The Existentialism of Illness

I have a cold.  Just your general, run of the mill sniffling, sneezy, stuffy, achey cold.  It isn't debilitating, but just bad enough to hinder normal functionality.  My head is in a fog, and it takes deliberate effort to focus on responsibilities that I can't put on hold.  To let you in a on a little secret though, I embrace it.

I'm not masochistic, and I don't seek anyone's pity.  However, fighting a cold brings me to a unique state of self-awareness. I have a consciousness of my body in ways that aren't apparent when I'm healthy. I feel the tightness in my head, the constant flow of mucus, the subtle aching in my chest and shoulders, and the distinct resonance in my sinuses when I speak.  My symptoms worsen at night, and thoughts of death seem appealing if it means I'll finally get some sleep. But it's only temporary. My body is eradicating an invader that entered through an unidentifiable pathway. The symptoms I feel indicate a properly functioning immune system, and in those moments I know that I'm alive.

Regrouping

I survived my first semester, somehow. It wasn't quite what I thought it would be. I didn't come in with a cohort of fellow stumblers. It was just me at the Davie campus. Two of my three classes were less than engaging. Both were video conferenced. I sat in a room with no more than three other people at a time listening to gray-haired professors at other campuses read paragraphs of texts from powerpoints. I really could have done that on my own.  The semester closed leaving me with little sense of accomplishment and only slight relief that it was over.

I told myself I would make progress towards my thesis proposal during the break. But I didn't. I spent most of it wallowing on the verge of depression, feeling confused, lonely, and hating South Florida. Had I not been happy with my advisor as well, there's a chance that I would have dropped all together.

But that isn't the case. Though that first semester was filled with adjustment issues, the main reason I'm here has lived up to expectation. My advisor is fantastic. He has a realistic idea of what a Master's project should entail. He isn't a micro-manager, but he is always in his office whenever I have questions. And the rest of my program has been great as well. The other class was taught by an enthusiastic professor with high expectations. His class was the most rewarding of the three.

I have high hopes for this semester. I only have two classes. Both are engaging though they will require more work. A new student started in our lab, and we get along really well. I also feel like I'm finally starting to develop better friendships with a few classmates that I met last semester. It makes a world of difference to have supportive group of peers. It's going to be a busy few months, but if I turn the wheels in my brain hard enough, I should still be able to defend a proposal and start my data collection. And that's why I'm here.

I've constantly been told that the first semester is the hardest. That it gets better from there on out. I sure as hell hope those people are right.