This is going to be a bit of a “first world problems” post, but being sick and miserable and cold got me thinking about some of the things that annoyed me for a past few days to a week (A.K.A. I just want to sulk about it somewhere). It seems like an awful lot in a short amount of time, but I swear some of these are pre-existing!

So here goes, the top 10 things that annoy me while I was sick:

10. Wearing too much = fluff ball syndrome!

I tend to wear a lot of clothes (see point 09)… this is both uncomfortable and impractical (physically and aesthetically).

How impractical?

Firstly, if it’s always rainy, then the clothes are slower to dry after laundering, and hence I have less and less to wear (and don’t get me started on wet sneakers; takes forever to dry!).

Secondly, it gets really hard to move in such amount of clothes… I feel and look like a fluff ball!

09. Not being able to warm up!

I’m basally cold and just can’t regulate my temperature that well… Being cautious, I always pack on a lot of clothes, and would still be cold!

Sometimes, I overestimate how cold it’d be, I’d be lugging all my extra jackets around in my arm, and it becomes a hassle.

And sometimes, it gets so unpredictable that I just bring half my closet and an umbrella, just in case. And half the time, I don’t really need all that stuff!

08. Itchy skin from clothing too tight and/or being too warm.

After I took off my compression top, both my biceps and parts of my obliques were itching so much I got a bit naughty and scratched a lot little.

07. Not a wintery post as such, but… Gloves are bad for my mani!

I love wearing polishes… but being in the lab means that I can’t keep it on for more than 2 days because the gloves ruin my polish!!

One weekend, I had a 3 hour wait period for my experiment, I went and got a mani… Came back to finish off my experiment, and found that the glove had already ruined it! Upset was an understatement.

Anyway, gloves = no good for nail polishes. Especially latex (nitrile is a little better).

Also, Miss YP, another nail polish enthusiast who works in a lab, noted that polish gets ruined even more rapidly after raking the -80°C freezer.

06. Again, not really a wintery post… But in it goes. Not being able to keep longer nails.

Apparently, my nails are too long and/or sharp around the edges that my nails actually pierce through both latex and nitrile gloves, and even when I double glove… and I double glove to avoid this! So it comes down to my potential health, or my nails, and sadly, my nails takes the sacrifice.

05. Dry skin, especially my hands and shin skin.

My hands are parched all year ’round. This is because when working in the lab, we have to glove up and wash our hands the whole day… Applying moisturiser doesn’t help all that much, as I have to wash it off fairly frequently…

The dry hands are even worse in the winter. It is partially because I love using hot water, and partially the cold air outside that contributes to this.

04. Dry lips.

Usually, I have dry lips as in “my skin is ripping and I bleed” dry lips. I think being sick gave me this other dry lip symptom; it’s dry pretty much 24 hours  of the day, but nothing is ripping/peeling/bleeding, only the lips are very tight (wonder if that’s how a botox would feel like)… and lip gloss just doesn’t cut it. Hopefully it’ll go away soon.

On another note, when I do get “I’m peeling, help me” dry lips, my lip gloss is always ruined by the strong gust of wind that sends strands of my hair into the sticky mix, making a mess of both my gloss and my hair.

03. That dry cough.

I’ve been having a dry cough… and although both a dry cough and chesty cough both cause tightness in the chest, I much prefer a chesty cough; at least I don’t sound like I’m faking it, and it somewhat tickles my throat less.

But! I have a dry cough, and it’s completely not satisfying every time I let out that cough!

02. Having a blocked nose…

Because of this, I couldn’t sleep properly last night…

So having a blocked nose meant that I had to breathe with my mouth opened while I tried to fall asleep… and because my mouth has been dry for a few days now, I kept making these scratchy noises… So the whole night, I kept waking myself up from sudden bursts of my “snore” sounds every time I came close to falling asleep… Sigh!

01. Loss of taste and scent (and apparently, being able to smell is a big part of tasting), even in the absence of a blocked nose.

Everything I eat tastes insipid… I know there’s flavour in there somewhere, but my pre-existing knowledge of taste and what I was tasting just did not click, and left my dangling, dissatisfied!

And also, my sense of smell is gone temporarily.

Dubbed “the canary” because I could smell the smokes of a bushfire in the Blue Mountains all the way from my lab (in UNSW) when nobody else did (they thought I had an overactive imagination)… It was only an hour later when my colleague checked updates that confirmed what I’d originally thought I smelt; fire smoke.

Anyway… Yesterday, a lady came into our lab from the corridors, expressing her concern for smells of smoke from a fire… Upon investigation, it turned out it was someone’s lunch that had been microwaved for a tad too long…

The whole time, I did not smell a thing!

So yeah, not only is it unfortunate not being able to taste anything, it can also be potentially dangerous. Okay, a little melodramatic and obscure here (hehe).

So, I finally took my first step out of the house in 4 days… Out into the terrible Sydney weather, wearing my compression gear and many many layers topped off with my long ASOS coat… Just to go to uni. I’m still sick, but figured I’m well enough today to go; it was just unfortunate that the weather decided to be unhappy! >_<

On my way to the train station, I noticed that I’ve been starting to view the streets a little differently… every give way sign, stop sign, bus stop sign has the potential for practicing pole moves… Sounds a little absurd in retrospect, but still I wonder if it’d be a good idea for a quick fix rather than buying an x-pole…

Halfway through my muse, I remembered that I had totally forgotten a box of tissues for my relentless nose… It was too late to head back so I kept walking to the station only to find my train delayed (not enough to head back home).

