the rest of my week

[magicicada]

when last heard from, our brave hero was planning quite a busy week; starting a second tax class on thursday, and generally dealing with a whopper of a first week at work. fate, and its minions stress, illness and misdirection conspired to make this not so, and it may be this will all turn out for the best. thursday afternoon my stomach started to feel a bit queasy. i put it down to some bad cocoa and soldiered on. by quitting time, i was feeling that with a bit of solid, non sugary, food in me, i should be all ready to go. so, bravely i set forward to durham to find this tax course. i checked my directions again and noted that it was a bit further up I-40 than i had been hoping, 11 miles instead of the few exits i had somehow remembered. but bravely, i set forward, the directions seemed a little less straightforward than they had at first reading, but i put that down to jitters and reassured myself i was going nowhere near the scarier parts of durham. i managed to get off the exit and follow the first bit of directions and they lead me a lot further away from the southpoint mall area than i was expecting. no fear, i had a second set of directions if this one didn't pan out. however, my tummy at this point started making less happy noises again. i got to the end of the directions and no h&r block. not good, but there was a chick-fil-a so i could get a bite to eat. i went through the drive-thru, got some waffle fries and chicken nuggets and studied the second set of directions. the waffle fries were tasty and reassuring. the nuggets were starting to seem like a bad idea - but i persevered! i followed the second set of directions which led me around a subdivision - not even vaguely amusing. i went back on the main road to check out some likely shopping centers near the mall to see if i could just happen to spot a friendly green glowing square. by this point i had completely sworn off the chicken nuggets and was beginning to regret some of the waffle fries.

after checking out one last center i found myself with a clear shot at the turn lane to I-40 east (towards raleigh), my stomach was definitely not doing well and it was well past 6pm the start time for the class. i got in the turn lane and made a quick call to home reporting my general lack of success, but did not have the time before the light turned to report my general queasiness. the ride home was not a good one and i'm not sure how i made it home without losing my dinner. arriving home to a baby who had not seen me all day when i was feeling somewhere on the purple side of green was not good, but i was able to give her enough time for some calming to occur and before i got horribly sick. however, this was apparently the same vicious but fast moving bug that both h_postmortemus and sylvia got last week and i was actually feeling well enough for work friday morning.

i was a bit surprised myself and quite tempted by the idea of sleeping all day while sylvia was in day care, but i really didn't feel sick at all anymore. friday passed uneventfully and the end of week status email included some nice words for how well i was picking things up. i know this is a very understanding company, but i can't get it out of my head that calling in sick your first week is not a good idea, especially as a temp. i'm going to call the district manager monday and apologize for being a no-show, plead illness and request self-study as the commute is worse than i had thought. this is true regardless of where the cursed place is as it really was much farther to the target exit that i had thought it would be. i've driven from raleigh to southpoint mall and had it take less time than simply going from one exit near cary, but the construction is awful and doing it during rush hour doesn't help.

so, on the bad side, i got viciously sick and ended up driving around aimlessly for about an hour. on the upside, i didn't get lost in durham and it looks like my schedule will be a little clearer in the next few months. now if i could only get rid of the second pass down bug which consists almost entirely of a rather irritating cough. it's not a bad cold, but it's keeping my energy levels lower than i would like.

Comments

[ximinez]

*sympathy*