'Tis the season to be sneezing....

Welcome back, me, to the blog! Wow, it's been forever and a half since I last wrote something for this. I really need to learn time management, so I can do the things I love while doing the things I need to do (see: job, apartment). But we'll get into goal-setting later, it's time for an update on my life and what the heck I've been up to!

First off, the job. I have one week of training left (it's mostly being on the phones and taking calls, using all I've learned so far) that begins next week. After that, I will be put into my own team with my own supervisor and all that good stuff. I managed to get a shift I really want, so that's exciting. Also, with the exception of understanding claims, I got the rest of it down. I've been sending provider lists to customers, assigning dentists to people on DHMO plans, and so on. It's been an interesting ride into the world of dental healthcare. I will never be the same. 

The second thing is a cold. Oh yes, it hit me early this time. I somewhat blame my coworkers since they were coming in with colds and whatever else is floating around. I actually called in several times this week due to this cold, running a high fever and coughing like a madman. My voice was also slipping in and out, which is NOT something you want happening in the middle of a call. I'm easing off any fun-time karaoke until the worst of this is gone (which is happening as I speak, thankfully).

Other than that, not much else. I need to finish up  my best of 2015 list that I've been working on, continue on my writing goals, and recover from this damned cold. 

That's about it for now! Until next time!

*This post was brought to you by potato & egg tacos and my favorite album of 2016 so far: Moth by Chairlift*

Where the eff have I been? Well, sick for one.

After the Fleetwood Mac concert (and man alive, the experience alone is worth an entry, which is forthcoming, my lovelies...), I woke up the morning after with a wicked sore throat. Despite that, I took my mom to Waterloo Records, Bookpeople, LUSH, and Whole Foods (the flagship store). She enjoyed the little tour of all the places I love to visit in Austin. We drove home shortly after all that and I pretty much crashed into either bed or my recliner, where I've been since then.

The sore throat very quickly evolved into headaches, a fever, and congestion. Yea, a cold!

Because of the lethargy that hit me like a freight train, along with the rest of the carriage of this fever, I have taken three days off from work (thank God for sick time) so I can recover before going in tomorrow and Saturday. Yikes, hadn't been this sick in a long while. It seems to get me just as the winter season is ending.

So here I am, tempering this cold so I can work the weekend and then rest up more on my days off so I can conquer the rest of this month with fervor!

Isn't it sad that I feel odd about taking sick days when I need it? I feel like I should be at work, even if I can hardly hold my head up and snot is dripping out my nose. But I really don't think I would bring any game to the job, along with spreading the sickness (even though illnesses have been hitting everyone since December).

Even my father, who is usually hardened to this kinda thing, has been shaking off a stubborn flu for almost two weeks now.

So here is a reminder to my readers that I'm still here.

A Good Run of Bad Luck

Okay, I had some things go down since I last wrote on here. Allow me to present it in bullet list form, since I'm lazy and it also will work better for this. Sounds good? Alrighty then, let's go!

• The only good thing that happened last week was the screening of Stop Making Sense. The crowd was awesome, singing along and cheering. It was like "I found my people!" And I don't even live in Austin. ;_; (About three people complimented my shirt!)
• The job search wasn't going very well. Had a so-so interview the day after the Stop Making Sense screening. I also had a video interview with one bank, a teller skills assessment test with another. Got a "nope" email after the video interview and barely passed the test (I was two points away from the minimum) and have to wait two months to retake it. 
• Atop all this, my mood was really off for some reason. I had trouble pinning it down, but I feared the worst: is depression coming to visit again?
• Saturday night, I finally realized the cause of my "off" mood: I was fighting off a nasty cold. So I spent my two days off (yesterday and today) to recover from it. Coughing so hard I pulled a muscle on my left side, so it hurt to stand until today. 
• With my two days off, I watched archived livestreams by Ray of Achievement Hunter, played Plants vs. Zombies (shut up, this game's ridiculously fun), and did some light reading. Along with eating a ton of fruit popsicles (which helped my throat when it was getting real sore from the coughing). 

But now, there is an extra set of good news: I got another interview with a local credit union for a part-time teller job, so there's that! And also, I haven't heard back from the interview from Tuesday, so there's a slight chance of that being a yes. But we'll have to see...

