The Raptor

I'm not one to get sick, mostly because I hate it. Wow Ryan, what an astute observation because Nobody likes getting sick. Yes, but I especially don't like getting sick because every time I get sick, I usually refuse to acknowledge its existence and this can go one of two ways:

A) I get over my sickness faster because MIND OVER BODY (or any other weird mantras that you guys know)

or

B) I make my body weaker by continuously trying to do all the activities I've been doing for the past forever.

One time when I played high school water polo, I got disgustingly sick at our state playoffs. When I say disgustingly, this meant that I looked like death, had vomited in my mouth more than once that day, and had the general motivation of about 3 rocks. This is one of the few times that I actually acknowledged that I was ill after getting into a freezing cold pool and then was chased with a ball around said pool for about 2 hours. When I admitted defeat and told my coach, he gave me wonderful advice. "Just go hop in the shower and cough out the flem, then you'll be fine." Yes, because the flem is the only source of my entire ailment, why had I been so stupid.

I may or may not have thrown up in a couple of the drain pipes that day. But I did NOT sit out the game.

Well, today I think I might have been sick. Actually, yesterday is probably more accurate, but I still really refuse to acknowledge that this is happening.

Like many a great Chinese person, a friend of my roommate and I asked us to join him for dinner with some other teachers and administrators of schools in the area. OK, this means I have to talk just to try and impress them a little, right? WRONG.

In the middle of a sentence, my voice squeaked. Loud. What? Some kind of second puberty was going on and I was not OK with it.

"Well, at my university I study psyCHOLogy." again, another fluctuation. All of these men probably thought that I was getting very sentimental about my major since I wasn't able to talk about it with my voice not cracking. I sat there, frustrated with myself. I had not felt feverish in any way and this had come without warning. Body, what are you doing!? This open rebellion is not appreciated since I refuse to be sick.

Part of me thought that possibly I had been sick (even if I didn't want to admit it). It was really hard to tell the difference between humidity and having an above average body temperature.

Then, the part of my brain that refuses anything is wrong just said that this was the pollution. Yes, that was it, you were not yet used to the pollution here and for some reason that was affecting your...voice. Whatever, I'd take it.

I spent the rest of the meal carefully navigating through tones that I could say without sounding like a pre-teen at a new boy band concert (note to self: New Boy Band is a great name for a new boy band).

Eventually after a few errands, we ended up at home where I proceeded to try and hack up whatever was inside my mouth. Obviously, some type of troll had crawled up into my throat and was going to ruin my existence by diminishing my ability to speak English in a country where I don't even speak Chinese. I told myself that it would be better in the morning and life would suck a little less.

This morning started off with good and bad news. Bad news, my voice decided that it wanted a second go at puberty and was not cooperating. The good news was that my boss had cancelled our morning class so I would not have to yell at any children for at least 8 more hours.

I spent the morning gargling hot water, sitting underneath a hot shower, and yelling throughout our apartment to see what I could and could not say. 

"HA! BAH! HA HA HA HA! Blue JEAns..." Nope, that wasn't working. Words came out, but usually they only worked when I said them at a level that was not socially acceptable. Throughout all of this, I'm sure our new neighbors expected that we had let some sort of raptor live in our apartment while we were away.

"MRAW! RAAAAAAARH!"

This was getting annoying. I had children to scream English words at in only a few hours! It was at this point, Jake offered me some DayQuil. "It says decongestant." So I took the bottle and quickly took what I had decided was a good dose and tossed it back. Dear DayQuil, please bring my voice back.

The DayQuil gods smile on me today. Before I left for my class, the floodgates of my sinuses decided to release themselves and it was like I had eaten something that ate a lot of crack. I wasn't aware that much fluid could come out of my face and it was disgusting and exciting. How awake I was! Despite the fact my voice was still being stupid, I found the right tone once I had to yell loud English words at the children. 

"PAINT-ING! EAT-ING! DrAW-ing..." 

I'm almost through Puberty II: The Revenge.