Sickened, Part II

Fall semester: day thirty-eight

Okay. Honestly?


October can go fuck itself. Seriously.

Traditionally, in the past, October has been my unluckiest month. That's not a joke; all of the worst shit that's happened to me (or people in my life) over the years, for the most part, has happened in October. I don't know why -- if it's the stars aligning a certain way, or what -- but October, generally speaking, ends up being hellish most years running. And, if it's not hellish, it's at least really strange and off as a period of time.

Let's see what's happened this month thus far:

September 30 (while technically not October, I didn't hear about it until the 1st): My youngest sister dies in a car crash.

October 1: Government shutdown.

October 2: I injure my eye with a pineapple, requiring me to wear a patch for 48 hours or so and to cancel my Thursday 101 class due to lack of vision. It's still not completely healed.

October 3-4: Daisy and I celebrate our anniversary, which, due to me not being in the best of mental states during this time, involved a lot of fighting and bickering back and forth. Most of the anniversary itself, though, was fine.

October 4: Sister is buried. I am unable to be at the funeral, for obvious reasons.

October 4-5: After arriving back home, Daisy becomes ill with flu-like symptoms that come and go. 

October 6: I learn that because of scheduling issues, students who have me for their 210 class will be taking finals during my first class, and/or having other midterm exams leading right up to its start.

October 7: I learn that I probably will have to postpone the first meeting of said class until the 17th because of this, which completely wrecks my lesson plan for said class and means I will have to reschedule everything. This contingency plan is discussed with the Director at length, who gives me the go-ahead to do so if necessary.

October 7, also: My car begins making a funny, low-frequency rattling noise.

October 7, again: Daisy begins developing an allergic rash along her collarbone and neck, with the offending allergy-inducing culprit unknown.

October 8: I begin to start feeling ill, with swollen lymph nodes and a possible low-grade fever for most of the morning.

October 8, also: Postponing my first 210 class becomes a certainty when two more students email me (after I've asked via Blackboard that they do so) to tell me they have a schedule conflict. First class is rescheduled for October 17. Director backs me up in my decision.

October 9 (today): Rattling noise on car is louder and more noticeable, even on the interstate.

October 9 (also today): Fatigued and in light cold sweats for most of the day, I put on a brave face and power through teaching my class on three-and-a-half hours of sleep, until I could get back home. I forget my 011 students' journals in the car, and have to go back downstairs to get them in the afternoon.

October 9 (also today): Daisy still sick. Rash getting worse. Daisy has problems getting the hail damage on her car repaired/paid for.

October 9 (still also today): My mother emails me to tell me that the family dog, while at the vet, was found to have a massive, inoperable tumor on his head/jaw and will more than likely not live much longer. Their options are to continue to medicate him and keep him relatively comfortable for as long as he has left, or to put him to sleep. He's fifteen years old. Parents elect to bring him home to let him live out what will likely be his last few days.


...This is nine days, folks. Only nine days.

I'm at a loss. Aside from the Chuck Palahniuk Q&A session where I got to meet the man, and the good parts of my anniversary with Daisy, the entire month of October has been a disaster -- much as it usually tends to be, for some unknown reason. I really, really am having trouble dealing with it all, but one thing is for certain -- I know better than to ask what else could happen? or something along those lines, because it's not like I need any more shit to rain down on me at this point.

On the plus side, I don't have to be on campus tomorrow night, sick and exhausted, until 10PM.

I made the judgment call to postpone the first meeting of my 210 class late last night, really. As mentioned above, I have several students who are dealing with exams (even though they're not supposed to be; the first eight weeks ends today); one of those students has a final exam up until the time my class starts, another has one during my class, and two others have big long-form midterms right before my class would start, which would force them to basically speed across town to get to my class on West campus if said exams take their whole class period. As that's a good chunk of my class, and as I don't have the time in an eight-week course to cover the same assignment twice, I postponed our first meeting until the 17th. If there are four, there were probably more who hadn't yet contacted me, and I wasn't going to attempt to teach to a mostly empty room, especially because A) I don't want to, and B) because I'm not a dick, and I'm not going to say "oh, you have a final? sucks to be you, class goes on without you." That's not fair to my students.

