What's even better than being away and trying to catch up on all the stuff that should have been done before I left as well as all of my current duties/work? Getting sick and trying to catch up with said duties/tasks/responsibilities. Not like a cold sick, but have a lovely case of the flu, complete with nausea (etc.), fever, exhaustion, and an incredibly fuzzy head. You know the fuzzy head feeling you get when you start to get/are sick? Not so much fun. Also, not being able to eat much has also greatly hindered my productivity.
I felt great on Friday – did a bunch of errands including hand-washing my car. Ambitious, yes. By about 9pm on Friday I felt horrible again. Yesterday I didn't feel great either. Today, not sure if I have a fever, but unless my apartment is actually less than 55 degrees, which is not likely, I probably have a fever. And the nausea is back in full force. Back to pretzels, applesauce and vernors. Oh and popsicles. Full of nutrients, I know. I just can't handle much else right now. The bright spot – I lost all of the weight I gained in B'ham and New Orleans!
Also, I have some wacky rental insurance issues – they are cancelling my policy for some unknown reason. And of course, business hours are only between 8 -4pm M-F. And my PayPal account was hacked into, leaving me minus $700. Luckily the case was resolved today (yay for PayPal working weekends!) and I have my money back. Was able to read an article yesterday. Not much, but it is something. Going to try to read a couple more, integrate some of the research into my dissertation, and grade papers which I promised my students I would have graded by tomorrow. Wouldn't be a huge deal, except that I decided to let them redo their papers if they wanted a higher grade. Thus, I need to give them time to do that, and the semester is almost over. Yeah, that's biting me in the ass now. So if I don't complete them on time, they are going to be mad that there is not enough time to revise them. If I hadn't offered that opportunity, they wouldn't care if they ever got their papers back, just so long as their grades are posted on the website. Oh well, I have this conscious when it comes to teaching; I have a need to go beyond what is required and I have to do the best job I can, regardless if it causes me stress. Even though these extra things that I do rarely end up in the student evaluations, I feel guilty if I don't do everything I can realistically do to make it a good class, to give students an opportunity to succeed without being too lenient with grading.
I should really get back to work on my dissertation, at least for a couple of hours. And should try to grade at least 1/3 of the papers today. Those are my goals. Also, I'm hoping to eat some "real" food today too, but unfortunately it doesn't appear that this will happen today.