I also have made a huge leap in recovering from the cold. I am not about to run a 5K or anything like that, but it is a big difference. I'm keeping a sharp eye on it so it doesn't turn into bronchitis or something equally ugly. 

Haven't done any serious reading or writing since I fell ill, but I hope to begin that again once I start regaining my strength. 

That's about what was going on with me these days. Hope things are better for y'all. If not, I hope they do get better, at least, a little more than it was before. <3 div="">

So...

I woke up with a draining, sore right ear. Just great. That's usually a sign of a cold in the making for me. Or perhaps, self who oozes with optimism, something I can tackle before it turns into a sickness kaiju. But I hadn't been sick in over seven months, so I guess it's my turn (I usually get sick at least once a year, rarely does it cause me to miss work, unless it's surprise bronchitis).

As for writing, I was on a roll the first two days, but wow... exhaustion from work and the pain in my left heel were enough to drive me to bed and rest up the days I had off. I'm beginning to see an association with this. All I want to do is relax away the pain and watch ASMR videos (yes, I think I actually have this, more on this another day). While relaxing and resting up from the pain are great ideas, it doesn't help me get anything done. I need to find a way to work through the exhaustion and pain so I don't get sidelined like that again.

I could do all my writing before I go to work, but there is no guarantee* of that, since I usually do other things (y'know, like an ACTUAL PERSON), like various household chores. So it's becoming a matter of balance. And here I sit, while there are writers who raise children or juggle multiple jobs. What the hell is my excuse? Pain? Procrastination? I don't know. I need to find out more before I can make a judgement call.

On the lighter side of things, I lost four pounds! Watching my portions and snacking less has really helped so much. Four down, thirty-six to go!

See ya later, peeps! May the weekend be good to you.

~~

*One day, I'll make it my life's mission to spell this damn word correctly.

An update with sniffles

Well, thought I would get out of the cold/flu season without illness, but it got me last week. But it's been very mild (I'm crediting my new healthy eating regime for this), and had no need to take anything other than ibuprofen*. Doesn't mean it still doesn't suck. Had to call in sick on Saturday, but am going back to work and doing my hardest not to spread it to my co-workers. The worst is likely over, so the hard part is done.

Been reading and catching up with my TV shows (what very few I watch), and finishing BioShock: Infinite (game of the year!) enjoying some of the down time before I begin to tackle other writing projects and preparing for San Francisco.

I'll try to post more. Hope you are all well and doing good.


*As per usual with anything you hear on the Internet regarding human health, talk with your doctor or GP before doing anything.

Sidelined by illness (again!)

Over two weeks ago, my sister was nursing a nasty cold (it sidelined her enough for her to miss a few days of school) and I was taking care of her, along with driving my mom to the courthouse for jury duty. Then around the 3rd of this month, I started to feel a little off. I canceled my blood donation appointment and was struck with a cold. By the next day, it spread to my chest and gave me a nasty, deep cough along with a roller-coaster fever. When I woke up today, I had enough. Nothing I was taking was working at all and I wasn't getting any better. I went to the health clinic and found out that I have mild bronchitis. Thanks to this discovery, I'm now on medicine that is actually doing something. I'm not coughing as hard anymore, thank God. Today is the best I've felt in a week.

Everyone at work was pretty worried about me. I had to call in sick twice, and when I did show up for the two other shifts, I was allowed to go home early. And here I am, trying to earn money for some big events! This wasn't helping! Plus, I hate calling in sick. It's like "well, I'm standing, I should be okay". But the fever worried me, plus I don't want to spread this to my co-workers. Geez Louise, I'm not a jackass!

Either way, to those who were wondering where the hell I've been... here's your answer.

My labels say it all...

Hey everyone, sorry for no posts this week. I was sidelined by a strange stomach ailment (I promise to not tell you anymore than that) and was unable to do much other than go to work and then come home, only to pass out and sleep fitfully.

Not many things of interest have come up since then, just fighting off whatever-the-hell-I-have and thinking too much about everything else (which tends to be more common than I like to admit).

