Not a Single Training Session Was Given That Day

So, it's now been 7 days since I've trained. Last training session, I noticed I felt a little less warm than usual, but figured that's just the weather, and thought nothing of it. Well, I got home afterwards, logged it, felt fine for the rest of the day, then evening came, and it took 4 more days after that before I stepped out the front door again. You know how you get a cold (different from simply being cold), and it starts out inconspicuously then ramps up to peak awfulness, then dies down and withers away to nothing? This isn't that.

Instead, by the end of last Tuesday, I was sick enough that I couldn't go out in public without resembling The Simpsons' crazy cat lady (actually, my symptoms weren't overly severe, they just happened to be specifically targeted to make sure I couldn't possibly do anything socially acceptable), and then my body just stayed that way. It didn't ramp up, and it didn't die down. Come yesterday morning, when I realised I still wasn't healthy and ready to train, I decided to do the sensible thing that macho men don't do, and see a doctor. I'm on antibiotics now; hopefully by the time I've used up the pack I'll be back to full health. I haven't decided whether I'll train throughout the remainder of the week or not yet -- I'll have to use my wisdom as the week progresses. The antibiotics do seem to be having an effect, so that's a positive sign (or a complete coincidence).

In other news, it's that time of semester when assignments happen, and I'm not particularly fond of it. One of my units is entirely group assignments. We had an assignment due in yesterday. Technically we submitted it late, by a matter of seconds (assignment minder literally clocked out as we were handing the assignment to the guy at reception, so he had to put a note on the assignment, and I wound up sending an email to the lecturer explaining the situation -- she was very considerate and said she'd regard the assignment as having been submitted on time). For about 3 days leading up to submitting it, each of us, at varying points, felt like killing ourselves, each other, and/or the lecturer for giving us this assignment. In a couple weeks time we have to do a presentation from this assignment. I look forward to the murder-suicidy thoughts that are coming our way. I have another assignment that's due this coming Friday. I started on it Sunday evening, and am cautiously optimistic that I finished it this afternoon, having put in a total of about 5 hours work (4 hours of which was spent watching YouTube (actually not proscaniting) and on Facebook/forums (actually yes procrastinating)). There's so little murder-suicide in this assignment, that after the other one, it doesn't feel right. Ironically, after lunch I sent an email to the lecturer for this assignment asking for an extension due to illness -- if my optimism is rightly placed and I have actually finished it, then I guess I won't need that extension after all.

So far, this semester at uni hasn't been very motivating. Back when I was studying creative industries, I loved it. Over the last 12 months, I've loved my teaching units. I love my English units. Last semester, when I was studying health, I loved that, too. This semester, I'm a year ahead on teaching units, so I'm not doing one, and instead am using that slot to do a second science unit after changing majors from English/Health to Science/English (in that order because of reasons) -- ie I'm doing 2 science, 2 English and 0 teaching units this semester. One of the science units looks not at a specific field of science, but how science and technology affects society (and how society affects science and technology), which brings up all sorts of controversy and ethical queries and I love it! The other science unit is biology, and through it I'm rapidly realising that while being a qualified science teacher may make it easier to get a job, I probably should have stuck with English and Health. You see, it turns out that I love science so long as I don't have to do it (the same relationship I have with maths, which I'm actually quite good at, but hated doing it at school and would very likely hate even more at uni). When we weren't plotting each other's murder yesterday, the other guy in that painful group assignment identified that we're both science enthusiasts, not scientists, and therein lies the problem for me. As a teacher, this doesn't bode well, because there's very little worse for a student than a teacher who either isn't passionate about the subject, or is only passionate when they don't have to do it. I might have to change my majors again before next year (I will finish out these units, even though I've sincerely had more fun watching paint dry than I have doing biology).

With regards to maths, I had a fun time on Saturday night. A friend of mine who's doing Adult Tertiary Prep (basically Year 11 and 12 for people who aren't in Year 11 or 12) gave me a maths problem to solve. I didn't solve it the way he thinks I should have solved it, but, importantly, I did solve it in about 2 minutes. By contrast, he spent half an hour on the exact same problem in a test earlier last week. It's times like these that he thinks he's found proof that I should be a maths teacher. Thing is, it's times like these that I don't have to do maths.