The Director was apparently going to be looking into the scheduling issue today with the registrar, because no final exams for first 8-week courses should be given after today, since the second 8 weeks begins tomorrow (hence why my class was supposed to start tomorrow night). It's a glaring oversight by the university, or at least by the professors teaching those classes. Students with big midterm exams, however? I can't help that. It's not their fault, or their professors' faults, that they have a long-form midterm directly before their second 8-week class is supposed to start. That can't be helped. I'm not going to force students to speed across town to get to my class on time and start learning something completely new and different right after they've just burned themselves out on an exam. What's the point there? Again, I'm not a dick. And, honestly, I really, really need the rest and decompression time afforded to me by coming home this morning after I'm finished teaching my 101s.

I've received emails since about assignments and the like, and those students just have to be patient -- we're in the middle of midterms right now, and before I can rewrite my assignments and schedule for the 210 class, I have to take care of the classes that I'm actually teaching right now. I told my students that I would be putting up their reading assignments and giving them their first assignment for 210 over the next few days. As it's fall break after today, they can just relax for a day or two while I sort things out, because I basically have to restructure a good chunk of the course to be able to compensate for not only starting late, but for being out of town over Thanksgiving week. The 210 eight-week class is a sort of "jump in, get-up-and-go" course, and with several snags in the schedule, I have to compensate for that. I have it in my lesson plans (and in the syllabus!) that I'll be gone over Thanksgiving week, but now will have to shuffle some things around in order to work it a little tighter.

Ooh, work it a little tighter. That's a sexy phrase, Brandon.

Ahem. Anyway.

In the morning I will teach my 101s, though there's little actual "teaching" involved; they are workshopping their second papers and I'm giving their journals back to them so that they can take home over break and continue writing in them. I collected my set of 011 journals yesterday, as mentioned above, but that's really the only pressing thing I have to get done over Fall Break, aside from entering midterm grades and rewriting the 210 lesson plan schedule. It's a rather light amount of work for the moment, the eye of the storm. When I return to campus to teach next week, I collect not only my 011's second papers, but my 101's second papers as well, back-to-back on consecutive days...and then I have to stick around campus until 10PM next Thursday night to teach the first session of that 210 course. On the plus side, I will more than likely to be able to grade through all of my 101's papers that afternoon before class that night, since I collect them that morning. This would be extremely helpful when it comes to actually having any free time the following weekend.

I get paid on Friday; it couldn't come soon enough. I have a few bills to take care of, including my Amazon Visa card bill, that I want to pay and be done with so that I don't have to worry about how much I'm putting on it in gas money. I was able to fill my gas tank this morning, and don't usually have to worry about it, but as I'm filling up every week, at $30-40 each time, it adds up quickly. I've barely gone over the halfway mark on the card's $400 limit (yeah, that's what it is) but I don't even like to use it that much, as it's not like I get paid a ton of money to be a lecturer -- which is, apparently, my official "position" within the department. It's a fancy title that really means "the lowest rung of the academic food chain, only slightly above GTA."

My eye is healing up a little better, I think. It's nowhere near perfect, of course (and much less perfect when I'm tired or in very dim/very bright environments) but it's getting better. As it's been a full week now, I'm beginning to wonder if my recovery has plateaued; yes, it's gotten much better over the past few days, but yesterday and today it's not been much different. What if it heals only to a certain point, and then stops? What if my vision in that eye will be, permanently, a bit blurry? I don't know. There's not much I can do about it either way. Sometimes it's incredibly annoying (mainly when I'm tired), but other times I've gotten so used to it after a week of seeing a little blurry that I don't even notice it that much. It's not like I can't function normally anyhow. I can still see to read and write (obviously) just like I could before, my driving isn't affected, my teaching skills aren't affected, etc. Like everything else, I'll just have to wait and see. Pardon the pun there.

As for my own "sickness," I don't know if I'm really getting something or not. Yes, I've had cold sweats a fair amount, and yesterday morning I'm pretty sure I was running a low-grade fever, but I'm not coughing or sneezing any more than my allergies would normally have me be, and I'm no more congested than I normally am. I don't really have body aches or anything like that...I just feel icky. I'm guessing a large amount of it has to do with my stress and fatigue. I'm still sleeping okay, I guess, though that sleep tends to be a lot shorter in duration during the week (as per the usual). Last night I went back to bed after grading my 101's journals and workshop copies and slept for an extra three hours before I had to get back up, and I felt no more or less rested than before. Since Daisy is sick too, and at least one of my close friends in the department (perhaps more) has the flu, I don't know what to think at this point. Daisy's sickness is more than likely allergy-related to a certain degree, though not seasonal allergies but an actual allergic reaction to something -- hence her rash. Most of my own sickness is just me being exhausted and twitchy, probably.