Tonight Nora had a fever of 102 degrees. She is so sick, and has had a fever for 5 days straight now, and what with the red eyes and the pus and all, I thought for sure she had some sort of infection. But the doctor said nope, it's just a cold, here's some eyedrops for her eyes, good luck and all. Really? I don't get a fever for 5 days in a row when I have a cold. Poor thing. She is just a wreck.

This morning we had a candidate in for a position -- it's not a faculty position, it's more like a post-doc type thing. So anyway we had back-to-back meetings with him, and then had to take him to lunch, and then more meetings in the afternoon, and then we were supposed to take him to dinner tonight. This morning as I was getting ready to leave, I thought, hmm, my throat hurts a little. And by lunchtime I was a puddle of misery barely able to sit up in the restaurant. I couldn't eat, I couldn't think, chills were washing over me, and I made a mental note to be nicer to the kids when they're sick and not give them a hard time when they have no appetite. By the time lunch was over my face was the color of a cotton ball, and my mentor said, "Uh, let's just drop you off at home." So I got home, mumbled something at Jake, and went to bed and stayed there for 3 hours until the screaming and the knocking and the "But I want mommy" cries got too loud to ignore.

Tomorrow just me and the kids. Save me.

In between all of the meetings with the candidate I met with three stressed out grad students. They're new, they're feeling panicked and isolated, and I think the reality of everything is just crashing down on them, combined with the exhaustion that everybody faces at this time in the semester. So I gave them ideas for their final papers, and talked them off the ledge, and remembered to myself how truly intimidating and overwhelming it can be to be a brand new grad student. Must not forget that, it is hard for them too. Everybody has their own struggle.