Monday, May 23, 2011

The Cough Syrup

     Sometime this March I came down with a terrible case of Sinusitis and Laryngitis at the same time... life rocked. Even though I was slowly dying from my ailments, I was determined to go to my classes. I called my doctor and asked if I could come in and get something to help me make it through the day.

     I drove to her office an hour before my first class started, and she took a look at me and prescribed some super-make-you-feel-better-immediately cough syrup that would take care of most of my symptoms. However, she also told me that due to my smaller stature and the fact that I had not been eating properly while being sick, the cough syrup might cause some interesting side-effects. I wasn't worried though. I had never really experienced bad reactions to medicine before and I just wanted to go to class.


     I went to the pharmacy, got the super-duper cough syrup, took the prescribed amount, and drove to the University.



     I was slightly early for my first class and decided to go grab a coffee. While I was standing in line, I began to feel kind of light-headed,


 but I just figured it would go away once I drank some coffee.
     I am usually a pro at ordering coffee, however when I approached the counter on this particular day, my mouth could not form proper words.


Somehow I got the coffee I wanted and began wandering around the open, grassy area of my college. I was lost in a circle and literally could not find my building (it is visible from EVERY point of the open area).

 I ended up e-mailing my professor from my cell phone telling him I was having a bad reaction to some cough syrup and would not make it to class. I don't think everything was spelled correctly because he never looked at me the same after that day.
     While I was wandering and drinking a coffee I tried thinking what I needed to do. I knew that I had sociology and ballet and they were in the general same direction...


 so I started walking.


     I don't exactly know how, but I ended up in the business building where my next class was. I looked at my cell phone and saw that I still had an hour before the class started.


 I slowly worked my way to the lower level of the building

taking one stair at a time


 until finally I made it to the bottom.


Most buildings have some kind of lounge area, so I began searching for a big room with couches and people sleeping since that's what the lounge in my building looked like. I came across a room with some awkward space age looking chairs with people sitting with their computers.


I was not convinced that this was a real lounge because it did not look like the one in my building. I decided to ask a young man in a suit if this was the lounge, but I still was not forming coherent words and said something along the lines of, "Eees lonj?"









    After figuring out that this was indeed a lounge, (just not as superior as the one in my building with lazy boy couches and coffee tables) I collapsed in a chair... or five chairs and began staring off into space.


     I felt like I had been lying on the chairs for about an hour but it had really only been five minutes. I decided to change things up a bit and sit up while staring because lying down made me feel like I was floating, and that made me feel like my life wasn't going in a solid direction... I don't know, I was tripping on cough syrup.
     Something about sitting up caused this little voice in the back of my head to begin talking to me. The voice told me that if I studied my spanish at that exact moment in time, I would inevitably be the best spanish speaker in the world.




     I whipped out my text book and began trying to understand adverbial clauses and when to use the subjunctive or the imperative. I believe it is this study session that inevitably lead to my future struggles with this subject in spanish grammar to this day.
     It was eventually fifteen minutes before my class started and I worked my way upstairs to prepare myself to take notes for an hour in Sociology. However, when I ran into the guy I sat next to, he informed me it was a test day.
     After staring at him for quite some time and then explaining the cough syrup situation, he suggested asking my professor if I could take the test at another time. I began searching for my professor.


     When I found her I began explaining in great detail and with large words that my mouth was not at the capacity to pronounce at that moment in time.


She told me that if I wanted to take the test on another day I would need a doctor's note and I just didn't want to go back to the doctor again because the last time I did she made me drunk. So I decided to take the test.
     I got a 96%.

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