I Cannot Go To School Today (Again)

(Marissa)

I woke up today and the light was already seeping under my curtains. I laid there for a while and felt guilty about waiting for my mom to come wake me up for seminary when I knew it was time. When I finally did get up I walked about half way down the hall and met my mom who informed me that I was staying home from seminary and school today. I went promptly back to bed and stayed there for an hour and a half.

Bless the mothers of the world.

My mom was tired of her family being sick, so she sentenced us all to a sick day. Ever since the cultural celebration my dad, Mei and I have been lazing around with various symptoms. Headaches. Throataches (it should be a word). Stomachaches. Heartaches. Any aches that will get us out of being functioning human beings, those are the aches we have.

Around this time of year, with finals approaching, months of studying behind me and the looming idea of Christmas shopping ahead, my body and mind have this annual conversation that varies only slightly from year to year.

Mind: We need to go talk to the people at my school's office about why four semesters of Chinese have somehow not managed to get onto my transcript, memorize Mozart's Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, which is getting truly annoying, and write three essays.

Body: I don't wanna.

Mind: We have to! If you don't apply for college you won't get into college and if you don't get into college then you'll never get a good job and if you don't get a good job then you'll have to work at McDonald's and then you'll eat their caramel sundae every day and get really fat.

Body: I don't care.

Mind: You should! I care. Come on. We're going.

Body: You act like you have the last word on this. Watch. Watch this. I'm just going to get sick. Now what are you going to do. Huh? Huh?

The conversation deteriorates from there. I'll spare you the worst of it. In any case, the argument generally ends with Mind pushing Body for several weeks and Body crashing at the end of it in retaliation. This usually comes around Christmas, but the cultural celebration knocked me over the edge early this year and here I sit in my flannel pajama bottoms, trying to six weeks in China into two hundred words for the admission's office.

Even just doing that my body is rebelling. It takes me several hours to get anything done. I sit there, waiting for inspiration to strike, for energy to appear, for my mind to clear, but no. Waiting does not help. I'd like to just be sick without having to do anything, but I'm either too responsible to let the opportunity be wasted, or too much of a slacker to ever be that far ahead.

Over.