There are other things, but I'm working on those. Like my issues with social anxiety and really, the need to get out more. Part of my personality is content with not going out as much, but there are times it would be best to hang with my co-workers and friends. But blah-blah, those who've followed know this is a common problem of mine.

Either way, hope y'all, the friendly readers, are doing well. Bye for now.

God, it pains me to say this...

but I had to miss out on seeing Vienna Teng. I have fallen ill over the weekend and had to deal with a lot of psychological stuff. If I lived in the city where she was playing, I would've taken a taxi and hell, this entry wouldn't exist. I would've been like "yeah, don't care how much the taxi costs, I'm going".

But I was coughing and sniffling (though infrequent); that would've be rude to be all sick and stuff during the show. The most I was worried about was the drive. I live over an hour away from the venue, the concert was going to end late, and I would've driven both ways non-stop.

~

Still feel kinda bad, but at least went to work today. Just from being there for five hours made me realize that not going last night was the right (though less fun) choice. Sorry, Ms. Teng. I'll see you next time around.

You're tearing me apart, Rhinovirus!

So yeaaaaah... my cold that I had since mid-December relapsed. Atop that, I've been ginormously lazy. But after a lull of no reading, I got very interested in the Pacific Theater of World War II, primarily the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (then about atomic power and history, then about Japanese war crimes [primarily Unit 731 and Nanking], and then about the Japanese-American internment camps...) So I'm doing some historical research while battling a damn stubborn cold. Atop that, I'm trying to work as much as I can at the bookstore and hoping for future opportunities (in fact, there may be some).

I should take the time to note the obvious: this ain't ever been a review blog. It will never morph into a review-only blog. It may seem that it was going that direction, which wasn't what I intended. Truth be told, I'm having some issues with getting back to writing. That is my own damn fault, so don't feel that writing reviews had done it.

Just letting the blogoverse know what's been up with me... whee.

I emerge from the depths of... something

Take the silence from my side of things as a sign that things are going okay. I've been ill for the last three days and it has hampered me from handling various tasks, from the internship to even fun things. I've been playing catch-up, but thankfully, it isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I've been busy emailing with the magazine's editor, a professor, a fellow classmate, and others. It's the most I've spent on my email account in a long while.

Very little reading, but the big one is of course Camus' The Stranger (for my Senior Seminar). Now, I already know I'm going to English Major hell for not enjoying Austen's Pride and Prejudice... but I'm gonna go to the ninth circle for this: I'm not completely digging Stranger that much. I appreciate it for what it's doing, or at least what I perceive it's doing, but I cannot say I really like it. Perhaps discussion in the class will help me respect it more, but by itself... it has yet to impress me.

For movies, I watched The Holy Mountain a couple of nights ago. I'm not much into surrealist films, but hey, at least I started off with a prime choice. At least, that's what I heard about this film. I got most of it, but had to read up a little more to get it. I caught some of the tarot symbols and understood most of the Christian allegory. It was an interesting film and recommend it to those who like surrealist films. Personally, I wouldn't watch it again. I can barely handle my own imagination sometimes.

Not much writing, but I need to get to working on my COLFA conference submission. I plan to work on it later on today.

Otherwise, not much else.

Have yourself a safe and happy Martin Luther King Day, y'all. Honor the man of the hour by learning more about him. He's a fascinating guy. Plus, his wife Coretta is an awesome lady in her own right.

Down but not completely out...

Yeah, it's been over a week since I last updated this here blog. Since it's a new season, the temperatures change and the nights start to become longer (well, not until October) it leads to... you guessed it, sickness! I'm doing much better and the worst of it is over, but it'll be a little longer before I fully recover.

And no, it's not H1N1. I don't know why I have to say this, but there you go.

As for school, I've played catch-up long enough. I finished Pride and Prejudice (which I liked okay), read almost all the essays up to the current one in my Philosophy of Religion class, turned in my story for workshop (and got some great feedback!), and Shakespeare remains boring as ever. Don't get me wrong, I love reading the plays, but the class never talks about the plots, just more on the context.

I've been reading on and off, but nothing's catching on. And school keeps getting in the way. Mostly the latter. But, expect a formal review of this book in the near future. If I can only remember my initial thoughts before I stopped...

As for non-school writing, uhm... uh... yeah...

