The game is fairly long -- I've been playing it for about 6 or 7 hours of in-game time thus far, and I haven't even reached the second badge yet. My team are all around level 25 or so. But, I've caught close to 100 different Pokemon, I'm guessing. The amount of them available to catch, both old and new, is staggering.

Anyway.

I graded my students' papers, as I mentioned above, and for the most part...they were all okay. I had some exceptional papers from each class, of course, as well as some really poor ones, but nothing out of the realm of "usual" amounts for both extremes. I've been doing this teaching thing for a long time, and I can tell by my students' performance whether or not they're "getting" the material and are able to follow directions. For the vast majority of them -- even the international, ESL students in my 011 class -- they seem to get it just fine. I'm more concerned that out of a nineteen-student 011 class, seven of them were absent on Tuesday night and didn't turn in a paper, and of those seven, six of them were those international students. I had to write a post on Blackboard yesterday stating that if you're not in class and don't turn your paper in on its due date...sorry, you get a zero, and you don't get to rewrite it. I wanted to add welcome to college, but I didn't; I didn't want to seem cruel. I have several students in that class who are about to fail outright for absences anyway with another missed class or two. When I did a raise-your-hands survey of the class a few weeks ago, I found that 90% of them can't drop the course and still remain full-time for financial aid purposes, so if they fail, they fail. I can't force them to come to class and do the work. The 102s and 210s don't have a problem with this, so it must be the whole "welcome to college" thing more than anything else, where students who don't come to class or do the work are bound to get a rude awakening one way or the other.

Midterms are coming up. They're right around the corner, actually -- the midterm date is March 12. While that's still two weeks or so away, keep in mind that two of my three classes only meet once a week, so it's faster than they may think. I've created midterm tally sheets for my 102 and 011 students tonight, listing all the points they have available and the number of them they need to get a passing grade on the midterm report...though doing so is just about pointless. Midterm grades at the university mean precisely dick, and they mean even less to classes in the English department, where something like 60-70% of the points for the semester happen after midterms, not before. They're just something the instructors/professors have to deal with, not the students.

Speaking of instructors and professors, I got an email yesterday from the payroll lady (the one who issued me my advance check, yet neglected to tell me that I'd have to get it deposited and not cashed) sending me a memo on the health/life insurance coverage for university employees and how that works. She asked me to look over the form and to tell her what my plans are (read: if I'm still going to be teaching here in the fall or not) so she can make adjustments to the policies.

The problem here is, of course, that I don't know what my plans are as of yet. I won't know until at least this time next month, more than likely, whether Daisy and I will be living in Nebraska or staying here in Kansas after the wedding, let alone know whether or not I'm returning to the university for another semester or two in some capacity. There's reasoning for all of this, of course, and once I have more information one way or the other (which should be available sometime next month), I'll be able to fill all of you in on what's going on. But, for right now? I'm sort of at a loss of what to tell this woman when it comes to insurance stuff. And I'm pretty sure she can't wait a month. My checks are small enough as it is; I can't really afford to have anything else taken out of them on a monthly basis, as the state of Kansas already taxes the everliving shit out of me (I've never seen higher personal state taxes than here in Kansas, where I lose about $100 per check to them every two weeks and barely get anything back come tax season). If I'm forced to get healthcare coverage, I'd much rather go local and get one of the free plans that basically gives me "liability" coverage, since I never -- and I mean never, unless I'm nearly dead -- go to a doctor for anything. Getting it through the university, unless it's provided for free since I'm a state employee, is just another tax on my paycheck for a service I'll never use. And I really, really don't need that. What I need is to be able to feed myself and the cats and keep the lights on, keep gas in the car, etc.

So I'm not sure what I'll do yet. I'll probably review the memo form she sent and talk to the administrator about it on Tuesday (if she's there and if she's not incredibly swamped with work to do, I mean), and figure it out then. This came out of the blue, really; aside from a few sentences of conversation about it last semester with the aforementioned department administrator, nobody ever told me any of this. As I told Daisy, "Nobody at the university tells you shiiiiiiiit unless you specifically ask." This is also probably popping up now as they've finally, apparently, processed my contract information for the semester. So we'll see what happens.

In other news, Daisy is readying the invitations to be sent out next week, and I'll get all of the ones for my friends and associates here (read: the ones which will be hand-delivered or stuck in mailboxes in the department) over Spring Break. I plan to visit Daisy for several days over Spring Break, weather and class workload permitting, so that I can not only get out of the house (and state) for a few days, but to see the parents as well. My monetary situation should be better by then, and I should be able to actually relax a bit and help plan more of the stuff for the wedding while I'm there, if necessary. As you may know, my Spring Break starts around 11AM on Thursday, March 13, and extends all the way through the morning of Tuesday the 25th, when I'll return to teach my 102 class. That's a twelve-day break, with plenty of time for a visit to Omaha for a few days as well as time to do any grading I'll have over that period -- I'll have to calculate and post all of my students' midterm grades, at the very least, over that time. It seems far away, but it's really not. It's barely three weeks. There's a lot coming up in those three weeks, though -- I have four more papers to collect from my collective students, two sets of journals to grade, and a lot of other little things to do in the meantime.

Tomorrow, once I get up, I'll be paying my bills. One of the main reasons I went to Walmart last night was to get stamps, as I only had two left and have at least three bills to mail out, including the rent. I'll probably also get my new electric bill on Monday or Tuesday, roughly, as I saw the meter reader checking my meter on Thursday afternoon after I got home. Bills come, bills go, as do paychecks. I'm just glad I can now cover everything with no real issue, and that my life can return to some semblance of normality again.

First off, though, I'm going back to bed. Again. I showered and did a load of laundry, and I'm no longer cold -- but I am still tired. I'm not planning to wake up until at least mid-afternoon; I have no reason to. Daisy's working her night shifts, and she'll be asleep until at least 7PM or so anyway.

So. Fare thee well, folks.