So, my week after vacation was particularly rough. I had a hard enough time getting photos and entries written ahead of time for double-posting, but I was glad I got them done. It helped that I had no activities/meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I could get stuff done after going to the gym.

I normally don't write anything about my job 'cause there's nothing of remote interest to say about it. But I found out about a week before I left (note that my boss was all "nothing will be going on in December" back in September) that oh, by the way, we're having a Canadian consultant in to teach classes all but one day this week. I was not thrilled. I have mostly been sitting around puttering at work for months, and NOW I have to concentrate? All day? For a week? After a vacation? Grrrrrrrrrr. And on the one day we didn't have class, Friday, she wanted everyone to test the system all bloody day long.

Adding to the fun, I woke up with a raging sore throat on Thursday around 5 a.m. I have this throat remedy stuff that you have to take with water, so I was drinkdrinkdrinkdrinkdrinking water incessantly (to the point where I actually managed to pull something in my arm from holding the water up to my throat for an hour) during the class. Naturally, this meant that I spent way too much time having to go to the bathroom DURING class. (Luckily the last day wasn't exactly participatory, so it's not like I missed anything I desperately needed to use later.) And sadly, all that drinkdrinkdrinkdrinking water didn't cure the problem, and by 5 p.m. when I had to go to my volunteer job, I was really starting to feel like crap. You know what it's like when you're sick and somehow it goes into your back and your back is sore? I'm not a person prone to back issues, but on the rare occasions when I feel something in it, I feel very sorry for those people. If your back is wiped out, YOU are wiped out. So I spent most of my shift doing very little but wishing for the time to be over. Ironically, Merry (who works the same shift I do) was also feeling like crap with a headache, so neither of us were doing much. Our manager very nicely did most of the cleaning for us that night.

Eventually I went home and felt exhausted and proceeded to NOT sleep...I don't know how I do that. Well, I sort of know. My thermostat isn't working at all, so it's very chilly in my room. And my current electric blanket (somehow I have crap luck with the things lasting at full speed/power for more than one winter season) only heats up around oh, 5-6 a.m. off your body heat this year. So I go to bed in an icy room, wearing three layers of sweats or whatever to bed, and then end up boiling hot beneath the sheets, but frozen if any body parts creep out from below the covers or if I have to go to the bathroom. I cannot figure out how to dress for frozen/too hot, dammit.

So I called in sick on Friday morning. I felt guilty for calling in sick when something was actually going on that day, but I felt like shit. I probably would have gone in if it was a regular day, but my concentration was for crap already.

Happily, I did manage to doze more after that. I was also on the premises when the apartment managers came by to check the smoke detectors, and they asked what else was having issues around here. I found out that my thermostat is officially broken (it's not just a pilot light issue), so hopefully they will get ahold of their heater guy to come put in a new one. Yay. I felt better after that. Why is it that any time I call in sick, I miraculously feel better by about noon no matter how shitty I felt at 7 a.m.? It makes me wish there was some tactful way of calling in sick for half a day, rather than looking like I am lame/hungover/god knows what.

I have too much stuff to do. I look around here and think, "I need to clean this joint up. And put up the Tacky Tree Collection. And work on gifts. And oh, study for the driver's exam (did I mention that? Uh...yeah, working on that, or at least I was before busy season came up) And blah blah blah..." I feel like I never get to any of it.

I had meditation class on Thursday (I take one through work a couple of times a year) and the lecture for the day was on prioritizing/why you don't get around to doing it on your own, and I think it's so easy to bump the personal stuff when stuff that involves other people has to come first. Gifts before cleaning my house, because other than the people who come over and temporarily live in it, who cares if I have a yarn explosion in the living room? I'm the only one who cares about the Tacky Trees. The driver's exam should be moved up in priority, but another friend of mine needs to retake hers as well and we were talking about going together, and it depends on when she's free to do a study session (hopefully this coming week?). I should just get back to going through my flash cards again on my own, though.

And I mentioned getting into that conference? I didn't mention that I actually got in TWICE. The one by myself is putting on a talk about astrology (yes, I'm a hippie, it's my version of studying psychology without having gotten a third degree). I am surprised I got in because I have no street cred and am totally self-taught, but they had NO astro-talk last year (it's a hippie conference) and I wanted some. From what I saw of the proposed schedule when they sent it to me, they still don't have much. Well, I'm happy to help. I"m pretty psyched and am somewhat planning my lecture on my head already, but I definitely want to do massive amounts of research come January. But as for the second one, I'm helping out on a group thing. That should be interesting. Not to mention busy.

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