Unproductivity at Its Highest

I've done nothing except sleep and read the tiniest amount in the past thirty-six hours. I finally feel as though I've had enough sleep that I can possibly communicate with the outside world in a coherent fashion, wish is a very good thing, as I will be required to speak intelligibly if not intelligently with an academic panel tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow I have to tele-conference with  four  professors,  my rheumatologist, (using my primary care physician for the same purpose would have been far less irritating to the rheumatologist, but my primary care physician is my uncle and shares my surname, which probably would have subtracted credence from anything he said about the severity of my condition)   and some administrator from whatever that center is called that deals with students with exceptionalities. How I love referring to myself as a student with an exceptionality. It sounds like I have dyslexia,  dyscalculia,, some sort of  cognitive disorder, autism, or cerebral palsy so severe that I cannot even write or type well enough to take my own notes.  It's humbling for me, which is perhaps a good thing. What or who is say a cognitive disability or specific learning disability should be any more stigmatizing than a temporarily disabling illness? Why should I consider myself any better than anyone with one of the aforementioned conditions? The answer is that I should not , and I'm trying hard to keep that in mind as I deal with my embarrassment over the situation.

My dad says between my compromised  immune system because of  the ratio of junk food to nutritious  food that I eat and my tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and become injured as a result, I will be dealing with temporarily disabilities for the rest of my life. I pray to God that he''s full of shit. (Was it irreverent of me to use the words God  and  full of shit in the same sentence, notwithstanding the breakage of Commandment Number 4  (of the Big Ten) for the Catholics and Number 5 for Protestants? Jeez, I certainly hope not. As it is,  I'm already far enough from anything resembling a state of grace.without that on my docket of sins.

At least my dad didn't say my injuries were as a result of clumsiness. Other than the time I cut myself with a broken glass I was trying to conceal from my mom when I was two, and most people are willing to cut two-year-olds a little slack n terms of injuries incurred that might not have happened to a more graceful individual, my relatively few injuries were pretty much as a result someone else invading my space. The other hurdler tripped and sent her hurdle into my lane and fell on top of me. Two separate videos of the accident  corroborate that everything happened in my lane. The attack in the school restroom couold not under any circumstances be attrbuted to a lack of physical coordination on my part. on the contrary, my ability to push the 911 button on my phone while I was being kicked and slapped indicates a decent level of coordination.The minor foot injury I incurred was a result of Tevye stomping on my foot. Everyone neraby including Tevye agrees I was not in his way; he got caght up in the moment  and was ad libbing.  My auto accident was as a result of the other driver changing lanes too hastily, losing control of her vehicle,   and (totally unintentionally) ramming my car in the rear, sending me into some oleanders and an off-ramp side railing. My most recent [very minor]  accident, when I fell down the stairs, wasn't the fault of anyone else, but it was caused by muscular weakness rather than lack of coordination.  That's still not exactly something about which to boast,, but it s offers no evidence that I'm a klutz.

The panel tomorrow will not care about muck klutziness or lack thereof,  though.  The concerns will center upon the necessity for my not attending class in person and the degree to which I'm keeping up with the rest of the students in my class. The burden of proof concerning  ability or inability to travel to the university and navigate my way across the vast expanse of the campus from one class to the next  is all on the shoulders of the rheumatologist. He's a friend of my dad,  so I expect he'll do his very best to plead my case.   I'd like to think his friendship with my dad would have nothing to do with his effort, but I live in the rel workd with everyone else.  I'll be orally quizzed by each professor about anything covered or assigned up to this point in the quarter. just to be safe, i won't take as much as an Advil before this tele-conference, but I have relative confidence in my ability to handle whatever they throw at me.

I'd like to get a decent  night's sleep, but I'm not overly optimistic. Once the teleconference from hell is over, and if the outcome is satisfactory,  I'll rest, watch junky  TV, and review a few texts that I've already read twice just to demonstrate, if only, to myself, my worthiness for their faith in me. If the decision goes against me, I'll rent a wheelchair and will be wheeling my way around campus by Friday at the very latest.

Either way, life will go on.