There is something marvelous about new things and fresh starts. The New Year will be marvelous. I will make a lot of resolutions, which will wonderfully come true as long as I shut my eyes and wish powerfully. Okay, they haven’t come true yet. Perhaps, if I click my heels together? Then again I will not wear sparkly red shoes and technically I am already home.

I should be on the road to the Brentwood Center about to learn the marvels of statistics, which will allow me to move on to California State East Bay the gateway to a professional career. Instead, I am in bed ill. I currently hear the world in a muted fashion on the right side thanks to an illness, which started oh so early in 2013 and just won’t leave me.

Instead of learning math I have become convinced it might be possible for me to cough my way up the wall if the hacking went on long enough.

The first day did not start off marvelously and the break was not much better. I had hoped for a wonderful break, which I would use a springboard to conquering a new semester. I was going to be well rested with some nifty fun new memories to fuel me as I went on to be triumphant.

Instead one unexpected challenge followed the other. A simple task of house sitting became a horror when a little fluffy doggie became like the rabbit in Monty Pythons Quest for the Holy Grail, only instead of pointy teeth there was a whinny bark and yowl. A pitiful, but powerfully aggravating sound that could be heard all through the house because the little dog was a princess completely use to getting her way. Only the dog couldn’t get her way because work was being done she couldn’t comprehend. Work that was slow so painfully slow so one day gone to ruin became four then eight. The source of the pain was a cement floor mean to be stained a smoky gray which it was, but the task it was not simple it progressed in stages with a lot of delays.

To the dog I would say stop whining and attempt to bribe him with treats, but the pup would soon whine all the same. Finally, the work was done and my friends were back the next day not so much hooray.

At least I was free from the dog, but after one good day I seemed to sneeze then cough with the semester just around the corner. At home I stayed trying to drink plenty of liquids with a lot of vitamin C, but the cold did not go away. It would seem to get better and then it would get worse. The first day of class came and a schedule I had printed in preparation. The schedule I left behind during the middle of a coughing fit.

Surely, the semester will look up after this I thought when the first day was concluded with a card left in the automatic teller machine and plenty of other annoyances, besides I was looking ahead, while I tried to drift off.

Then I was staring at the clock waiting for sleep to claim a mind growing crazed. Sadly, there was no sleep for me even at five in the morning and by eight I might have known an hour, but by then my body began to ache to the point stepping over a matchbox seemed a Herculean feat. An appointment I made with the doctor hoping to be cured, but the medicine works slowly and now the world is muted from sinus pressure in my ear, a thing I did not know was possible, but now it is a reality going on day three.

There are always troubles there is no doubt. All of this is an example of why I admire Charlie Brown because he finds a way to stand up again and keep going. I hope to press on and hope you will too when the challenges and aggravations mount. For a while it seems I am doomed to wear a sock as an ear accessory, but I will stand up to face the next day with a grin at times a bit demented but meant for victory. May we conquer this semester such is my hope.