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So…

Readers who are also Facebook friends will have noticed that I was a tad poorly yesterday.

I was feeling fine on the bus when I went yesterday, then had an itty flutter whilst in Smiths (buying BBC Focus can sometimes be terribly exciting dontcha know).
I always go straight up to sit outside the lab, because quite honestly I am not schlepping about the college, so did that. Whilst I was sat there in “worlds official hottest college” the flutters started again, but I didn’t feel woozy. Just a bit sluggish. C arrived and she asked me how I was, I told her I was feeling a bit off, but okay. Which quite honestly was exactly how I felt at that moment.
JNBT arrived, we went in the lab, and fuck me that room is boiling. (Though mysteriously JNBT was muttering about being cold, how I cannot imagine?!)
I rested my head on the desk, because the heat started to make me feel really sluggish, and then JNBT arrived at our desk and asked if I was okay. Which I didn’t hear, so C answered and told him I wasn’t.
JNBT pulled a face and did the “you shouldn’t be here”, and my sarcasm gene kicked in and answered “don’t worry you won’t have a student die on you”. He wanted to know how I was going to indicate to C that I was feeling really bad, and so I said I’d just tap C. And then, just like in the movies children, I felt very crap all of a sudden. I went to grab her hand, and missed.
I felt utter crap. I felt wobbly. I felt unsteady. I felt fluttery. I felt nauseous, but amongst all that I felt angry, shocked, embarrassed and unbelievably ashamed. And once I started crying I couldn’t fucking stop.
So there I was 30 years old sobbing onto my biology teacher’s stomach. Possibly one of the most mortifying and embarrassing moments ever. In the one lesson that I couldn’t abide to miss, not only in front of a classmate, but in front of the one teacher I least would want to fail in front of.

So off I went to the local A&E, and by the time I’d been sat there for a while (there was a trolley queue) my heart rate was pretty normal. I saw some nurses and doctors, and some random woman whose job I know not (I’m guessing HCA). They prodded and poked, as is their want, took a staggeringly comprehensive medical history, said basically they couldn’t do much there and then, and gave me some advice.
Whilst I was waiting in A&E though I was overtaken with guilt about missing my lesson so emailed JNBT apologising, and asking what I’d missed. Fortunately I didn’t get a reply until just after I’d got home. I say fortunately because it made me cry for a good twenty minutes.
It seemed (emphasis on seemed) to me in my shaken, knackered state-having just retrieved child with a “you’re late” greeting from la grandmere-to be really quite annoyed with me. My first reading (and the three further torment thyself readings in quick succession) saw it as essentially saying “you’re too ill to be in my classroom, now naff off”.
It took quite some calming down, and a persuasive “Emails don’t convey well” lecture off V (who is herself a teacher, and in her case of teenagers so is perhaps very used to collapsing females) over facebook.
I am tremendously proud of the reply that I composed to JNBT and my tutor (who I’ll think of an acronym for at some other juncture). It was I think a bit more revealing than most people would opt for, but I trust the both of them so I’m okay with them knowing certain things. And fuck it I’m a blogger I’m not exactly that private about my thoughts, I know JNBT has been on here and for all I know so has every bugger in college. So being circumspect seems a bit pointless. Besides I needed them to know exactly how much the course means to me. Without getting histrionic, or pathetic.
I’m meeting them on Tuesday to talk about it all. JNBT’s reply reassured me that there’s no intent on chucking me off the course, but just incase I am prepared to do a Helena* and so they’d have to chop their own legs off to extricate me from college.

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* A Midsummer Night’s Dream
” I am your spaniel…” complete with leg grabbing of Demetrius. It was one of the stock audition pieces I learned and I think I can pretty much still do it.

Tags: college, emails, heart, study