magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

I've been sick sick sick for the better part of the last week. The sickest I've been since my bowel obstruction in Rome almost ten years ago. And similarly gastrointestinal: a stomach virus of food poisoning or something. Prior to this week, I don't think that I had missed a single class in my two years at Pratt. This week I missed four, including what could be argued to be the single most important class of my program, the day of thesis proposal presentations.

Yesterday afternoon my fever, which had been hovering around 100° (normally I'm about a degree below average, for reference), finally broke. I was still feeling lousy, though not quite as lousy, and it seemed as if maybe I could begin the process of putting things back in order. I picked up some bland, but solid, food: rice, bananas, saltines. And I stopped by the Department of Digital Arts to see who was around and start generating an alternative plan for the thesis proposal presentation. What I found out was distressing. Although I had sent an email out on Tuesday afternoon when it seemed clear that I wasn't going to be in any shape t present on Wednesday, this email hadn't been received or had been overlooked and as far as anyone knew I was simply AWOL.

I sent another email explaining the situation as things stood. I wasn't expecting the response that I got which said, essentially, "with a documented illness you will receive a grade of 'incomplete' for Thesis Research and will have to represent your proposal next semester," and "recommended" that I attend the Thesis Research classes next semester as well. My initial (internal) response was, "I miss one week of class and have to redo the entire semester?" Yes, it was the most important week of class, but still.

Then I started thinking it all through a little more thoroughly. Don't just feel incensed Bean, weigh the pros and cons. I stepped back, washed out the rice cooker, which I had hadn't used in months, maybe a year. But who can I talk all this through with? Measuring and then rinsing the rice, for the little red rice cooker, the question echoed back a name, a voice, but only as the glow of a nostalgia. Who can I really talk to? I didn't have another name.

By this morning, the problem was feeling more or less resolved. I still need three more DDA studio electives as well as my thesis to graduate. If I took two next semester, Thesis I in the spring, and then Thesis II with one more studio the following fall, it would only be one semester extra, and each of those semesters would only be six credits. The pros seemed to be outweighing the cons in all, but perhaps one, area. That one, which was already something of a complication, even by the previous plan, is that there aren't any courses being offered in the fall by the Department of Digital Arts that I am at all interested in. Hopefully I can find some solution to that.

So maybe this wasn't the worst possible week to get sick. Maybe getting sick was a good thing. So okay. Although it's at this point that a sort of internal meta-conversations starts going on. My internal atheist tells my internal pattern recognizer to stop being so pie-eyed. Coincidence is just that. The universe isn't "trying to tell you" anything. Your own subconscious may have had a little bit to do with it, but you certainly didn't make yourself that sick just so you could re-jigger your last 18 credits of grad school.

My internal pattern recognizer shot back a snide comment early is afternoon when I stepped into Greenlight Books on my way to run some errands at Target. I had planned on going this morning, but my stomach was still giving me trouble. And then it was close to the time when the Pharmacy usually closes for lunch. I stopped in the bookstore because I figured I'd have to wait for a prescription to be refilled, and wanted to have something to read instead of wandering Target and potentially buying useless junk. Plus, if I'm not going to be starting on the body of my thesis this summers, I might as well start thinking about a summer reading list.

I stepped in Greenlight, tipped my sunglasses up on top of my head, popped out my earbuds, walked towards the new releases shelves and standing directly in my path, that name, that voice, that echo to a question in last night's cup of rice Or at least, the person embodied at the other end of that thought, Jenny. Again. Though I didn't ask her advice. I didn't explain the situation. I said I'd been sick. I was running errands, buying a book, hoping to finish up the semester on track. She said she had a headache, had come from a pep rally of a few hundred eighth graders. Was on her way to visit a friend.

I didn't need the book at Target. They did have to refill a prescription, but did it right away rather than make me wait half an hour like usual. I stopped at three different markets on the way home looking for sesame seed + seaweed flavouring to sprinkle on rice.