Ah, the beginning of fall semester. All the undergrads come back, the weather changes, and everyone gets caught up in the hustle and bustle of a new term. In other words, the perfect storm for viruses.
On Thursday a rather hectic week caught up with me and I found myself feeling rather ill. I ran up a bit of a fever before eventually being able to head back to my apartment to hibernate for the better part of the weekend. Thankfully I’m much better now and can catch up on some paper reading for next week.
What I’ve come to realize is a double edged sword in grad student life. While we have a tremendous amount of freedom in how we spend our time, it’s really tough when one has to take some sick days off. It’s not that people aren’t sympathetic or willing to give you some time to recuperate (especially these days with H1N1 in the back of everyone’s minds), but rather that research doesn’t stop when a grad student gets sick. The more time one takes off the more there is to catch up on. I’m responsible to keep up with collaborators and to provide meaningful input, so I have to make sure that I keep up with my project even when I’m out-of-commission.
Fortunately my illness passed rather quickly and I have the weekend to properly recover and catch up with what I’ve missed.
