I’m sick.

It’s not even the over-in-two-days sneezy head cold kind of sick. I have aches and pains manifesting themselves out of thin air and taking up residence in my joints and sinuses. I have a constant headache, no appetite and a cough that would make a smoker wince. My nose has gone bipolar: alternately weepy and obstinate with no perceivable impetus.

I’m sick and I hate it.

But it’s my fault. I’ve been stretching myself too thin and not eating properly enough to compensate. Learn from my mistakes, you guys.

In addition to classes twice a day at the hospital, I’m dancing six hours every Saturday (four of them straight) with two more hours on Sunday; I’ve been volunteering three hours a week at the Office of Special Student Services (reading aloud to visually impaired students/walking with them around campus); I’ve been trying (finally succeeded on Tuesday) to volunteer at the West Indian Medical Journal (proofreading and editing!); and for the last week I’ve been staying out ’til 1AM helping some students prepare for a dance competition (Yes, choreographing. But they didn’t place. You lose some, you lose some).

All this running up and down (as my grandmother would say) has placed greater demands on my body than I have been supplying. You can’t expect to eat nothing but cornbread and cheese for a whole week and stay healthy, Robyn. My mother is appalled at the way I have been treating myself.

Kids, when you leave home for the first time the most important lesson to learn is how to not get sick. Because your mother isn’t there to look after you and it’s a cold, cold world. No, really, it’s a cold, cold – crap.

I think I’m getting a fever.