The Sick Week — Monday 10 October to Thursday 13 October

So I spent the whole weekend inside because I had a cold. I drank about thirty cups of tea and watched way too much TV. I still have a bit of a cold, but I think it's getting better.

Monday I explored the Murray Library (the city campus library, and the main library for the university) and discovered that it employs the most irritating, convoluted, and confusing organisational system known to man. It has three levels- ground, upper, and lower- with mostly informational kiosks and short-term loan (three hour) books on the ground floor. The subject I wanted was on the upper floor, but the book from that subject that I ended up with was actually on the lower floor. It took me about an hour to find it, and my search included three different catalogue searches and a total of three trips up and down both flights of stairs.
I didn't even like the book.
Today also marked the first time I've seen the metro inspectors, who were up to this point something of a mythical threat to encourage people to buy tickets. There's a £20 fee for riding without valid fare, which costs £1.50 for the average trip.
A lot of students buy the £40 year pass for our zone, which is worthwhile if you take the metro more than 27 times. Probably more students just kind of ride without fare, for reasons like a lack of change or time to pay or simply an unwillingness to pay.
English Literature 1700-1789 was as boring as last time. We discussed a rather dry not-a-novel (it would seem that we're entering the age of the novel, but Journal of the Plague Year is really not very novel-y. It's more like a fictional autobiography, a category that drives me slightly up the wall. I'm not a huge fan of Daniel Defoe, but I guess he's not too bad. I did enjoy what I read of Journal, and Robinson Crusoe wouldn't be so popular if there was nothing good about it— I just remembered Twilight. Never mind.
Thomas was actually there this time, and so available to defend me against serial killers and rapists that could have been lurking in the shadows as I walked to the bus stop. He did just get off crutches from knee surgery, so he was less useful than he might have been, but I feel that the fact that he's at least 2 metres (over 6 feet) tall and fairly athletic should deter all but the most intrepid serial killer. Also, I haven't heard of any serial killers or rapists lurking about the main campus of the University of Sunderland, so Mom, Dad, it's okay.

Tuesday involved my really cute pair of red wedge heels and not much else. I did walk to the rowland's (down the road from Clanny House) to get cough drops (pastilles, which are squishy and last about an hour, and lozenges which are hard and last about five minutes — I looked up the definitions to find the pronunciations, which have long eluded me). It turns out that Throaties are the best thing ever, although it took me a bit to get over the licorice taste.

Pastilles all seem to come in these little bubble packages.

Lozenges just come in bags. These taste like menthol-y blackcurrant (tastes kind of like purple fruit, sort of like blackberry; is a huge deal here, like grape, cherry, and orange in candy; strawberry in jams and jellies; and apple, cranberry, and grape in juice) candy.

They clear out my nose and throat so well that it's worth it. I think I drank lots of tea as well. Not much happened tuesday, really.

Wednesday, I discovered that my pastilles are basically cough medicine mixed with old-fashioned candy... and beeswax. I don't let it get to me; they're still really awesome. I can get them for way cheaper at green's than at rowland's, but green's doesn't have cheap nighttime cold medicine, so I'm out of cash and can't get Throaties. It's time to make a move on the cash machine in the library, which is swamped with people as I write this during my lunch break thursday.
I decided to take the evening off, so I snuggled up in my bed with Gulliver's Travels for my lit class, my computer, my Throaties, and some menthol-infused kleenexes that Jessi gave me.
Gulliver's Travels is the most blatantly political book that's ever been labeled a children's book. It's so transparent. I ended up getting a lot done on the blog because I couldn't keep reading. Oh, my. Apparently, Swift is mocking Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, with his odd attention to detail. I didn't really find Defoe's detail obsession irritating in Journal of the Plague Year, but Swift drove me crazy. Do not like. I eased my mind by blogging, and then by reading hyperbole and a half for about an hour after I looked up the "clean all the things" picture for the Clanny House post.

