My cold has been a wonderful roller-coaster. It never got to as bad as those first two days where I slept, by rough calculation 17 hours the first day and on the second day I was a zombie. But oh well, it has been a regular cold since then. Just alternating sniffles, runny nose, sore throat, coughing etc. at will. Some days I will be almost all better but it comes back.

The school situation has been dealt with as effectively as possible under the circumstances. Long story short, I was able to get an administrative drop on the two classes I was going to hands-down fail. So my GPA won't take a complete beating but I'll earn only 9 credits this semester (around mid-terms I got a normal drop on another class). So yeah. Next semester things will work out.

What I have been doing with my time that I haven't been doing essays and things for those remaining classes is re-reading The Catcher in the Rye as well as J.D. Salinger's three other published works. I hated Catcher in high school but I finally get it now. It's hilarious and brilliant, even if it drags near the end. Another point for Mr. Bone. Who knows maybe A Separate Peace will win me over one of these days.

Nine Stories is great too, obviously, I think we can all remember Troy raving about "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" sort've sequels to that story are Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction and Franny and Zooey. I realize that it's all very cliché to brood around and read Salinger or any other 'important' writer but it was a great help. Roof Beam & Seymour (they are two novellas) was half-good. "Roof Beam" was a pretty funny story but didn't win me over and "Seymour" was waaaaaaaaay to self-conscious and irritating. It was like reading someone else's journal who doesn't have a particularly exciting life.

Franny and Zooey though...damn. It's about a brother and sister who have grown up and have both realized the world isn't a magical place. I just highly recommend it, the topics it covered (college, religion, family communication) were all so relevant to me and what I've been thinking about I'm really beginning to doubt that whole 'everybody's unique' jive. If Catcher is taught to all high-schoolers Franny and Zooey should be taught to all college juniors.

edit: oh yeah, Troy and Dustin were here for a few hours this afternoon.