in_stead: (simon says)
I have acquired a particularly virulent strain of the plague which had me curled up under the covers in jeans, thick socks, a long-sleeved top, and a sweatshirt earlier. Every time I got up, I started shaking with cold, so I spent most of the afternoon there. My mother called from Canada and told me to take something to lower the fever, which has helped, but I still feel disgusting. BF is looking after me and making me bland food and bringing me glasses of water, which is helping.

And at the end of a gorgeous weekend, in which BF, myself, and some friends headed up to the British Motorcycle Federation's annual massive event. There were motorbikes and people racing mopeds in stupid outfits and a Wall of Death and bands and barbeques and all sorts.

Tucking back up into bed now. I do not intend to come out until tomorrow afternoon. I have already emailed my cover work in to school. So there.
in_stead: (math)
BF and I went to France during the half-term break, where we both picked up a wicked flu bug that I am only just starting to get over. It might have helped if I had admitted to still being sick and staying home from work a day or two to recover, but that would be far too sensible and rational, so I have continued to drag myself in.

In other news, I have reports due for my Year 8 students on Friday, not to mention the fact that I am a Year 8 Form Tutor and will be responsible for editing the subject reports of my form kids the week after. At about 10 subject reports for each of the 30 kids in my form, that's about 300 individual pieces of paper.

My only consolation is that this is the biggest round of reports that I have to do this year. Once I get through this, it's clear sailing through to summer.

As well, my massive order of Russian mysteries and trashy romances arrived from Amazon this morning. As soon as I get two classes worth of reports done, I am going to reward myself with an hour on the couch with a book and a cup of tea.
in_stead: (stab you in the jaw)
I think the milk on the big bowl of cereal I just ate was going off.

Which I didn't figure out until I'd finished eating the bowl of cereal and realised that the consistancy of the milk left at the bottom didn't look quite right.

Oh, lord, please don't let me get food poisoning. Don't have time, can't cope, don't want to.


o.O
in_stead: (start your day the holy way!)
Oh, for.

I have just woken up a full hour before my alarm and can't get back to sleep. Am contemplating going to the gym instead. There is one in the building.

I do use the term "gym" quite loosely in reference to it, of course. It is a large room with a treadmill, eliptical trainer, stationary bike, some hand weights, a couple of mats on the floor, a pool table and a ping pong table.

Still, there you go.

And, while I am not officially part of [livejournal.com profile] lazlet's Post Every Day Week extravaganza, I do seem to posting every day anyway. I am still very excited to be back on the internet (however specious my source of said internet may be) and lj and things. Woot!
in_stead: (homework)
Well, I have done something stupid to my back and it is quite sore again. I haven't been this bad in ages, which is distressing as one week, three hours, and forty-four minutes from now, I am going to be setting off for Boston.

Not that I am counting.

There is a lot of sitting between here and Boston. Must sort that out.

In other news, am enjoying an evening of [livejournal.com profile] lazlet, [livejournal.com profile] wildrocket, The Goth Detective Team, and the Pissy Doctor Boyfriends Show. Also internets. And pizza and wine! All very good.

Just the thing after a day where one of my kids tried to stab another kid in the head with a pencil first period, a kid shouted something vaguely racist across the room second period, and every subsequent period just involved me winding children up until they reached the breaking point. I became a teacher because it's the only profession I could find where I could torture children without getting into trouble. What other job could I have where I would be allowed to systematically steal the shoes of small children, I ask you?

My favourite part of the day was where I covered an English class composed half of kids I teach for History and half of kids that didn't know me. I proceeded to be as crazy as I usually am and demanded shoes in trade for lending pens, made fun of the children who argued with me, and taught everyone that the word "geek" means "eats live animals." The half of the class that knows me proceeded to assure the half that didn't that, no, she really is serious, you have to give her your shoe, and despite the fact that she seems insane, she doesn't actually bite. At least, she hasn't yet. Much.

Fun, I tell you.
in_stead: (fuck bees)
Oh, lord, just staple a "teacher cliché" sign to my back and call it a day.

I am sick and there is pain and grossness in my throat and lungs and things. I spent all day yesterday curled up in bed watching procedural shows -- I have overdosed on Criminal Minds and Bones, with just a little bit of House tossed in to keep me from being completely paranoid about psychotic killers and horrible deaths.

I am feeling a little better today, which is good, because I still have a ton of marking left to do and my Christmas break is slipping through my fingers at a terrifying speed. Only three more days before I fly back to England.


...*clings to family*
in_stead: (fuck bees)
My nasty, filthy children have given me the bubonic plague. I was thoroughly immune to the Canadian bubonic plague by the end of my practice teaching last year, but this is the British bubonic plague, against which I have no defences. Of course, I do not feel as though I can call in sick. I, after all, am the person who is in charge of covering for teachers who feel the way that I do currently but stay home instead of dragging themselves out of bed and into work.

