Never a dull moment

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All I can say is that my life is colorful. I have gone through some rough experiences recently, and maybe I have reached a certain level of apathy, but all I see is that these moments make for some pretty interesting stories.

After all of my visa trouble, I arrived to Leeds without any difficulties entering. To my surprise I had that Joe guy give me the VIP treatment and pick me up from the airport. Those are interesting moments 1 and 2. I have now settled in, made friends, and whatnot. However, I found out that I take only 4 classes here, which means I have to take 6 when I get home, in order to graduate. Interesting story #3. I ran around for a week trying to get my timetable (schedule) fixed, and even though I am not attending my classes at the present time (will explain in a moment), the timetable is still not fixed. Am I enrolled in these classes? I’m not sure. Interesting story #4. On Sunday, the night before my classes began, I was in charge of organizing some bowling. I believe more than 10 people were to come, but at the last minute the number dropped significantly. Half of the people had understandable reasons. The other half… well, I don’t know what was going on. In the end, only 5 people bowled. I enjoyed myself, but the mood was shot for a lot of people, including myself. Interesting moment #5. These all sound kind of like disappointing stories. Trust me, while I was in the moment, I felt significant frustration. But now they’re just… colorful.

I did have a wonderful moment when about 6 or 7 of us Mary Morris people went to York on the free trip. We had a really good time and the city is absolutely beautiful. I would love to live there. See the pictures in the gallery! That makes #6.

Then we get to the whammy of all stories. The day before classes started (Sunday), I started feeling a little sore tickle in my throat. Nothing terrible, but if I started laughing, I would cough. And my back was awfully achy. Nothing Advil couldn’t help with. However, around midnight of that night, I was in bed and got this terrible fever. I was wearing sweatpants, socks, my t-shirt, my sweatshirt, a polar fleece, and I was wrapped tightly in my blanket. I was shaking like crazy, I was sweaty, my teeth were chattering, and I was freezing. My fever broke around 4 or 5 in the morning and felt like I was boiling. The next day I called the doctor and they told me to come to an appointment in a half hour. I wasn’t able to eat breakfast for 2 reasons. First, the walk was a half an hour long. And secondly, I vomited and didn’t want to take my chances of being sicker.

So, I walked to the doctor on an empty stomach. After getting lost a couple times, I finally arrived to see a sign on the front door saying that if I had any flu-like symptoms, I could not come inside. Instead, I had to call the Swine Flu Pandemic Hotline. So that’s what I did. I spent 20 minutes on the phone, taking this oral assessment. Based on what I told them, I was not in need of the antiviral drug, and they told me to go inside to my appointment that turns out I was 20 minutes late for. Now here’s the kicker. When I was in my appointment, the doctor told me that he suspects I have swine flu. He said that the seasonal flu is not in season, the other virus that’s going around does not cause a fever, and because mine hit me so rapidly, it seems to be just like the swine flu. He also told me that I shouldn’t panic because he had both the swine flu and the regular flu, and he found the regular flu to be much worse.

Anyways, that makes for lucky #7 on the interesting story list. At the present moment, I am locked in my room, unable to attend classes. I had to walk to a campus yesterday to hand in a doctor’s note saying I had the swine flu. Who knows if I actually have it because I don’t have all of the crazy symptoms that require the antiviral. Whatever I have, it’s a beast and I hope it goes away soon!

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