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CHECKING IN

So I’ve been working basically all evening and here I find myself at nearly 2am. I didn’t sleep much last night. My cough kept me up for most of the night and when it finally settled down, I found that I couldn’t fall asleep. Do you know the sun comes up at around 5:30am? I sat in my desk chair and looked out the window. I watched as the sky went from dark, to grey, and finally to blue. It was beautiful.

Then I managed to feel tired enough to get maybe four hours of sleep in. I’ve gone through the whole day with only a half hour nap. Yay me!

Which brings me here to the present. It’s weird, I don’t feel tired in the normal sense. I do feel like my mind is trying to separate from my body, trying to lift away. It’s pretty interesting. I have to be awake at 8:30am tomorrow, but I’m going to see how this plays out for a little while longer.

THREE DAY WEEKEND

UPDATE: I have further realized that one of my classes was cancelled on Thursday, so I’m done by 11am tomorrow. I could go to Vegas for a few days and not miss any class.

I just realized this “morning” I have no commitments at school this Friday. I usually have a tutorial to teach that day, but it’s been cancelled. So, I don’t have to be anywhere on Friday.

I’ll probably sleep in, that’s a given. I’m also tempted to take the day off, go shopping and have lunch with friends outside of UBC. It would a be fun day no doubt. What I’m forgetting of course is that it’s the end of term, and I have a presentation and a big assignment due next week. Given that I haven’t done the reading so that I can write my presentation, the wise course of action would probably be to work all day Friday. That’s probably what I’ll do. I may just go see a movie on Friday night instead.

Hey, have you ever been kinda tired enough to nap, but you’re also awake enough to do work and you can’t decide what to do? Yeah, that’s where I’m at right now.

I think I’ll drink some Coke and keep going.

TOP FIVE THINGS I’VE DISCOVERED SINCE I’VE BEEN SICK

5. Phlegm can be chunky and smooth, just like peanut butter

4. If you drink enough cough medicine, you can wake up on your lawn

3. Dried up tissues can be used to make a decorative kettle cozy

2. If you drink coloured water, your mucus will come out the same colour too

And the number one thing I’ve discovered since I’ve been sick is…

1. For some medicine, the terms “orally” and “rectally” are interchangeable

MATH CAMP

This post is more of a public service announcement more than anything else, so be forwarned.

For the last several days, I had to evaluate more integrals and derivatives than I’ve done in the last seven years combined. Needless to say, I was a bit rusty at first.

To my delight, I’ve discovered the quality of math applications on the Internet is astounding. The best that I’ve found is located here. It’s Vanderbilt University’s Mathserv Toolkit. It will help you with nearly any calculus related problem. I used it to calculate definite integrals. Less useful, but also handy is Wolfram’s Integrator. It will solve integrals for you symbolically, if possible.

Both run off a Mathematica kernel. You may not need this information today, but keep it in mind for when you need to integrate over some crazy function.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

It’s hard to believe, but erwintang.com is now four years old as of today. Our readership has grown quite a bit in the last year. I want to thank everyone who takes a little time out of their day to visit. Some of the work I do on this site I do for myself, but I work harder knowing that people expect something good when they come here.

Once again, thanks for stopping by and I hope you’ll be enjoying this site for many more years to come.

COLD UPDATE

My sore throat was much improved this morning. I actually made it to my class on time even. I was feeling great for a while, but then I could some congestion coming on and by the end of the class I was not so good. I was damn tired too. A nap before my lunch time class helped, but I still wasn’t exactly refreshed.

I was feeling fine this evening, but about an hour ago, I began to feel the effects of a cough coming on. The telltale signs of an irritated throat are indicating that I might be coughing up a lung by tomorrow night. I hate coughs, they are the worst. I’d rather have a stuffed up nose for five extra days than have a cough. I hate all that hacking you do and no one around you wants to hear that either.

Right now I can control the urge to cough, but I wonder how bad it will be by tomorrow. I’ll probably be going to the drug store tomorrow to pick up a cough suppressant and some cough drops.

Well, I’m off to bed… in about an hour… or two.