11 Cheshvan/29 October, 2009

I hate palpitations, I really do. They are particularly strong since last night and there were not letting me sleep. Knowing that I had to get up at 6:30 did not help. I think the problem is that it is now cold outside and I’m not exercising. The whole summer and especially last month, they were nice and mild and more manageable, and I think it was because I went rollerblading often and walked more. And this week I barely left the house because of the rain. I’m looking forward to Papa buying a Wii for his birthday next month; I might actually use it to move. I have an elliptical in my room but without TV to watch I get bored on it after a few minutes. I might just have to make myself go on it. I’m more pissed at palpitations today than usual, I hate that they hijack my life and make me feel like crap after a while. Days like today are when I think I should take the beta-blockers and just let them help. But I really don’t want to be dependent on any medicine and they don’t cure anything, just slow my pulse so I won’t notice them. I look back fondly on two years ago when I didn’t have to think about what my body is doing and could just live my life. I’m trying to ignore this as much as I can but on days like today it is really hard.

At least, even sleepy and tired and feeling crappy, I had a good morning teaching. I was ignoring not feeling well as much as possible. I worked on Assignment 4 question this morning. They are reading Andrew Sullivan’s “The He Hormone” about the effects of testosterone and how physical sex differences affect gender roles. I’m asking them to think about to what extent culture determines our identity vs. biology. Sullivan gives a bit more weight to biology. I then worked a bit on my conference paper and practiced it; I need to finish it tomorrow and send it off to the commentator. Karen mentioned on Monday that I always look like I don’t want to be there and I just want to escape and she was right to point that out. That kind of shocked me a bit to hear from someone else. Last couple of weeks I was bitching a bit too much because I was either sleep deprived for folder review or I had a headache. I don’t want to be that girl, I don’t want to always complain about stuff. And I do like teaching, I just don’t want to feel like I am about to fall over sometimes. So I made a resolution today not to be bitchy about work at work, just be bitchy about students like we usually do. I’m happy that I can actually work this semester without the lack of balance. I had good classes today. My afternoon was a bit of a wash because I really needed to sleep so I tried to take a long nap. Now I’m more or less saner.

( Battlestar Galactica )