Why is being sick at Penn the worst thing ever?

It always starts as just a whisper, a little sore throat that you hope might linger for a day and then pass… But then it doesn’t pass.

That sore throat brings on a disgusting, phlegmy cough, an unbearable headache, a fatigue only comparable to that of your 8am, a nose more stuffed than a Thanksgiving turkey, and chills that rival the one’s your mom brings when she shows up unannounced.

Saturday,  I felt the tiny sore throat. Sunday, I was awake for a total of six hours, and I still have not seen the end of this god-awful cold.

To make it all worse, being sick at Penn is without a question the most terrible place to have to recover from an illness.

The trinity: the Nighttime, the Daytime, the Holy Tablet***

Top ramen will never be your mother’s chicken noodle soup

Monday, I was feeling better enough to cough myself into Wawa on the way back from the classes I slept through. Seventy cents later I was the not-so-proud owner of a single brick of chicken flavored Top Ramen.

If your childhood experience was anything like mine, being sick meant staying home from school, wrapping yourself in a blanket and trying to find something on TV other than “The View” and court-themed reality dramas.

Most importantly, I would always be handed soup from the woman who gave birth to me. Now, nearly 600 miles from home, I thought Top Ramen would do. Top Ramen does not “do.” Top Ramen is just sad.

Your roommates may be caring, but mostly they will hate you

The big thing about college is that for the most part everyone you’re close to, you’re really fucking close to. For over a week, each breath of air I have exhaled has been a direct threat to people I actually like.

In college, the rate of spreading of illnesses is only be rivaled by that of STDs, rumors and party locations. Everyone infected carries a guilt that they will infect their friends and a worry that they will  be asked to share their cough drops and tissues.

Life goes on

Despite my need for extra sleep and my inability to move at a brisk pace, DRL is still at least a fifteen-minute walk from my dorm. Never have I ever appreciated the condensed layout of a high school more than I have this week when braving the thirty-eight-degree weather across campus.

Homework, projects and essays will still be due. Professors will continue to lecture. Squirrels will continue to scare the shit out of people walking. Children will still climb the button like a jungle gym. And sick students are still expected to keep up.

I know, it’s a sick world we live in.

You’re probably still going out anyway

This is a tricky one. Masochistic at heart, the pains of going out while sick are 100 percent self-inflicted. The night itself can go either of two ways: a safe haven that punishes you later, or a drag.

One night I was home and in bed early. I was simply feeling it in neither mind, body nor spirit. Although upon leaving, I cited the “lame music” and “everyone being grossly sweaty” so as to avoid being called a grandmother.

And the next night, it was practically a jail break. Going out had basically relieved every symptom…until the next morning when it escalated all of them.

Stay healthy, Quakers

I say this with primarily selfish intentions: don’t get sick because I do not want to go through this hell again. Also, I don’t wish this hell upon you.

Follow these tips to stay healthy this season:

• Wash your hands regularly
• Drink water by the bucket
• Never ever ever touch your own face
• Don’t share drinks with people
• Avoid face-to-face conversation
• Never accept a flyer on Locust (this can apply for not just health reasons)
• Spray Lysol on each surface before you touch it
• Bring your own folding chair and desk to class
• Sacrifice a small animal
• Take those daily multivitamins your mom packed you in August

***The one upside to being sick: going to bed NyQuil-drunk.