I'll be back in the classroom tomorrow morning (Friday) if all goes well. While I'm definitely not 100% well and my voice is pretty awful, I need to give back the essays for English 1080 so you can at least know where you stand in the course with a month to go.

The strange thing about being sick is that you feel disconnected from everything. I keep sending messages out, but it's rare to hear back from someone once in a while. It's like being on a space station.

I haven't rested all that much, not at all, in fact. It's been nine straight days of grading essays frin 7 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. or so. It's slower than usual because of the whole flu thing and all that that makes you feel (sorry, no details--it's not my desire to gross anybody out).

But I'm finally finished as of this afternoon. Tonight, besides blogging and answering e-mail, I'll be resting. Maybe watch some t.v.--Fringe and a little bit of hockey. More likely, I'll fall asleep watching one or the other. (Don't you hate it when someone wakes you and tells you to go to bed? Just sayin'.)

The semester feels a little fragmented at the moment, but it'll work itself out fine. This is the first class I've had to cancel for sickness in about ten years, but I've seen worse things happen during a semester. Sure, the H1N1 virus has made everyone a bit shaky, especially people who've been struck with it, and it's good to be cautious. But life goes on and the quicker we can get it back to normal, the better. I'm not sure what "normal" means, but for the rest of the semester, we might require a new "normal".

I'll be figuring that one out over the weekend. For now, I must go rest. Oh, and there was one other paper I just remembered in one of my folders. I swear they're multiplying.

Hope you'll forgive my shaky voice tomorrow. It's all I've got for now, but it's better than none at all.

Ciao for now.

Gerard