And when I got to Central and have already waited around 15 minutes for a bus, the bus guard person that was standing there (whatever they were doing, really) kindly informed us that the last bus directly to uni was at 11:05 (apparently uni holidays = bus drivers on holidays)… So I went to another stop and waited for that bus. Aside from being cold while waiting what seemed like forever for the bus, it actually didn’t take long at all to get to uni!

And thus conclude the story of my commute this morning!

Anyway, I finally made a decision as to what the new Mental Murmurs outlook should look like, and I’m really excited to have made the switch (I was getting so bored of the old look)! It’s not completely done, and I’m working on it with (a lot of) Mr AG’s help (thank you!)… so yeah, hopefully I’ll be happy with it soon!

Got up feeling slightly better than yesterday, and gave my girls a call to plan our date (last minute plannings)… The weather looked nasty, and since I was sick and Miss NM had something on in China Town this morning, we all decided that it was probably best to postpone our date to next Sunday, after my pole class at 2 PM.

And whilst I really do want to see them, I was grateful we cancelled, as further on the day, all I felt was lethargy, run-down, and generally worse off than yesterday.

So, I spent the rest of the day in layers and layers of clothes and my fluffy socks, and ate and catnapped and ate and bludged… meaning that this whole weekend, I have not stepped out of the house a single bit.

I’ve been feeling a little run down lately, and it really showed today… so it’s official, I’m a sick kittycat =(

Had a day in today… did my nails, blew my nose, watched some drama, blew my nose, talked to grandpa when he visited, blew my nose,  shopped online… talked to FR on the phone for 2 h while blowing my nose….

Then watched some youtube videos, and my parents came back with super yummy hot chippies and charcoal chicken… popped open a new box of tissues and continued blowing my nose.

Argh! I feel so crook! =(

Hope I get well enough for tomorrow’s date with the girls! >_<

A long long time without any update, and I’m sorry it had to be a bad one.

So where should I start?

It’s about 8am on the Easter public holiday Monday, and I’ve just woken from the most horrid sleep, if I had any at all. The thing is, I think I caught something recently because I was more susceptible (stress from uni and everything),  showing symptoms of a cold/flu yesterday morning. Resting is the key, so I slept most the day away yesterday, even when I had stacks of uni stuff to do (stress tress stress panic!!!)…

Last night at about 3am when I knew I was still awake, I had a throat that bugged me endlessly and one more throat lozenge left… Thinking I’d be able to catch some sleep, I had the final lozenge and dozed off… for 10 minutes. So… more sore throat and fragmented sleep with tossing and turning and weird disjointed dreams… and I ended up like this today (zombie!!).

So not cool!

This semester started a fortnight ago, lasts for 12 weeks excluding holiday breaks (used to be 14 weeks, but they putting 14 weeks of content into the 12 = content overload!) and we were meant to be having our Easter break and mid-session break (yeah, after 2 weeks into it)… Except for one of my subjects, I have to come into lab while everyone was on “mid-session break”, Tuesday to Friday, 9am to 6pm..

So all up, I had 4 days off (Friday to Monday)… Got nothing done as planned (assignments/etc), and feeling worse than ever (because the symptoms have gotten worse), completely unprepared (not up) for the hectic 8 hour lab work starting tomorrow.

So yeah, great timing really.

Ah. *sigh*

I hope you all a merrier Easter than mine.
Surely it must be…?

Today didn’t start off too well, actually.

I woke up slightly late, and turns out mum did as well, so hence, we both missed the early walk. Mum, having the need to walk, told me to walk with her to the chemist, so after breakfast, I got dressed nicely and headed out.

A boiling hot day again, just like yesterday, it was a hard trek for me. Perhaps going in the chemist with the air con and all will make me feel better, I thought. Couldn’t wait to get in there, I sat down while mum waited for her prescription medicine.

Then I felt dizzy. Ignoring it made me feel worse. Blood pressure acting up. Shit. I told mum, and she freaked, which made me freak, hyperventilate, heart pump faster and dizzier than ever. She called my brother to tell dad I was fainting and to pick me up from the chemist. Due to the long wait for the people to get my mum her meds, she told me to go outside to wait for dad first, and if she took too long, she’d walk by herself.

I saw dad and followed him into the car, and we were both waiting outside for mum to finish her purchase. But after 10 minutes, still no mum. I figured she must’ve walked by herself, so I told dad what she said about going home first. Ticked off, he started telling me off for not being clear on anything, making him wait and all for no reason. And then he was telling me off for being on the computer too much that it affected my health. Too bothered (and unwell) to argue with him or anything, I stayed silent the short trip home.

Got home, went upstairs, turned the fan on, and called Mr AG for comfort. I told him I thought the change in conditions (from hot hot outside to air con) was what made me feel that initial dizziness, then mum’s panicked look. So I stayed there talking to him, chilling out for a while. I wonder what I’d be doing right now if that fainting scene never happened some 2 months ago… I wonder if it was something that was to happen sooner or later, or just a one off that was to scar me for a long time… just as it had.

Feeling better, I went downstairs for lunch. After lunch, I went up again to do some stuff for mum, and then mum came in saying I had a parcel. Wow. I didn’t order anything! Excited, I opened the very protective cover. “Rock ya covers off” – I won!

So I spent the whole day chilling (more like boiling up) out to the CDs, checking out items on ebay, chatting to Miss LC and talking to Mr AG (only for bits, he went to the gym and then shopped for food) before dinner.

After dinner was our ritual walk. And during that walk, we saw a couple (husband + pregnant wife) with their kid (2 years old?) a few times as we completed our rounds. I didn’t pay much attention to them until the last round, where I saw the husband look at me directly. Then mum told me he’s been doing that every time we walked past. Strange.