Julie Roth+ Viruses For All

This blog is around four days late, but I'd like to imagine that the reasons for this justify, or at least explain how this happened.

About two weeks ago, while trying to watch an episode of The Office online, I had the delight of being infected by a Trojan Vundo. This is the second time I've had a major computer infection, and last time it was also because I was trying to watch The Office. I just can't say no to corporate America and tall guys who will bend over backwards for their girl (Jesus, someone find me a Jim Halpert). This virus has most likely ruined my computer and everything on it, but I don't know yet because I am still too devastated to muster enough strength and courage to try and fix this. I turned it off before it could spread to my loved ones, because I GOT INFECTED. ACTUALLY.

Let me say that I have the immune system of an ox. I rarely get sick, have never been "seriously" ill (a few fevers over the years and two accounts of perpetual vomiting that I remember-- in 1994 and 1999), and haven't taken any medicine except for the occasional aspirin since early childhood. There was that one time I had to take antibiotics, though, but that's because I started peeing blood. HOWEVER, Thursday I finally accepted that I was catching something and that night had a temperature of 100.3. By Friday morning I was up to 102.6 with a cough, headache, chills, no appetite, and I felt so weak I thought about just wetting the bed so I wouldn't have to walk to the bathroom. All the while, it's finally the weekend and I'm home alone on my deathbed (living room couch) with the instructions to "sweat it out" while staring through the sliding back door to my backyard because I have no computer or television or housemates to help me forget the exhausting agony I'm in. I spent Thursday through Sunday in the same sweat-soaked and stinking (I lost my deodorant) sundress and cardigan.

You know when you cough so much you start to gag and make wet, choking noises? And then your eyes start watering? You ever cough so much the next day you wake up sore and can't sit up straight? I'm going to have rock-hard abs in a week.

Being sick is not sick.

So it’s been about a week and a half since I’ve been sick, but I have been without my voice the entire time. Some people say it’s sexy, some people say that I sound like an 80 year old with emphysema. Psh, as if there’s a difference between the two. But really it is so very inhibiting. I can’t smoke pot, shouldn’t smoke cigarettes (my bad), and cannot sing or even yell. These are like my four favorite things in life… especially yelling. At its’ worst I only have two options, I can mess with my vocal chords so I sound like a Stephen Hawking-esque robot, or I can reduce myself to a soft whisper. When I do either of these things, I can speak completely audibly. So I am faced with this decision, robot or whisper man? What do girls find more attractive I wonder? Would they rather have my get up close and personal and whisper sweet nothings in there ear, or would they prefer to be hit on by Cody-bot3000. As I found out, they don’t really go for either… which is a major bummer. Anyways… what’s the deal with phlegm? I mean its absolutely nasty. But really, what the fuck is the deal with phlegm, and why do I have so much of it in and around my chest and nasal passages. And why couldn’t they just spell it ‘flem,’ like it ought to be? I guess these are just some of the unanswerable mysteries of life.

Anthony Ishihara blog 3

The most difficult part of getting used to college is the food. The food is just not the same as the stuff back home. I mean for one i feel like cereal is the only thing that tastes anything close to food. The rest just seems like processed chemicals with a hint of flavor. The one thing that the have everyday no matter what is pizza. Pizza must be easy as fuck to make cause they make billions of them. I hate having to get fruit cause sometimes it seems the whole batch sucks. Like how the fuck are all these apple rotten just sitting here. I dont even know who eats those things, but sometimes i go without fruit for weeks because its just too old. When im high the best thing to eat is the cereal. You can never go wrong with coco roos or whatever the fuck they are called. I think the dining hall is the meeting place for all people high. I think i see more people with bloodshot red eyes in the dining hall than anywhere. I think its funny to compare the racial diversity of the people who work in the dining hall to the people who attend this college. Its almost like the border between Mexico and the U.S. I'd like to see more Native Americans making my pizza. I think he would put his love for mother earth into it. The dining halls have proved to give a lot of insight into the culture of Santa Cruz, although like i said the food tastes like shit.