Hope y'all are magpies! *throws shiny object and runs away*

So, I've been struggling to maintain a balance of work and fun. And wow, is it hard.

Until next time, goodbye for now...

Ugh...

'Tis the season. Nasty sore throat, drainage (with accompanying earaches), fever (with sweats. Lovely)... yea!

In other news, school seems to be going well. I'm tearing through Geisha, A Life. Since I'm mostly bedridden, reading is an easy task.

I also discovered that I like Peter Gabriel's solo stuff more than Phil Collins'. Does that make me a good Genesis fan? 8D

Nothing much else to say. I leave you, wondering if my sore throat is actually strep throat...

-Lindsey

Gaaah, the pain...

I swear, I've been popping pills ever since I got my wisdom teeth pulled. First, there were the two painkillers (one had codeine in it!) and the antibiotic. The painkiller with the codeine made me have some weird-ass dreams and I would pass out and take one-hour naps. I have since stopped taking them and gone back to the ibuprofen initially prescribed for my sciatic nerve pain, which works better IMHO. Several days after finishing my antibiotic, I got a head cold. So here I am, popping cold meds and nursing a nasty headache that came from the headbanging I would do when I cough, XD.

On the teeth front, they're healing beautifully. I got a syringe at my post-op visit and cleaning the holes got easier. I've gotten back to eating regular foods, but I've been avoiding sodas. I'm sticking to water, tea and anything else but soda. It's been two weeks since then. No more caffeine dependency for me!

~

I finished reading Richard Matheson's Somewhere In Time a while back. It was okay, started off good but slowed a bit in the middle and got better at the third-quarter. I would recommend it, but please... just read What Dreams May Come. It's infinitely better.

I recently went to the library near my house and borrowed a few books. One was Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus, which was the basis for the best Disney film ever: The Great Mouse Detective. I liked the book, it was really cute.

Another is Kenneth J. Harvey's The Town that Forgot How to Breathe. I haven't finished reading that, and I may not get to. I can't get into it. Gah, I hate it when that happens.

I'm having a similar issue with "Mrs. Dalloway". Man, I have so many books and only eighteen of them really appeal to me! No more buying books on a whim, that's for sure.

~

So, Silent Hill: Homecoming finally came out. I finished it in a week and here's my verdict: I liked it. I thought it was going to be the worst thing ever, but I was wrong... sort of. I think the crew that made this game can totally pull off another title, but they need to stop referencing the damn movie. Please guys, we Silent Hill fans only ask for originality! Heck, ask us for ideas. We're bursting with them!

~

I'm also happy to report that I finally figured out what I wanted to do with my life: stick with my current degree plan and keep soldiering on. Alas, regrets of dropping the Fiction class have risen. Oh well. At least I got in, :D.

~

Man, I don't think tarot card reading is going to be a new hobby. I like it, but it hasn't stuck with me. I should give it a few more weeks, and then decide whether or not to give up and move onto something else.

I got a tarot card reading from someone at this new-age store my sister likes. For twenty-five bucks, I got told this (all this is to the best of my memory):

-I'm afraid of myself (duh)
-I have five pieces ready to be published (wuh? Which five? This has perplexed me since that day)
-I'll dabble into every form of writing (you know, I have planned to)
-I'll be famous (o_O!)

And I thought my silly daydreams of being a famous writer were just... well, silly! I almost died of laughter in my chair.

~

Ah, grand schemes. One I have is to do NaNoWriMo. Make up a whole new idea and do that. Lord knows I have enough time...

Another is submit some poetry to my university's literary magazine. They're taking pieces for next semester. Maybe I could get in. Who knows? I have to try.

No more. But trust me, I'll think of some...

~

I just listened to Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Go get this album! It is amazing. So cool that I can't think of a rational, unbiased thing to say other than... damn!

Already, one song has inspired a poem.

~

I've been working on and off on my writing. But no quitting here. I'm back in the game, everyone. Let's celebrate by living. Oh, and voting in this year's fine election. So don't forget to vote!

Wow, I need to shut up now. Long post is getting longer. I leave you, nursing a headache yet smiling all the way through it... until a pang hits and I clench my teeth.

Regards,
Lindsey