Thursday started out pretty well. I woke up on time, remembered my wallet, caught the bus, and made it to class early. This was an improvement over last week, when I woke up early but forgot my wallet, missed the bus, and only just made it to class on time by speed-walking all the way to campus in about ten minutes. So this week, I started my day tired, sick, and grumpy but not exhausted, overheated, and soaking wet.
Then we got into real science instead of quality control crap. It was a little irritating because the lecturer was the lady who talks like we're in kindergarten again, but I still like her better than the impossible little frenchman.
I was overjoyed when we started using equations. We derived a bit of a monster, but I'd seen the variables before and it was strictly algebraic. I can't imagine what this group would do if faced with calculus.
There I was, sitting in a stuff lecture theatre with a bunch of tittering morons trying to figure out "where k2 went" (it was there all along, didn't they see the bit where Vmax = k2[E0]? The equals sign means that they're the same thing, guys...), and all I could think of was how beautiful the derivation and equation were. I was actually in awe of it. I'm still kind of in awe half an hour later, to be honest. It's incredible, beautiful, awe-inspiring, and people think it could have happened just by chance.
**Also, Andrew, brother mine, mathematical adept: When did you learn to expand bracketed expressions? I can't remember the exact phrase that I learned the concept under, but it means that A(B+C) = AB + AC. I feel certain that I'd learned it by 9th grade (geometry for me), but I can't remember exactly because it's so idiotically simple that I feel like I've always known it. So please try to remember when you learned it and let me know in comments or by texting my google voice number. Comments might be more efficient. Mom and Dad have my number, and it might also be on the blog or on facebook in one of my posts. If you don't answer this within the week, I'll post this question on your facebook wall, possibly to the point of spamming you, and then I'll start bombarding your mobile with texts about it.
I'm wondering about when I learned that A(B+C) = AB + AC because the algebraic morons in my class (oh, yes, they've been upgraded from idiots to morons) could not for the life of them figure that out. Luckily, the kid sitting next to me, who I believe is british (unrelatedly, he has a neckbeard that could rival that of George Whitworth), was as in awe of their inability to get this fairly simple concept as I was. There is hope for the british educational system, maybe!
Also, I drew a picture of a pastille.

Sorry about the blurriness. There's an arrow pointing to the roundish blob inside the splashy squiggle, and the words underneath are "unadulterated awesomeness". The roundish thing is a pastille. 

A real pastille to show you what it actually looks like. That's a terrible picture.

Now I'm sitting in the library, which just kicked me off its reading list page when I was trying to print the list of books I need to read for my presentation in history. These hour-long breaks are kind of annoying- not really enough time to go home, too much time to sit around without a long book or a computer. However, I think that having to lug my computer around is a fair price to pay to make thursdays less sucky.
Lab turned out to be pretty good. I've joined up with a group of people who may or may not be drunk and/or high at any given point, but they don't giggle and they didn't reject me when I was forcibly placed with them. This makes me seem like I have really low self esteem, which is not necessarily true, but it kind of is when I'm trying to join a group. I still get nervous when I'm with close friends; imagine total strangers! My first impressions of my lab group were less than favourable, but they're nice enough, and not just to the slightly awkward american, that I'm becoming rather attached to them as a lab group. I rather doubt that I'll spend any time with them outside of lab, but this is a good start for me.
Mike looks like Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers (with messier hair than in that wikipedia picture), and Adam (not the fount of all knowledge from my flat, although he's pretty good a biochem lab procedures) resembles Wade, the TA from Plant Bio. Joe is lab partners and, apparently, good friends with Mike, "Jedward", whose real name I learned last week and promptly forgot (it might be Edward, but it might also be Richard), partners with Adam, and Robyn, who is slightly intimidating but good natured enough to forgive my head cold-induced deafness, was partners with me. Last week, we were all kind of a large globby group who stole each others results because Adam and Robyn got in late.
After lab, I barely caught the bus and got off at Green's, where I triumphantly purchased two packages of Throaties (blackcurrant and original- we'll see how the blackcurrant compares to the awesomeness that is the original) before heading home.

I believe this bag is from the pharmacy suppliers, also known as chemists. It tickles me to be told to go to the chemist's, although the signs are all for "pharmacy"

*Cue angelic choir*

I ended up exploring. There's a huge methodist church across the street from the catholic church on the street that runs by the hospital, and there's practically nothing further down the street that Clanny's on. There is, however, plenty down the street just after Clanny. I didn't have the time or money to act on my explorations, but I did buy a personal pizza to justify wandering aimlessly around a grocery store.
Update- I burnt my pizza by forgetting about it. But it was still really delicious.
Then, I did, like, all the dishes. Because I'm awesome.
I suspect that my blog for today will keep being more and more hyperbolic (in the literary sense, not the geometric sense).
Also, I figured out why today was less awful than last week: I wore rainbow socks.

The source of my power. Awesome socks, awesome day.
Also, terrible shot of my leg. It's just perspective making my calf look bigger than my shoe.

The day ended with Jessi and I taking in Bob Diddyfish, the goldfishfish that we're technically not allowed to keep in the flat and who belongs to Josie, the australian girl. She's going to London to take her brother sightseeing for a few days, and then going to germany to see her mom and family for most of a week, so we're fish-sitting Bob for a week until Conor, the guy who lives on the same floor as Josie and who took care of Bob last time she was away, gets back. 

The post didn't get more hyperbolic, I just noticed. Sorry. I picked it back up after four or five hours, and look what happened.

After settling Bob in on my dresser, Jessi and I talked for about two hours. We also fixed the heater.

Because we're AWESOME.