Remember when you were little and you came down with a cold? Mom or Dad would make you soup, tuck you into bed, and feed you medicine. Well, now you’re on your own, and chances are when you are hacking all over place even your best friend won’t want to get near you. What to do!?

First things first…if you wake up in the morning feeling like total crap, give yourself a sick day. We have a tendency to push ourselves to the limit in college, but remember: even big corporate offices give sick days, and that’s for a good reason. If you try to keep going like normal, chances are you’ll make yourself even more sick, thus forcing you to possibly miss even more time than if you just took it easy early on. Obviously if you have an important exam or test you may have to suck it up and go to class, but otherwise, just stay in bed.

Make sure to sleep in and get some extra rest–close the blinds and don’t turn on the TV (not yet, at least!). When you feel like you can’t sleep anymore, take a hot shower. Sudacare makes these great tablets that you stick on the floor of your shower; they react with the hot water to make a really nice steamy vapor that opens up your sinuses (and calms you down). Read More »

The holidays are bright, florescent reminders of how many friends we really have and how clouded our social calendar really is. Lots of us had barbecues and rooftop firework watching parties to go to this July 4th, romantic rendezvous with a special someone under the stars, or giant, patriotic family celebrations where we engaged in our own eating contests (the only prize being a giant stomach and instant regret).

But what if you were one of the many who didn’t do anything special? One of the many who stayed home with nowhere to go, or anyone you really felt like hanging out with?

Then you’d be me.

You see, this 4th of July I was sick. Real sick. A narcoleptic coughing, sneezing, melty-eyed kind of sick. Who knows how I got it. Germs are everywhere in this city. I probably caught it from the pharmacist who handed me my hand sanitizer.

In any case, the plans I had made to grill chicken and watch the fireworks by the water with friends were down the toilet. At least for me.

So what did I do? Well, I watched TV for a while. And then I made some hot dogs because I wanted to try and stay in the spirit of 4th of July grilling. And then I got caught in the middle of a huge fight. Read More »