First off: Many thanks to The Ringleted One for blogging on Saturday! Isn't she great, folks? Let's give her a hand, and hope she returns soon!

Simplicities

The cold/flu/malaria/typhoid/yellow fever that's been hounding me for the past week finally caught up with me on Saturday night, when I returned to Crimson City. It graciously allowed me enough strength to take public transportation home (I just couldn't shell out $45 for a cab, not when the bus/subway costs $2), and then gracefully sprang in the air when I got home and pounced right onto my shoulders, causing me to crumple into bed feeling dazed, feverish and enervated.

And bed is where I've been for the past 36 hours or so, as the beast commands. Thank god for diningin.com is all I can say, for the cool, rainy weather outside completely shut off any energy I might have mustered to go out and fetch myself some food.

This is the second morning I've seen this side of 5 am, thanks to jet lag. Fortunately, this morning I have a bit of food in the house; yesterday, with my stomach clamoring loudly about its empty state, I scrounged around desperately and came up with two packets of instant oatmeal that were about a year old. Oh well, I thought, holding up the two wrinkled packets, oatmeal doesn't really go bad, does it? Apparently not, as I'm still standing (metaphorically).

I may have mentioned before how I enjoy being slightly sick -- it affords me a good reason to shut down and off, to avoid dreaded school emails and other responsibilities, and to feel not a whit guilty about lying in bed doing nothing or reading trashy novels or watching bad TV. Life becomes a lot simpler, and as a basically simple fool, I love that. For example, last night I was dizzy and nauseated at 10 pm. Well, I've eaten recently, I thought, so this must mean I need sleep. Okay, I'll sleep! And this morning, at 4:30 am? Feeling weak and nauseated? Well, I just slept, so that must mean I need food. Okay, I'll eat! And so here I am, eating leftover tom yum soup and rice at 5:30 am.

Being mildly sick also provides a good opportunity to ruminate, if the body so allows and the mind is receptive, and I did some quality cud-chewing yesterday, as I lay on the floor staring at the ceiling (besides being a change of scenery, it also gave my back a break from the horrible school-issued bed I have). I had an odd sort of thought about myself, which was this: I kind of like the person I turned out to be. This is the year of my 10th college reunion, and over the past 10 years, I've become someone I can tolerate. I don't have a house, a job, a fulfilling career, a boyfriend, a car, or any of the conventional trappings of success, but I try to be a good person, I do, and I'm troubled when I don't succeed. And I think ... I think that if I wasn't me and happened to meet me, I might like me.

Yeah, it might be the fever talking. But I'm going to hold on to that thought as if it weren't.

Hopefully, one more day in bed will send the beast slinking away from my door and set me free to do the copious amount of writing I need to do for my 3L paper (not to mention travel blogging!). Fortunately, as I suspected, I haven't heard a peep from my advisor about it, which probably means he's completely forgotten that I'm supposed to be producing a draft of a couple things by Friday. Here's hoping!