Hunger, Fatigue and Parties
Naps are of a questionable nature. I don’t like naps because they eat daylight, I and generally don’t take them. In fact, if I were a super hero, I would be adenosine triphosphate girl with boundless energy!
But today I took a nap. I was tired because a shrill fire alarm forced me from my bed into the chilly November air at two o’ clock this morning. This afternoon, whilst laying my heavy head upon soft pillow for a quick siesta, I set my wristwatch alarm for a maximum rest time of one hour. Unfortunately, the tinny artificial beeping was not enough to rouse me and I remained unconscious for three hours straight. I would have missed my second class had someone not been stomping so needlessly and incessantly up and down the stairs outside my room.
The weekend exhausted me, I suppose.
After watching the play The Learned Ladies in our tiny, but darkly pleasant campus theater, I trailed my dear friend Colin to the cast party. Cast parties follow every major production and are notoriously, wildly extroverted. The darkness of a small hot room quickly submerged me where actors’ drunken, carefree bodies and bare backs slid by my face in between throbbing beats of music and flashes of a strobe light. Sucked in by the pulsating atmosphere, I lifted my legs and swayed meekly in a rather pathetic attempt to dance.
The attempt was short-lived and the weight of early morning fatigue drew me away from the dance floor into the lighted kitchen. It was already two in the morning. People took turns there tilting a plastic bag pregnant with maroon Franzia into their mouths and chugging as long as possible. An abandoned box of cold pizza laid on the table. Occasionally, a happy, half-clothed girl would sweep by, grab a slice, and chomp on its apex clumsily. Actors are perhaps my favorite people.
Alas. Pizza and alcohol: two things which become extraordinarily tempting in such an environment. I’m no saint, but by necessity, I could not indulge in either. I’m underage anyway and pizza is in no way a vegan food product, I told myself… Some comfort at least. Later, as the partiers broke out Twister, Colin noticed my heavy eyelids and kindly led us out.
Why was I “wasting” energy at a party?, one might ask. Because staying locked in my dorm on a weekend is thoroughly boring. I like people-watching though and that’s mostly what I did.
On Monday (which is the day I intended to post this blog), I went to the Health Center to get a vaccine to protect against the H1N1 virus. Multiple campus emails emphasized that this batch of shots was only for immuno-compromised students. The nurse practitioner told me last week that I am immuno-compromised because of the fast, so I thought I might get one, but because I am voluntarily compromising myself, they turned me away. So I’m still at risk for the deadly swine flu. Duh-duh-duh!
It’s reasonable though. I understand their logic perfectly.
A study in the scientific journal Nature linked climate change to an increased spread of diseases. People in developing nations already have little or no access to adequate medical care, and increased numbers of diseased people certainly won’t help the often dire situations. More and more people will be turned away from hospitals, refused basic medical care, and denied cheap vaccines. More people will die.
I’m not really afraid of the swine flu, but it does flirt darkly along the fringes of my mind. There’s a chance I could get it, a chance I could be hospitalized. Malaria, rift valley fever, and dengue hemorrhagic fever aren’t lingering over me like Death though, as they might linger psychologically and realistically for those people in areas with no doctors or hospitals.
They bear a burden so much greater…
And thank you all for your lovely comments. I greatly, greatly appreciate the support.
