Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I love it here.  But even when you love a place as much as I love it here.  Some days just objectively suck.  That was today.

I've been sick as some of you know (I have what we refer to as the "Fresher's Flu, which I did get every time I went back to Amherst, but seems a lot worse here).  This meant that I did not sleep at all last night, because I kept waking up to cough.  During one of these bouts, I decided to go to the bathroom...and locked myself out of my room, for the second time in the middle of the night.  I had to wake my floormate up (sorry Diana!) to get a pair of shoes and a coat to walk in my pjs to the porters lodge (again).  I think this time they realized that I was not in the mood to be made fun of, so they just gave me the key.  That was unpleasant to say the least.

Then I made what was probably the first of my stupid decisions today.  I woke up at 6 am to go rowing. Yes, in retrospect probably stupid.  But it was actually the only good thing about today.  I am really enjoying rowing, even though it makes me feel old because all the girls on the novice team are undergrad freshers, so they are all 18! but it's still fun, and today was the first real day I felt like I knew even a little bit of what I was doing in the boat!

Stupid thing number two happened as I got to work on my bike.  I wanted to ride my bike straight into the "cycle park" which meant going over the curb.  But I wasn't going fast enough so I wiped out in front of the institute.  A really nice Chinese man asked me if I was alright.  I assured him that I was, but in retrospect, probably not. Yay for helmets.

Anyways, then I attended yet another safety lecture (number 5?).  This one was by the same guy as before, but it was two hours (apparently the University has had some chemical safety accidents in the recent past).  I am all for safety, but I'm totally ADD, especially when I'm sick and keep getting dirty looks for coughing during the presentation, so I just kind of wanted to get out of there.

After that I was basically kicked out of work and told to go home and I decided that it was a good time to get some hardcore meds to get rid of this cold.  But first, I realized my morning wipe-out has made the chain come off my bike, so i wandered around for while trying to find someone who would fix it (preferably for free).  I did find that in the end, but it still was annoying.

Then I arrived at the pharmacy.  I looked for my good ol' standby: delsym, but they dont sell that here.  They also apparently don't sell gel icepacks, acetominaphin, or benadryl.  So then I had a conversation with the pharmacist that ended as it always does in my trying to explain that a cough can be both "chesty" and "dry" at the same time and why dont they just have a med that does both?  They also don't have large packs of cough drops here, so every way I have ever learned to deal with sickness is out of the window.  I did eventually find an icepack though.  After two pharmacies, two sports stores, and a department store.

Then I made what was probably stupid decision number three.  Instead of getting myself home and just passing out, I went out to dinner with friends to a Korean food place.  As I was not quite with it today, I got lost twice on my way there.  When I finally got there, it was great, but Korean food is super spicy.  Heartburn + cough does not = good feelings.  Plus when you're sick everyone is paranoid about eating with you : (

Finally, when I got out of dinner, it was raining.  Now, not a big deal normally, but when you have rowed, been thrown from a bike, spent the entire day trying to find real medicine, and are running on like 4 hours of sleep, the rain just sucks.  So I biked home in a really bad mood and then took a hot shower (but the hot water ran out).  All in all a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I think this is the first time that I've really been truly homesick since I've been here.  Sure I miss Amherst and Boston, but I don't wish I was there instead of here.  Today I kind of just wanted to be back in the States.  It would make like so much easier.  But I guess that's supposed to be part of this experience too.  And tomorrow will hopefully be better...