Bleh

I'm sure I've used that title before, but I ain't checking. Besides, it's a rather accurate representation of how I feel right now.

Yesterday morning's sore throat transformed into an extremely sore throat and swollen glands this morning, as a result of which I am off work today, and not entirely sure whether I'll make it in tomorrow. After getting up at 6:30am and deciding within ten minutes that I'd be staying at home, I forgot to have breakfast and just floated around until I realised that, it being so early in the day, I had full access to our DVD player. So I settled down to watch some of Buffy S3, since I bought it two months ago and until today have found time to watch exactly three episodes. That figure is now slightly-more-than-ten.

I decided to get dressed first since I'd be warmer, then found myself to be too cold in the big thick jumper I had on and so added a big thick outdoorsy fleece over it. But my legs were still cold (even with tights under my trousers), so I fetched a big thick blanket to snuggle up in.

A couple of hours later, after some sneezing, I decided that I needed a hot water bottle under all that as well.

So today has been woolly thinking, sore throat, sneezing, shivering, and slight dizzy spells. Although to be fair I think those last are more from tiredness than from illness - surprisingly, I haven't been back to bed at all (although I did fall asleep briefly just before lunch). I had hoped that I could do something vaguely productive today, such as actually starting on the workbooks I've been sent as part of my remote learning maths course. It's organised by Year In Industry and is aimed at students who are taking a gap year before going onto a science Uni degree. It's basically to refresh your memory, and introduce a few new topics so that you're not thoroughly bored.

Strangely, and especially after looking through their programme, I'm realising that I actually miss maths. Trigonometry... matrices... vectors... now, vectors were fun. Complex numbers! De Moivre's theorem!

And, oh. This is getting scary. I'm starting to miss P5 integration! It was the bane of my life, and I absolutely hated it because, of the three pure maths modules in the Further maths A-level (P4, P5, P6), P4 and P6 mainly consisted of Learn Method, Apply. In P5 it was more Learn Techniques, Apply The Right One. Correctly. (Yes, I resented having to actually think.) That was the one exam that I truly dreaded, and miraculously it went swimmingly. We all came out smiling, which was inconceivable beforehand.

I'm suddenly very aware that I'm rambling. However, I have a double excuse - I get to blame it-

Oh no, wait, a triple excuse. (That wasn't planned, and nor do I expect the next few paragraphs to further resemble the Spanish Inquisition sketch.) I get to blame it on (a) illness, (b) tiredness, and (c) Shelley Powers' stunningly beautiful photographs, which I saw about fifteen minutes ago and which reduced me to a state of wibbling near-incoherence. Not that I was exactly lucid beforehand, but it's always nice to have more excuses.