I changed my mind. I don't want to be a teacher anymore. I would prefer to have the kind of job where I can call in sick.

The other Canadian teacher that was hired at the same time I was also has this horrible disease. She is, as near as I can tell, about two days ahead on it. I have much to look forward to. All I can say is that it is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

:P
in_stead: (pain in my head)
I woke up this morning with a migraine and the deep and abiding worry that they may not have a toaster at my prospective residence in London. What would I do without a toaster? It would be intolerable. And, of course, I probably couldn't afford to buy a toaster until after I get paid for the first time, half way through September. How can I possibly manage without toast for a month?

I am plagued with these weighty concerns. It is a trial, I tell you.


one week, exactly, as of an hour ago. O.O
in_stead: (coffee)
I would like to hereby quit my ovaries. And my lower back. And my shoulders and my right hip and my left knee.

My body is in revolt and I will not stand for it.

Clearly, the only solution for times like these is to take my coffee and go back to bed.
in_stead: (simon says)
Dear internet,

Please get up earlier on the weekends.

I am cursed with a father who is an insomniac, a morning person, and constitutionally incapable of letting the family sleep for more than four and a half hours after he wakes up. On good days, he is done sleeping by 5:00am. Often, he is done sleeping by 4:00am. Some mornings, he is done sleeping by 3:00am.

As a family, we have already gotten up, gone out to a diner for breakfast, zipped up to my dad's office on the way back to pick up some papers he forgot there on Friday, and come home.

I am now resting, because I have turned into an 80 year old woman who gets tired and achey after breakfast out, and I am bored, because I have read everything on the internet--twice--since I threw out my back and OMG AM I EVER READY TO BE BETTER NOW.

Er. *ahem*

Yours with love,
[livejournal.com profile] in_stead
in_stead: (homework)
This morning, I got up, got ready, packed up my favourite toys, and let my mother drive me to the babysitter's before she headed off for Sudbury.

Well, not really, but it rather feels like it.

We discovered that we have acquired a colony of carpenter ants in our house and so we got an exterminator in to get rid of them. He is currently spraying poison into our baseboards and doing other, exterminator-y things with toxic substances. We tossed the cats outside for the day and mom is taking the dogs in to the kenel for the day, but that left the problem of what to do with me. Under normal circumstances, I could be relied upon to entertain myself until it's safe to go back to the house this afternoon, but given the can't-sit-can't-drive-can't-overexert limitations I am currently opperating under, it got a bit more complicated than that.

A brief tangent: the night my back siezed and I went in to the hospital, my mother and sister and I were all semi-frantic about what to do. We fretted about each other until we were going in circles with it -- my mother was worried about my back and about keeping my sister out late when she had an exam first thing the next morning. I worried about my mother's knee and about my sister being out late when she had an exam first thing the next morning. My sister worried about my mom's knee, my back, and the emotional strain of it all on both of us.

In all of this, did we think to call anyone for help?

No, we did not.

And, trust me, we heard about it. One of my friends from school gave me hell for not calling her up. She came to see me in the hospital and informed me quite indignantly that she would have been more than happy to come out and pick my mother up so that my sister could have stayed home and done school work and gotten to bed in time. My mother also got an earful from her two closest friends in town on the same topic. Both of them lectured her at great length on her blind self-sufficiency and pointed out that they would have been more than happy to come out at any late hour of the night to take my sister home and then come back to sit with my mother in the hospital to wait for news.

We were both quite cowed and apologised profusely to our respective friends.

Back to today: My mother called up one of the two chastisers and, to make amends, asked if I could come and recline at her house for the day. I am currently installed on her couch, with the remotes for the digital cable close at hand and free access to her wireless internet.

(and, if I may say, this is WAY better than the babysitters I had when I was younger! digital cable! wireless internet!)

I will be fed lunch and a snack in the afternoon, and then I will be driven home and dropped off at a time that will not leave me at my own devices for too long before my father and sister, who have been out of town, arrive back home later this evening.

Hi. I am the sevenest. I think I may be having a second childhood.
in_stead: (bike)
I really was hoping that physiotherapy would work a bit like a cross between surgery (minus the cutting parts) and massage. I wanted to go in, get a back rub, and walk out mostly fixed.

Apparently, it's a process and I need to be patient.

Stupid physiotherapy.

In other news, I am still not allowed to sit or lift anything. I am allowed to lie down, recline, stand, walk, and bend as much as my currently limited range of motion will allow. I kind of miss sitting, though. I've had good times sitting. I've had good times combining sitting with other activities, like eating and watching movies in movie theatres and things like that. One of my favourite activities to combine with sitting in recent times has been riding my bike.

I really miss riding my bike.

