Mediocre Man vs. The Black Lung

So this whole head/chest cold is still lingering around. I can honestly say that I haven't managed to get more than 2-3 hours of sleep on any given night since the Friday before last (3.12). I am beyond exhausted and it would seem that I have built up some sort of tolerance for NyQuil as my last few attempts to put myself into a coma were rather fruitless. Last night I couldnt stop coughing so after my beloved went to bed I ended up staying awake watching TV in the living room. Undercover boss turned into Cold Case which turned into a 2 hour National Geographic (I refuse to use its new, hip moniker "Nat Geo" as I find it fucking lame) documentary on the terrorist attacks of 9/11. After that much needed pick-me-up *sarcasm* I tried crawling into bed but found myself on the verge of hyper-ventilation due to trying not to cough and wake up the aforementioned sleeping beauty. In the end I decided to curl up on the futon in my office so I could comfortably cough myself to sleep... which did finally happen at around 5am. My love woke me with a kiss on the head at around 7:30 and the coughing and the difficulty breathing, talking, and being my usual sun-shiny and chipper self commenced.

On the plus side, if this coughing persists I will have some rocking six-pack abs to take to Jamaica in October! 

I spent the majority of my day doing as little as humanly possible at work (with the exception of researching sources for my next paper and writing my 2 page reading response which is due this evening). I decided that due to this affliction that I would likely be a hindrance to the rest of my class. I emailed my professor and asked her if it would be okay if I dropped off my assignments and then went home to scare the cats off with my throaty bark.

For your amusement, below is the email I sent to my professor. She got a kick out of it and excused me from class with instructions to just email her my assignments.

Good afternoon Liz,

As you may be aware I was a bit under the weather last week. Whatever this odious illness is that has entrenched itself in my lungs is proving most pernicious and has taken to making my life quite miserable. As a result of this unceasing malady I have developed a touch of bronchitis and am nearly incapable of taking a deep breath without falling into a fit of coughing. I don't believe that I am contagious at this point but I fear that my presence in class will cause a distraction as I seem to have a quivering need to cough nearly every 30 seconds or so. I have tried massive quantities of Robitussin, expectorants, suppressants, and bronchial inhalers and nothing seems to quiet the beast.

Of course, all of this is probably a massive over-share and for that I apologize; my loquacious nature tends toward the realm of excessive verbosity in my written communication. My point in all of this is to ask if it would be okay with you if I just stopped in tonight to hand in my reading response and show you my source cards for the argumentative essay and then check out? I don't wish to disrupt the rest of the class with my cacophonous coughing, nor do I want to risk infecting anyone else with this cursed affliction.

I will (unfortunately) be in work until 5pm and will endeavor to check my SNHU email often until then for your reply. I apologize in advance for having to miss class -- it isn't something I do lightly.

Kindest regards,

~V

Mediocre Man vs. The Pernicious Malady

Sometime Friday past my body was taken over by a most pernicious malady. My throat has been on fire, my chest a gurgling mess, my sinuses alternating between completely dried out and running like a faucet, and my mouth, as a result of the sinus conundrum, feels like a camel has taken to using it as a latrine.

I am currently on my second bottle of NyQuil (generic Walgreen's brand). I Find that using the little cup is a futile endeavor and that the best results are gained from simply slugging away at the bottle until you achieve that fun, floating, happy feeling. Saturday evening I chugged down the remnants of bottle 1 (even going so far as to add a little water to the bottle so I could get those elusive last drops) and plunked down to play some WoW. Well... about half an hour in I passed out sitting up. When I woke up not long after, my pixelated avatar was in the corner running into a wall. That is the "fun zone" of NyQuil!

In addition to being invaded my phlegmy little aliens I have also been contending with English 121. It is amazing how easily a little procrastination can snowball into a total clusterfuck. I didn't get as much (i.e. any) of my homework done over the weekend as I would have liked as a result of said odious infestation. My first paper was due last night (Wednesday) and I didn't sit down to really write it until Tuesday afternoon. It was, in my humble opinion, a steaming pile of bullshit... hopefully the professor wont notice.

For this weekend I have to read 3 chapters, write a 2 page paper in response to those chapters, start researching for my second paper, and start researching for my midterm. Man, this chick likes to pile it on! On top of all that I am working a few hours this Saturday and next to get ahead of the whole "clean up in order to close up." After work this Saturday I will be heading into Portsmouth for a lunch/cram session with my favorite classmates at Popovers.

