Getting acquainted with my house

So I've spent the last two days at home sick. In the world of teaching, people really don't take sick days. Sure they're there for us to "use" but I know colleagues who haven't used a sick day in 15 years. Normally we just drug up and hope we can be pleasant enough to our students to last out whatever is getting us down. When you're not there, you can't really be certain that your students are actually learning anything, and with the class that I have this year, I can't be sure that they aren't burning down the school, beating each other up or single-handedly wreaking some sort of havoc. But with a 102 degree fever and wretched cough, my options were pretty limited. So I've spent the last two days doing a lot of sleeping, watching movies on my computer and catching up on paperwork. I suppose I am making myself sound more productive than I really am...about 70 percent of the time was spent sleeping.

But there have been many bright moments in my enforced homestay. For the first time in a long time I feel like I am caught up on sleep. Also, my students sent a really cute get well soon card home with my roommate David. I've been able to catch up with siblings via G-chat as my voice hasn't really been up to phone conversations. I got to talk to my good friend Chris who is in Africa doing a year of service.

And just before my flu experience I was able to go run another race with the NF endurance team, and this time coerced three friends to join me. So we ran 5 miles of the Portland marathon, with me pulling the slowest time due to the fact that I was beginning to come down with whatever this thing I have is. But it was wonderful to go to the team pasta dinner and make some new friends, and just get generally inspired. And my friend Patrick came in fourth in the whole race...out of thousands! It was really amazing.

I'm heading back to school tomorrow, which I am really excited about.