To Be Sick At University

I was sick last week, in the middle of personal midterm hysteria and the deceivingly challenging quest to craft a university paper. Imagine a knight set out to defeat the fierce dragon of responsibility, using the often-nonexistent sword of productivity. Now imagine that knight is sick. Totally changes the story, doesn’t it? Frodo wasn’t sick. Luke Skywalker wasn’t sick. Yet, I was. And it’s a total change to be sick in university.

In high school, people missed days. They commit to the day when they make the decision to go to school. They confide to the story of it all, because that’s what high school is, a story. The cliques, the clubs, the grade hierarchy. It was one big plotline. It’s the reason no one wanted to go in when they missed their morning classes. It would be like starting Lost in season 4. It just wouldn’t make sense.

But in university, there are no “days.” One person’s four class academic hellfire could be another’s day off. And therein lies the difference. University doesn’t make the story. The student makes the story. And this makes going to class so much easier, because you don’t have to commit to a six-hour day with the social group you spent puberty with, but to specific classes in specific places that suit you best. There isn’t that overarching social bubble that high school had.

So, while I was feeling much worse than anything I felt in grade 12, I didn’t miss a class. But believe me, through this punctual perseverance, it sure was a struggle. I took a lot of power naps, more aptly named “weak naps” when you’re sick, as my body seemed to be defeated into sleep. And there weren’t the luxuries of family. No mothers making me comfortable. No fathers bringing me Whole Foods sandwiches. No brothers to get candy off using my sickness for sympathy points. Living on your own means you cut the crap, sickness-wise. There’s no more acting involved. It’s not like if I cough more, there’ll be a better chance of getting an ice cream sandwich. No, here in rez I just sat, on my bed, wallowing in the sniffles and sneezes of some flu-like illness, wishing for an ice cream sandwich. See, I believe ice cream sandwiches are the quintessential dessert of innocence. Think about it. It combines the fun-loving, anything goes nature of ice cream with the peaceful reliability of a sandwich. You can thank Jerry Newberg for that nugget of childhood.

So, being sick felt new to me. It was yet another subtle university experience that’ll change the way I go through life, another discovery in the world of character building and self-reliability that’ll shape my psyche and what not. But all throughout being sick in my room, hunched over a laptop full of chapter outlines and theory overviews thinking how free and independent I’d become, I secretly wanted to be in a nice blanket on the couch at home, watching a Star Wars marathon with a bowl of soup and an ice cream sandwich.