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This is really getting ridiculous. Last night I had such bad ear pain that I drove to the emergency room. I felt like someone had shot me with a hollow-point bullet at point-blank range. When I was waiting for the doctor, my ear popped and all this fluid started coming out. The doctor looked at my ear and said I had an infection. He gave me some antibiotics and Vicodin. Then I woke up this morning, and my right eye looks like this:




Do I have pinkeye now, on top of everything else??? ***Note: This is not really MY eye. It's just a picture I found on the Internet. Sorry for the confusion.

Even though I am sick, I have just completed one of my seminar papers. Now I have one more, and a final exam, then I am dooooooooooonnnnnnnneeee. Gah. It's not as if I'll have that much less work to do once the semester ends or anything; I have a book review to write and a syllabus to design over the break. But, when I can take a breather, I can get more involved in the blogosphere again--the sector of it that I follow, anyway. I'm feeling pretty disconnected right now, but that's the way it has to be right now.

WHEN am I going to start feeling better? Here I sit, on a Friday night, while all my friends are at a party. I'm sneezing constantly, and each sneeze feels like a lawnmower going through my throat and eustachian tubes. My friends are making fun of me because when I talk, I sound like a completely different person--like Kathleen Turner meets Eartha Kitt meets hoarse cheerleader. What is going to knock this virus out? (The doctors did a throat culture and told me that whatever I have is viral, not bacterial, so no antibiotics. I just have to tough it out.)

Howard Dean says:

“We like to think that every child starts kindergarten with the same opportunities, but the truth is, some kids have great preparation and others have nothing,” said Dean. “By the time those kids start kindergarten, even the best teachers can’t make up for six years when a child was never read to, or never taught the alphabet, or never even saw a doctor.”

Word.

I am so low-energy lately. I partied waaaaaaaay too much when I went home--barely got any sleep. It was FUN though. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to finish everything, gah. I have a paper due this week, another next week, and then a final exam (that's not counting the two remaining weekly response papers for my Women's Studies class). Sigh. Time to snuggle under blankets with herbal tea and wage war on viruses and/or bacteria with herbs and vitamins.

Ah, here I am, falling behind on my work and having a great time in Florence, AL. I've been snatching little spaces of time to read Colonialism/Postcolonialism, but tomorrow, back to the seminar-paper-writing, gah. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

UPDATE: I am in such denial about all the work I have to do. The dread is sinking in as I prepare to leave for the Nashville airport at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow.

Love those simple pleasures...here are two in particular that have happened to me recently:

1. Several of the students who are taking my first-year composition class this semester want to take my speech class next semester. I'm honored. :-)

2. I just weighed myself, and I lost four pounds, probably from my recent trips to the gym. Excellent. That makes a total of eleven pounds lost since I started this weight-loss plan in early October. I'm telling you, cutting out caloric beverages and not eating late at night, combined with a little exercise, WORKS.

I'm so very busy grading. I don't have that many more to go, but it's tiring nonetheless. Plus, I'm getting my annual observation by a faculty member tomorrow. We'll be talking about writing abstracts. I'm not just lecturing about writing abstracts; I do have an activity for them, but I don't know if it will be one of those sizzling and swinging activities. Hopefully, they will learn something about writing abstracts from it, though. Anyone got any colorful, fabulous ideas for making abstract writing fun?

Edited to add that they're writing abstracts of their own research papers, not just a summary of something I'm assigning them to read...if that helps.