WebMD: 5-10 Days

I have good news and bad news. The good news is...well, I suppose it could be worse. I don't have pneumonia or anything, just a common cold. Pulled a Dwight and checked my symptoms on WebMD. :-) And with that comes the bad news: common colds last 5-10 days. I'm hoping these two days will be the worst and the symptoms will subside from here on out because I'm not sure Monday will be too enjoyable sitting through four classes like I feel right now. And I'm kind of worried about spreading it (though WebMD says it's not generally passed through airborne stuff like sneezes and coughs, but if I were to say, touch my nose with my hand, then shake your hand and then later you touch your nose or eyes, you could catch it). I don't typically touch a lot of people during the day, but tomorrow is Free Hug Day. I might have to keep my distance...hopefully I'll be well enough to work because I hate calling in sick, and leaving my coworkers short handed, but we'll see. And the whole thing about how colds are passed makes me think back to all the checking (card-swipping) I've been doing at work. I can touch more than 500 student IDs in a single evening and I know for sure I saw at least two in the mouths of the student before they were handed to me. Never underestimate the power of washing your hands. I usually carry sanitizer in my backpack, but I don't habitually pull it out at work. My biochem professor said they did a lab once where they tested someone's hands before and after washing them, and before there were so many bacteria and afterward there were only a couple. So, I guess my lesson today is: wash your hands. I'm drugging up on DayQuil, decongestants, Zicam, and this nose gel stuff I thought was a spray but it's just a gel and I'm not sure how it works (it kind of stings), so hopefully I'll get over this soon! I intended to take a short nap and get up around 3pm to do homework, and here it is 5:30pm and I just dragged myself out of bed.

Okay, enough about being sick. I went to UCC this morning and met this guy named Dan Rogers. I e-mailed him a couple weeks ago about helping out somehow so I volunteered to pull weeds in the areas outside the FLC and he showed me where they were and where the rake and stuff was. So, I'll have to get over there some evening or morning and try it out. It was hard to focus on the sermon because I wanted to lay down and sleep, but Ryan Hayden talked about Matthew 5:3, and this parable about this Pharisee and a tax collector who went into the church and the Pharisee got there and prayed loudly and thanked God that he wasn't like all of the bad people around and he said that he fasted twice a week, and the tax collector wouldn't even turn his eyes towards heaven and just begged God to have mercy on him, a sinner. And when they both left, the tax collector was the one who was righteous in the eyes of God. The sermon series we're going through is about the Beattitudes and today was "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). And he talked about how most people want to be blessed and inherit the kingdom of heaven, but who wants to be poor in spirit? The thought of being poor in anything isn't too appealing, especially when it comes to your spiritual life. But being poor in spirit is like being incomplete, un-self-sufficient; like the tax collector who basically said, "God, I'm not good enough. I need You." A lot of times we're hesitant to ask for help from anyone, to approach them and say, "I need you; you've got something I don't have." But there it is in plain English (from translated Hebrew) that those who are poor in spirit are blessed for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

All right, time for homework and a can of chicken with rice condensed soup. Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. K-State won the football game against San Jose yesterday....I heard people in the hall until 5am this morning... this is day 192 (going back to after March 1) and despite being under the weather (speaking of weather, it was cold this morning! 61 degrees at 9:30am..) I'm feeling joyful. Adios.

10:26pm update: still sick. Actually puked twice (nice, huh?). I think it's because I took DayQuil, which tends to make me feel worse (why did I buy it?). So, probably skipping all four of my classes tomorrow...possibly. I might feel miraculously better in the morning after a shower. Yuck... :-(