*pout*
in_stead: (math)
I am preparing to leave the house under my own power (being carried out does not count) in over a week. I am starting physiotherapy up at the hospital and my first appointment is this afternoon. I am slightly frightened of the outside world omg looking forward to it.

In other news, for no apparent reason, I have been overdosing on science websites of late. I have learned many interesting things. For example, the Big Bang? Probably made a sound that was more like a deep hum. There's an audio file. Other sounds of space may be heard here.

Oh so cool.

Also this morning, I made a cake. I am concerned that the icing is too sweet, though. The cake itself turned out great. Go me.
in_stead: (a bow tie kind of day)
So. I've had quite the exciting few days.

my three and a half days of pain, paramedics, and hospital food )

As per my doctor's orders, I am currently flat on my back in bed, stoned to the gills on pain killers and muscle relaxants, and am marathoning episodes of First Monday, which isn't really all that bad a show. I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit.

It is so, so, so nice to be home.
in_stead: (fractured)
Threw out my back to a degree that two Robaxacet have barely made a dint. Trapped flat on back on floor with my legs sticking under my bed. Mother coming to save me (read: hoist me into bed and leave me there until morning).

Damn it, where did the sunshine and puppies go?

Oh, wait, there's a puppy, trying to lick my face and step on my belly.

Ow, ow, ow.
in_stead: (you are my)
I will, will, will catch up on email and lj tonight, I promise.

In the mean time -- my grandmother is out visiting from Manitoba and, between the godawful cold symptoms (a farewell gift from my last practice teaching session -- schools are virulent pits of disease at best), I've been entertaining her and ferrying her about the city and generally catering to her every whim, because she's a very nice old lady and I love her dearly, and also because she's rather fragile and needs help with things like opening jars and getting her shirt off over her head.

She's up for my graduation, which takes place this Thursday. We went shopping for a new dress for her on Friday, because she felt self-conscious that myself, my sister, and my mother were all intending to wear dresses and she had only brought dress pants. She is now the proud posessor of a bright red dress and jacket set, the colour of which gave her qualms until both my father and I assured her that it looks just great on her. And it does.

Graduation is shaping up to be a very nice, possibly tear-inducing, event, wherein my father, who is the Dean of my department, gives me my degree and my mother hoods me and my grandmother, who was too sick to attend my other graduations, and my sister, who is sixteen and well over being impressed with me graduating since I've done it so bloody often now, watch from the audience while we all blubber like girls before a crowd of a thousand odd people.

It's good that I have a nice dress to wear.

Today, we are packing a picnic lunch and heading out on the boat for a long turn around the lake, thus taking advantage of the gorgeous weather. There will be potato salad and roast beef sandwiches and fruit and sunshine and happiness and puppies, even, because our dogs enjoy boat rides, although I don't look forward to having to defend my lunch from those slavering beasts.
in_stead: (drift away)
I've been lying in bed all day (with the two hour exception of getting up at 6:30 this morning to pick my sister up from an all-night movie thing at the local theatre and drive her to her driver's ed classes), unable to convince myself to get up and get going even by thinking about the excessively long list of things that are due by Monday or by thinking about the fact that tomorrow is Mother's Day and I have done nothing to get ready for the auspicious occasion.

It occurs to me that I am sick.

This conclusion is further supported by the headache and serious case of the blahs that have been my consistent bedmates today.
in_stead: (the END)
Today at lunch, I got up, took a step, tripped over my feet, did five slow motion flaily steps, then crashed down with a bit of a bounce off my hip. I have scratches on the palms of both hands and on one of my ankles.

Of course, I did this in front of about forty people.

But the nice thing about not being in high school and not being a teenager any more is this: I thought it was funny, too. Except for the pain bits. And the bits where my hands are scratched right where I rest my weight when I ride my bike, which is annoying.

No classes tomorrow -- yay! I have, instead, signed up to go to a lesson writing summit where a bunch of us are piling into a room to write lesson plans for the Toronto Star. I'm looking forward to it. We get free pizza.
in_stead: (coffee)
So. The thing I bought at Starbucks yesterday afternoon was not so much the decaf they promised me (and, again, upon double checking, as I know what caffiene does to me so late in the day) it was.

And there was a point, somewhere around 2:00am, where I seriously contemplated taking up the occult just in order to get the phone number of the Starbucks employee who told me such filthy lies. I would have called them up and, in a very calm voice, explained to them that I have twenty-five eleven year olds waiting for me in a room today and I have to teach them poetry and gym and fractions and things and I needed my sleep, which was not so much something I got.

I am also very sick.

I would prefer death, but it looks like I will be going to work instead.
in_stead: (Default)
PS: great day, but I hereby divorce everything below my neck for BLATANT MUTINY. ow.

Profile

in_stead: (Default)
in_stead

Most Popular Tags

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags