Bleeding Fiction

The school year is starting up soon, which means that most of the some 2,000 international students and scholars the University of Washington takes in each year have shown up in the past two weeks. It's been my job to play ring-master for these folks when they wander into my office; I collect and copy their immigration documents and generally herd them to where they need to be to attend their initial orientation (part one of seven). I've got some experience at this sort of thing, but it's still keeping me hopping.

Some perspective: I'm contracted for 20 hours of work a week. I've worked about 35 in each of the past two weeks, and only kept the hours that few by completely ignoring all of the other projects I have going on and the general office work I have to do. Friday night, I dreamed that I was still at work. (I also dreamed that The Ogre™ and I were back in New Jersey, trying to dig a roving bio-van out of the snow. Then Nick showed up to help us along with his dad, who was actually James Hetfield. But that's neither here nor there.)

So, 35 hours a week. Less than full time, but every hour was on my feet, on the move and projecting my voice to the far reaches of the hallway. I didn't exactly have quiet evenings after that, either, as I was either out with friends or co-workers until late. I was going full-tilt, and by Friday afternoon it had caught up with me. I had a fever. Like a car, I overheated.

Idiot that I am, I went out Friday night and got together with friends all day Saturday. Fever was gone by Saturday night, but so was my voice. So today's a recovery day; tea and chicken soup and not saying a damn word. All this so that I can be fit to go to work tomorrow.

The craziest part of this? I'm looking forward to getting back to work. I really love my job.