So I had two clues that today was not going to go well...

1. I have a head cold, which caused me to wake up about an hour before the alarm went off feeling as though someone had stuffed cotton balls tipped in hot sauce into my sinuses.
2. I knew that I would have to be at school today for 11 hours.


But when the alarm finally went off, I considered my options...
1. Stay in bed and cancel classes. Which would mean canceling on my research assistants who I haven't yet met with this semester, and canceling on a student who I've already canceled on twice.
2. Stay in bed for another hour and then get showered and dressed, skipping exercising.
3. Forge ahead. Get out of bed, workout, get showered and dressed, and get to school.


I opted for plan 3. Getting out of bed and getting moving did actually help clear my sinuses and head fog, and it seemed that things were going well. That is until at about 30 minutes into my 45 minute workout the power in our apartment went out. Poor Kevin was in the shower at the time, but fortunately there was enough sunlight by then that you could still see in the bathroom. I got out our new, super powered flashlight that my parents gave us for x-mas figuring that it could help light up the bedroom for getting dressed. But alas, it needed to be charged and immediately died. I managed to get showered and dressed. I even listened to our wind-up radio to get the news and weather. There came a problem when I needed to figure out what to do with my hair, since I couldn't use my hair dryer, it is too short to pull back well, and I've still got a bum elbow. I did manage two braids, but considering that one student walked into class and then almost back out and then said "oh, I didn't recognize you!" it must not look too good.


I get to school earlier enough to get a space in the good parking lot. I even managed to get some work completed before class. I made the decision that I didn't think my voice and throat would last for three hour long lectures in a hour and decided that the two intro classes could watch the video that was otherwise planned for Monday. First class goes well (except for the student's comment about not recognizing me). Second class starts with me needing to leave the room because I was hacking up a lung. After that second class runs mostly smoothly. Third class starts and I put on the video. A few minutes in, I'm hacking up my other lung and need to leave the room. At this point I've drank about 30 oz of water trying to keep my throat lubricated and I have to pee very badly. I finish hacking up my lung, pee, and return to the classroom to find that the projector overheated and turned itself off, yet the video kept playing on my laptop. So the students sat there for about five minutes listening with no picture, unsure of what to do. I turn the projector back on and let the video continue. About 10 minutes before the end of the video, the projector shuts off again. You have to wait about 5 minutes before it will turn back on, so we wait and listen to the video. Turn it back on and finish the video. I apologize to the students and explain that today has just been a bad day. While I'm finishing up explaining the instructions for their homework, which I being projected through power point, the damn projector turns off a third time. At which point I give up and let them leave.


Now it is 2pm and I can't go home until after 7:30pm. I have one more class this afternoon and two meetings with various students.


The bright spot in all of this is that I don't teach tomorrow, and I don't have any meetings. So I plan to drink about half a bottle of generic Nyquil and sleep until Saturday.


While today has sucked so far, I have seen the humor in and and spent some time laughing about it with my ex-office mate. Also, this video made me laugh too...