Sick

I have my first cold of the quarter. My throat hurts, my head is congested, my muscles ache, I feel nauseous, and I'm exhausted.

I hate that feeling when you first realize you're coming down with something nasty, and you have a whole week of work obligations ahead of you... and you just feel dread because you know you're going to be miserable for dayyysssss.

It's an unwritten rule, but I have always sensed that teaching assistants are expected to work through illness unless they're in the emergency room. I can't imagine saying to a professor, "I can't teach my sections this week because I'm sick."

So I don't even consider the possibility that I could stay home if I were really sick. I just assume that however I feel, I will work through it.

Which is why the onset of illness makes me feel so awful. I feel crappy right now, but the worst part is knowing how crappy I'm going to feel when I have to get out of bed and go to work tomorrow.