Ragweed Count

So today is the first day of classes here at the U of M. I don't have classes on Tuesdays, but that didn't stop my body from thinking that today was the first day of the rest of my life in academic hell. I woke up, unable to move, unable to breathe, and considering whether or not dry mouth was a symptom of death. I managed to shower, eat, and get dressed while exchanging verbal jabs with my roommate before catching a bus (only two blocks from my apartment - they changed the bus route for my convenience!!). The number of times I have sneezed today is equivalent to the number of commericals the Republicans have aired disparaging Kerry's record of service in Vietnam (countless, I'm sure). The number of allergy-related products I have consumed is just below that count. I just checked weather.com and the level of ragweed in my area is VERY HIGH with a RED ALERT, so I'm convinced I should have just crawled back into bed and let my tired and sore body rest. However, I'm in an air-conditioned computer lab where the ragweed levels are not disturbing me. The noise in the computer lab IS disturbing me, but whatever, at least I can breathe and pretend that I care about omitting fourth order autoregressive coefficients in time series analyses. I can pretend my body is NOT sore. (I think the soreness stems from an overly long rollerblading experience yesterday, not the allergies, but at this point in the day, I'm blaming EVERYTHING on allergies.) A professor I had last semester just walked in and told me that I need to use inhalable steroids. Fantastic. If I ever decided I wanted children, I could just tell my imaginary partner that the reason I cannot conceive is because I needed steroids to help me through midwestern allergy season (oh wait, that's all the seasons except winter). Apparently my eyes are too red and I look tired. I love school. And the midwest. And time series. And my snazzy Voldemort for Republicans t-shirt.