Baby, It's Cold Outside

Ah, yes, winter in Chicago, I believe, has officially started after a couple false starts. This means lots of things to this Chicago transplant: an overactive steam heater, wild crowds at the movie theater (inside activities only from November to March), lots of warm scarfs, fabulous winter boots, and a wicked cold. Malheursement, the cold came early this year.

I have years of memories from my long ago school days in Indy of copious amounts of tissues and coughing my way through standardized testing. Fortunately, I also had a mother who would remember to give me medicine, make hot tea, and always had tissues on hand.

When I went off to college and then grad school, my treatment of said colds went downhill. Instead of a mother's care, I only had myself...not a promising situation. I remember my freshman year when I had the flu during my winter finals. I also remember using toilet paper as a substitute for tissues, using dayquil as a substitute for antibiotics, and fighting fatigue - not with sleep - but with concentrated Mountain Dew and ginseng and pizza and running around the classroom building in my socks to stay awake. Oh, and I'm pretty sure I listened to DMX as a soundtrack for my studies. Not my finest moment.

Now, as a working "adult," things are slightly better. I usually have tissues, I remember to take the cold medicine on time and even pop Vitamin C every once in a while. The downside? I can no longer make myself feel just good enough for a two-hour class, but rather an eight-hour work day. I can't run across the quad and use my student points for supplies, but have to hoove it down to my friendly area Walgreen. I also have a 17 pound cat (he lost a pound!!!) that prefers to sleep on my chest at the exact moment that I can no longer breathe through my nose.

By I like to look on the brightside of having a cold: constant sneezing gets me my own seat on my morning commute, not breathing well=shorter workouts, chai tea makes everything better, and I now have the strength to resist the siren song of Mountain Dew...well, most of the time.