Does It Ever End?

Do yourselves a favor and never get mono. Never. Get. Mono.

For the past seven weeks or so my life has been turned upside-down. I don't even know where to begin to explain it. I'm repeating myself as it is.

You know what, just don't get mono. Unless you enjoy being debilitated for a bit. I have been attacked, compromised, however you want to look at it, I'm answering to something I don't want to. Not that I typically rail against exhaustion, but usually it's caused by running (something I love dearly). In this case, it's constant.

Lately I haven't been myself. I'm usually in good spirits and bursting with energy. At the moment I'm just alright and pretty tired. I feel like I'm copping out when I say I'm tired because I have mono. Those words don't easily roll off my tongue, which is also unusual.

My whole state of being is unusual. My sleep habits are bizarre. For example, I went to bed at 11.30 last night, didn't fall asleep until after 1, and woke up starving at 6. I thought my stomach was going to eat itself, which is odd because I had a bowl of cereal around 10.45, shortly before I went to bed.

Clearly my eating habits have been bizarre, too. My dad and Bob (my second-dad who has done more than his fair share in terms of listening to me whine about mono) said that my metabolism has gone crazy because of mono and they're probably right. Up until this week I was an eating machine. I was hungry all the time. Now I have to think about whether or not I actually am hungry.

My mom said that one of the reasons I've been feeling down is probably due to my inability to run (out of fear of spleen-rupturing, which would really be the cherry on top of this) and therefore I'm not getting any endorphins. Julia said that as well. To quote Legally Blonde, 'Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands.' Not that I'm married, but that's true, and easily one of my favorite lines from a movie.

My workload is fairly daunting at times. Two months ago it wouldn't have been, but given the circumstances it's intimidating. I'm doing too much: 16 credits (a full schedule at Berklee), Peer Advising, Music Business Club, and the Music Business Journal just to name a few. I didn't cut back out of fear of falling behind, but I think I screwed myself over by not taking a step back. I might withdraw from a class if my energy/normal life doesn't return soon.

My doctor told me that one day I'm gonna wake up and be full of energy. On that day I will and go for a long run by the river while crying tears of joy.

Today...Was Full Of Win

It really was.

It started off alright. I woke up later than planned. Actually I woke up on time, I just opted to hit snooze several times and finally drag myself out of bed at 10.00 instead of 9.00. My first class wasn't until 11.00 anyway, so I gave myself a little more leisure time this morning. Part of it's the mono for sure. I wake up, and either instantly or shortly after I wake up I'm so tired I could roll right back to sleep.

So I went to my 11 o'clock class, Principles of Financial Accounting with the always hilarious Marty Dennehy. A bunch of my friends are in that class, and Marty's fantastic so despite it being accounting and incredibly boring, it won't be that bad.

After class, I scooted over to the bookstore, hastily purchased my books because I was expecting a very important phone call from Mike Davidson of Mike Davidson Recording. I submitted my band's song (they're on the right of this page if you care to listen) to a contest he was having and we won! We won eight free hours of recording time. So those two songs on the right will sound infinitely better in the coming month. We'll also be recording a third song called Doubt which is here somewhere...That really made my day.

Not too long after that phone call I received an email from Kim DeVito (Music Business/Management Department Coordinator at Berklee) saying that I passed the test to get into Advanced Computer Applications. Excellent! The Basic Computer Applications ('Basic' from here on out) class didn't fit in my schedule anyway.

However, I do have a problem with how the system works with this class. Had I not taken the test out and just taken the Basic class, I wouldn't have to take the Advanced class. So even though I technically passed the Basic class, I don't get credit for it. That really bugs me. Whatever. At least I'll learn something new, and I don't have to have a class on Mondays. My Mondays are free of classes and I love it. Not that I've experienced it yet because we started classes on Tuesday, but it will be awesome.

My classes are awesome thus far. It's going to be a killer semester, even with the mono. Things are happening, and I love it.

Down With The Sickness

Towards the end of my break, I came down with mono. My throat was so sore for a week that I wanted nothing more than to tear it out. I had a fever of 102, and I was just all around miserable. I no longer want to tear my throat out and my fever is gone, but the virus still remains. The only good thing is that it's only contagious via saliva so I'm not quarantined from civilization.

The thing about mono is that it stays in your body for a really long time, and it makes you tired. Really really tired. All the time.

I'm not used to this whole being-tired thing. My energy level is normally through the roof, but as of now I have no energy. It's frustrating. I wake up and the first thing I want to do is fall back asleep. Right now I'm supposed to be doing community service with my fellow Peer Advisors, but it would have drained me, and I have another Peer Advising thing to do tonight. So I opted out of today's first activity. I didn't want to, but I kind of had to.

I haven't exactly figured out how to deal with the tiredness yet. At least not effectively. I'm working on it. I'm also working on figuring out how to be lazy. It's not in my nature to do nothing, especially when I have stuff to do.

Another thing I hate about mono is that I can't work out for a few months. I can't run and I can't snowboard. I have to adjust my diet because I can no longer simply run off all the carbs I eat.

This could last until the beginning of February, which wouldn't be that bad. Or it could last until the beginning of April, which would suck big time.

The only thing I can do is go about my life the way I normally would and sleep when I need to. Contrary to what I may think, my life is not over. Far from it.