The worst part... It's supposed to be in the 70s and sunny all weekend and I will be spending it studying and working. Whose idea was this whole going back to school thing anyway?

Mediocre Man vs. The Darker Matters of the Heart

It has been a few days since my last post. I don't really have an excuse other than that nothing of particular noteworthiness has occured since then. I have been host to no epiphanies or quirky observations about the human condition, no transcendant ideas or anecdotal stories of my rapidly (though not rapidly enough) depleting tenure at work. The fact is though, I want to be vigilent with this blog. I have started several other blogs only to see them wither and die a pitiful death under my negligent care.

English 121 is proving to be a challenge. The course load isnt all that bad, there is homework to be done but nothing that is unmanageable. The professor is young and attractive which makes up for her somewhat dry and subdued methodology. The challenge is my own lack of creativity at the moment. As I mentioned before this is my 4th English class in a row and I am already burnt out on writing.

My young and attractive professor assigned several essays to read, and we were tasked with responding to one of our choosing with a 1 page paper. I will share the one I chose to respond to as it was rather well written and engaging; so much so that I put the book that it was pulled from on my amazon.com wish list for later. The essay is called Dark Matter by Gretchen Legler and is part of her larger work entitled On the Ice.

Note: The pdf for the essay was created by the professor who failed to rotate the images to be readable... you may have to print it or save it to your computer and use adobe reader to rotate it as I cant seem to figure out how to  rotate it and save it.

And the response I wrote just in case you are curious... just keep in mind there is a fair amount of BS thrown in there for flavor. ;)

Mediocre Man vs. The Bard

Shakespeare wrote "To thine ownself be true."

This has always been among my favorite lines from Hamlet (second probably only to the speech given to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II, scene ii 293-310). This whole notion has been ringing in my head in the days leading up to my impending bout of unemployment. The tricky bit is, I am not exactly sure how to be true to myself insofar as the future and what path I want it to take. I have no passion. There is nothing I can envision myself doing with at least some enjoyment for the rest of my life. I have already wasted ten years of my life in a dead-end job, working for a company I cant stand, doing menial shit for pathetic annual raises (after 10 years I am finally making almost $5 an hour more than when I started).

I refuse to waste another ten years doing something I don't want to do and dreading Monday mornings. I want to look forward to going to work; I want to feel like my job has a purpose greater than the logistical organization of raw materials. At the very least I want to be able to wake up without cold dread at the prospect of apathetically slogging through another day at the factory.

This indecisiveness has carried over into my education as well. Last night in our first ENG-121 class we were asked to introduce ourselves to the class and state what our major was. Everyone in the class was either in some sort of business program, accounting program, or management program. My answer: "Hi, I'm Rob and I'm majoring in Liberal Arts until I can figure out what I want to be when I grow up." It elicited a few chuckles and some commiserative head-nodding commentary. 

Heather over at Dementia Specialist writes: "Security is being true to yourself, and I decided long ago that I wasn’t going to take anti-depressants so that I could work some job that I hated, just because I had a 401K or a $25 deductible or 10 days vacation or an annual 3% raise. Because it’s all crap to me!"  And I couldn't possibly agree more!

Now if only I could figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

Mediocre Man vs. English 121

Tonight was my first English 121 class. I am a little nervous about this one. I'm not overly concerned with the writing bit, or the research bit, or the class participation bit. I am, however, a little nervous about the sheer magnitude of it in this class. The professor seems nice. She is rather young, probably close to my own age, and she seems very structured and organized (something I am not accustomed to after 3 classes in a row with my last professor who can best be described as an organized whirlwind of high octane chaos).

We have 3 papers due in an 8 week course. The first is a 2-3 page informational essay on the topic of my choosing, the second is a 2-3 page argumentative essay on said topic, and the third is a 6-8 page essay on the same topic. Sprinkled amongst all those papers are reading assignments, written responses to said reading responses, a mid term. and a final exam.

I had originally intended to take a break from English classes this term and go with a math class. I'm kinda burnt out on writing essays after having taken 3 English classes back to back to back already. I figured with a math class I didn't need to be all that creative. Numbers are numbers and are pretty static in their interpretation.

My classmates from last term all signed up to move into 121, and considering how fun and awesome they all were I decided to tag along with them for another term. Here's to hoping I don't regret it. I think next term Wheeler (ball of organized chaos mentioned above) is teaching public speaking, a course I both dread and look forward to, and we are all tentatively planning to crash his party.

This whole adult learning thing is exhausting... yet entirely rewarding.