Long Day

3:30am

Wake up because of sore throat. Unable to swallow.

5:00am

In office getting calculus exam ready for TAs to give.

6:30am

Head to McDoctor franchise for when triage opens at 7am

7:00am

Only patient in waiting room! Hooray!

7:20am

Seen by actual physician not a P.A.! In fact, actual physician is an MD, not an osteopath! This is pretty unusual at McDoctor.

7:30am

I don't have strep throat. Physician writes useless prescription for lidocaine. Doing my part to keep down the costs of healthcare for my fellow Cigna subscribers, I choose not to have the prescription filled. I still can not talk or swallow.

8:00am

Home for a nap!

11:00am

Stroll into lecture hall to give calculus exam. TAs have calculus exam under control. One student has shown up to class in a wheel chair. Last week I received an email from some office on campus telling me that this particular student was in the hospital and was excused from classes until February 15. I showed up sick. Someone else showed up in a wheel chair. Secret message to people with weak and whiny excuses: You have no idea how much harder the make-up exam is than the regular exam. Hope you like the greatest integer function and the absolute value.

12:10pm

Lunch. As I can not swallow, I go for a Vanilla Crème Frappuchino with added peppermint syrup.

1:30pm

Afternoon class watches Donald in Mathmagic Land off of YouTube because I can not talk.

2:30pm

Was going to meet with CS group about group project. Group has cancelled the meeting because of the so-called snow. Wimps. I grade papers. The students either get it or they don't. There aren't going to be many Bs on this exam.

4:30pm

Finish writing the make-up exam (even the fractions turn out weird and ugly) and sent it over to the testing center. Worked for a bit on the CS homework in ways that are not consistent with the assignment. Used commercial software to do a task that I will eventually need to write a fiddly Perl script for. Felt that it was a better use of my time to think about the post-processed data than to get my sleep-deprived brain to write the script to do the initial processing.

5:30pm

Dinner with colleagues. Bad choice, as the conversation was too compelling, and I had to pitch in. Should have taken a vow of silence if I want to have any chance of being able to teach on Friday. There are only so many movies that one can show in class! And I need to save a movie for when I'm in Washington, DC next week!

7:00pm

Back to the office.

8:00pm

Home.