The Migraine Diaries

Had an awful day today. 

My lines drawing is STILL wrong, but my prof told me to go ahead and start my construction drawing.  He told me it's ok that it won't be done by tomorrow (the due date) as long as I keep working on it.  Thank goodness!  Otherwise I'd get a failing grade for sure.

Class was rough.  Very interesting...but very tough with a headache and not much sleep.  (Was up late last night working.)

Work was a pain, even though I FINALLY got to start on the XRF.  Took me (and my immediate superior, Chris) nearly an hour to get it up and working.  But hey, troubleshooting is why we practice, right?  Brought in a bunch of my jewelry to analyze it so I can practice with this new software (they didn't have it when I learned XRF back at UF), and found to my horror that my high school class ring which is supposed to be (stamped too) 10K gold was actually copper and zinc with a hint of silver.  Now, I DID order it with protective coating, so this may be the coating (XRF only penetrates so far depending on what the substance is), so it's certainly plausible.  Especially since the way the XRF is built I couldn't really balance the ring any way but on the sides with the engravings.  But considering the $400 price tag circa 2006, there had better be 10k gold on the inside!!!
I also found argon (I'm not even joking) on three of my pieces - two silver pieces that were my mother's that she gave to me when I was a teenager, and then a pair of (modern) earrings she gave me for one Christmas.  I don't work on Wednesdays, but Thursday I'm parking my ass in front of the Bruker computer and fiddling with Artax until I see if there REALLY is argon in there, or if I mistook a different element for it.

I stayed late at work, despite the headache rapidly turning into a migraine, but by 6:30 my eyes were crossing and watering and my head was getting worse and worse so I packed up, warned my classmates I might not be in tomorrow, and headed home.  Biking in the chilly wind was ghastly, not to mention all the bright horrible headlights in the dark night.

I was pretty nauseous and it was tough eating, but I had to do it to take some meds.  Then I went to lie down for an hour to let it pass off, and it mostly has, but I'm still not feeling good.

Pushed through the blah and finished my presentation and worksheet for tomorrow, and am now fighting to find the mental and physical energy to work on another presentation and my scantling list.  I also need to do the dishes, take out the trash, and order more checks.  Being grown up sucks.

The nicest part of today was getting my very first very own insurance card.  Of course, I don't have access to the insurance until December 1st, but still.  Gotta cling to the niceness of the fact I have protection (no matter how minimal) from the hell of illness in the modern healthcare system.

A hug would be nice right about now.