Out of Commission!

I've been sick all week. On Sat. I was feverish and throwing up, but on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I was just feverish and had a horrible sore throat. On Thursday the throat finally got better, but I became queasy again. For the last two days I really haven't been eating and I have wanted to sleep all day. Nevertheless I haven't missed a workout (go me!) and I didn't take time off from work. This is good in some respects--. I'm pretty tough about soldiering on when I am sick, mostly because when you are a working mother you just learn to deal. You often have to take days off from work because your children are sick, and you never want to WASTE a day being sick yourself, so you just suck it up and go. Teaching is not a great profession to have when you're sick, though. You can't hide. You can't put your head on your desk and rest. You must be in front of the class, and you must perform. Really teaching is a bit like acting on stage. You must take on a certain role and stick to it. If you don't, there are consequences. Perhaps this is just true of middle school teaching, but somehow I doubt it. Kids need to know you care about them and they respond to you if you are warm and enthusiastic. However, they are also savvy and demanding: if you are inconsistent or appear to lack total and complete control, they will eat you alive. In short, it was a tough week in the old classroom, made more difficult by the fact that I really didn't want to miss any scheduled workouts. I had doubles this whole week. They were short workouts for the most part, but like the kids, they were relentless. My swim workouts seemed to suffer the most. I just had no gas in the pool and the nausea doesn't seem to abate when swimming like it does with running and biking. The only good thing about being sick is that I think I may have taken off a little weight! Anyway... It's Friday afternoon, the kids (MY kids) are eating popcorn and watching a Aladdin, and I am thanking God that next week is vacation. _____________________________ In other news, last week I was tagged by AtlantaMom. Here goes! Seven Random or Weird Things about Me: 1. My hair has been most colors of the rainbow. I've been a blond, I've tried brown (current), black, fire engine red, black and blond in chunks, auburn, and purple. When I began teaching at 23, so long ago, my hair was purple. The kids loved that. I think my real hair color is mouse brown, but I haven't actually had my natural hair color visible since I was 13. 2. Before I was a runner or triathlete, I was a dancer. As a girl I danced with The Maine Ballet Co. in the corp. As an adult I became a really good Lindy Hopper. I even did crazy things like go to Lindy Hop camp! 3. I am addicted to peanut butter. I put it on everything, even pancakes. 4. When I was an eighteen-year old, after I stopped dancing, I weighed 30 pounds more than I weigh today. 5. When I was a young girl I was an angel--a teacher's pet--a goody-two shoes. When I turned fifteen something went terribly awry, and I became a total rebel. I did a lot of really stupid things for a number of years. I feel so lucky when I think back that my friends didn't desert me, I still managed to do okay in school, that I didn't get pregnant and that I didn't die of a drug or alcohol overdose. Them were scary times.... 6. I love all things made for adolescents: movies, music, and especially BOOKS. I am the lone adult scoping out the YA (young adult) section of the library and taking out all of their novels. (Guess it makes sense that I spent time as a middle school librarian and that I'm a middle school English, teacher...) 7. I was so terrified when I was taken into have an emergency c-section with my first child that I couldn't stop crying and shaking. I held the anesthesiologist's hand so tight that I bruised him. Meanwhile, my husband was fascinated with the surgery, and kept saying, "Wow! that's so cool. Mary, you should look at all of the yellow stuff in there. I think it's fat!" It was very special. I remember after it was over and we were talking, I asked him why the nursing staff kept counting during the surgery. He told me it was because they had to count the many, many surgical towels they used to sop up the blood: they feared they would leave one inside when I was sewed up. Pleasant, huh? C-Sections 2 and 3 were scary too, but not like the first. On that note, I'll tag a few more bloggers! 1. Ange: Ange's Drive to Tri 2. The Lazy Triathlete 3. Tri Guy J.T. 4. Michelle 5. D.C. Rainmaker 6. Locked and Loaded 7. Who in their right mind... Here are the rules: The rules are as follows: # Link to the person who tagged you # Post the rules on your blog. # Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog. # Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs. # Leave a comment on their blogs so that they know they have been tagged. Signing off.