Cough. Cough. COUGH.
“Welcome to Sociology of Stats, I’m your professor, Dr. Gay”…at least I think that’s what he said. All I could think about as he was speaking was, ‘I feel a cough coming on.’ Holding it in is useless, I just look like I’m convulsing in my chair…so I just cleared my throat a few times, hoping to make it go away but…it didn’t work. I coughed. Then I coughed again. And again. If you ask the few people who I know in class, they probably don’t notice it anymore because they know why I’m coughing…and by the end of the semester, whoever isn’t annoyed wit me DUE TO the coughing (yes, I’ve had people walk up and ask me to stop—or ask me to leave the class, or say other stuff, not that I blame them), they probably wont hear it anymore either.
Yesterday though, for the first time, I noticed my own cough. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very aware I cough…a cough here, a cough there, a little cough, a big cough, a phlegmy cough, a dry cough…you get my drift. Yesterday though, I was VERY aware of it. The classroom was totally quiet and I kept feeling it coming on. I wanted to crawl under my little semi-circle desk and hide. I find it very hard to concentrate to begin with, and it only adds to it when I’m spending all my energy and time doing my best to stay focused on what the Professor is saying but thinking of ways to stop myself from coughing. It’s not like I’m coughing non-stop, it’s just every minute or so I’m coughing once or twice and then I’m okay….and then again, and again. In fact, I’m at work in my quiet office and I just coughed…I don’t really notice it here, unless I think about it.
That all brings me to this…Don’t pass judgments when you don’t know other peoples stories. I try really hard not to cough and not to interrupt other peoples learning, and I certainly don’t want to be a nuisance but I honestly can’t help it…and I refuse to take cough syrup to mask it, every single day of my life so I’m floating around in lala land because I’ve been sippin’ on some sizzurp…but what’s a girl to do?
