Still ill...and miserably so. I was meant to be working over Christmas, as my workplace doesn't ever close, but I visited the doctor again on Monday and he wrote me a note for one week off work. I thought I'd be feeling better by now. I really thought I'd be feeling better but I actually feel worse. Still, I don't have pneumonia: he told me my lungs were pretty clear. When I went to the nurse last week she didn't examine me at all. She asked me what was wrong and wrote a prescription for antibiotics. She didn't listen to my chest or take my temperature; she didn't even ask me to elaborate on my symptoms. Which by now have not changed. It feels like there's no end in sight and I'm never going to feel better.

So Christmas doesn't seem like such a big deal now either. I had a miserable coughing feverish birthday and even had to make my own birthday dinner...at least I didn't have to make the cake. I had to make my own cake for my 17th birthday when I was sick with the flu too. But my worst birthday was my 21st when I didn't get any presents or cards and there wasn't even enough dinner to go around and my friend's grandmother only made me a cake at the last minute because I began crying at her house...This birthday was nothing on that one! Except now I'm getting old enough that I don't really want to think about it any more.

Trying to end on a positive note...nope, can't think of one.

I am no longer looking forward with such great anticipation to my birthday. I have an illness of some sort which seems to just be getting worse. I thought it was just a cold, and maybe it actually is, but if so it's the worst cold I've ever had. It woke me up this morning with prolonged painful coughing. I've called in sick to work today and am visiting the doctor. Only the doctor won't see me because he's booked solid so the nurse will perform the inspection. Personally, I'm not entirely confident in her diagnostics abilities, but the receptionist told me that the nurse can prescribe, so she must know something. I told Partner I think I caught TB from the airport. Only I don't really think that because TB would really suck. Still, it is my birthday tomorrow and I don't want to be sneezing and blowing my nose into the wrapping paper, nor coughing on the cake.



We went to a party last week--the first party I've been to in ages. I only wished I had a new party dress. I did have a good time and learned some things about people I work with. For instance, I had a chat about CERN with a young man of 18. He told me he wants to do an internship there, and was amazed I knew what it was (my job doesn't require a lot of intelligence). We stayed very late at this party; Partner assures me I didn't commit any indiscretions; and I wore fabulous shoes.

I think I've adjusted back into the old time zone. I'm still staying up a bit later than I'd prefer and sleeping a bit later too, but at least I'm down to the old eight hours routine. I'm also sort of caught back up in my coursework, though I kind of skipped a lot of the stuff I was behind on. I'm mostly concentrating on my next assignments and the material I need to study for them. Once they are out of the way, I can focus on learning at a less frantic pace.

While at my parents' house, I helped my youngest sister with her pre-algebra homework. Luckily enough I had just studied the exact same thing about a month and a half ago, and I remembered it well. Then my other younger sister asked for help with her precalculus which I was happy to give--once my father explained it to me. Did I remember it? Hardly. But I understood it easily enough, so I think subconsciously I do remember it from my high school days. A lot of the mathematics I'm studying now are skipping from discipline to discipline. At the moment I'm studying matrices which I seem to remember studying when I took college algebra at age 16/17. But then when I studied pre-algebra, I was 12/13. My math history started with arithmetic, then pre-algebra, algebra I, geometry, algebra II, trigonometry and college algebra, and finally calculus. This math class I'm taking now seems to jump from each branch extremely quickly. If I had not studied all this previously, I think I might find it a lot more difficult.

And my software class, which is also an introductory course into the subject, is quite difficult. I had a very brief sojourn with HTML as a teenager, and a brush with Java. The HTML was easy to pick up. I struggled with the Java. And I'm struggling with the programming basics of this course as well. We're not studying a specific programming language but it's all so new to me I really have to concentrate to understand it. It's the course I'm taking the most time with and not skipping anything. Still, I am enjoying the challenge and I enjoy learning new things.
Just for fun, here's a video Partner took during our sojourn into the Narrows. I'm briefly visible in the shot, as is my mother. My father also pops in for a moment.

Having been home for two days now, I'm still in a state of deep jet lag. The first day home I slept twelve hours, last night I slept thirteen. Now that I'm back to my regular work schedule, I can't afford to sleep for so long. I'm just So Tired.

Yesterday we got our tree from the attic and decorated it. We have a fairy for a tree-topper, but most of the hanging decorations are glass baubles. At my parents' house, my sisters, mother and I made a tiny winter village out of cardboard. It was so sweet; I'd like to make one for me. Of course, I don't actually have the time for it. I'm behind two weeks in all my coursework and I have big assignments due at the beginning of next month so I can't really drop everything to work on frivolous projects... Speaking of which, I bought two new patterns at a thrift store at my parents', both never before been used, both for fifty cents. And I want to make them. Plus I bought some cute ribbons at another thrift store and some small double-pointed knitting needles for my sock pattern. Too many projects, not enough free time. There aren't really second-hand sewing notions available here, and new ones are so expensive. Besides, the second-hand ones are always a fun surprise. I wish I had more craft/scrapbooking type things like colored paper, rubber stamps and ink, fun scissors, glitter, rick-rack...