Productivity versus Allergies

And old picture of me, from my trip to Paris in February, in front of my favourite museum, Orsay.

This wasn’t the post I planned to put out today, but I hope you enjoy. It’s a bit of a ramble, but very fitting for this kind of Monday.

Following this weekend, one of indulgence and not of any productivity (unless you count seeing friends and a visit to the Musée d’Orsay, which I really loved when I first came in February), in Paris, I returned to residence determined to make sure that I turn things around a bit to try to finish the semester in, at least, a satisfactory way.

I mapped out today in my planner and went to bed quite proud of myself and determined to stick to my task list and get chores and studying accomplished. I woke up this morning with my allergies acting up in an awful way. I dealt with it as best I could, sneezing through class, rubbing my eyes on my way to pay rent, eating lunch with tissue practically stuffed up my nostrils. You see, when my allergies act up, they take over completely. I get foggy, my head aches, my eyes squint… I can’t even nod my head without my nose running all over the place. To be honest, I’d rather catch a cold than have my allergies. I’m just grateful it doesn’t happen too often.

This afternoon, because of my sniffling and sneezing, I decided to forgo the library to get the menial tasks in residence, vacuuming and laundry out of the way. A nap followed and then the grocery store.

This grocery store trip was excellent. For one of the first times, I walked through, buying what I wanted without much

None of us could quite figure out what was going on with the statues. I find it was foreshadowing the way my nose looks today.

care to the price or their need. It was a trifecta of influences, feeling cruddy from allergies, rewarding myself for being proactive, and finally feeling financially comfortable.

My dinner, which I have just finished, consisted of some of my purchases, including mint green tea, a glass of orange juice, two clementines, several pieces of delicious (yet cheap!) bread with apricot jam, strawberry jam, and emmental cheese, and a yogurt sweetened with cane sugar. This is soon to be followed by some dark chocolate. Because, why not?

Today, though not the first day that I’ve suffered from my allergies in France, was also the first day I decided to stroll into a pharmacy. The efficiency was nice. You tell the pharmacists what you need and they fetch it for you, give you instructions, and you’re done. Much quicker than wandering around aisles of medications wondering what the best one for the best price is.

In a moment, I’ll begin scratching off the little bullet points I had made for today, and add a couple in for tomorrow, before moving on to get a bit of schoolwork done, and then heading off to bed with my book. Trying to be productive doesn’t have to be hard, as I reminded myself on the train yesterday. Busy hands are happy hands, right? (That cliché really is terrible; I apologize for using it) But when there’s a wrench thrown into the works, as I had today, it’s so easy to drop everything, give up and go back to bed.

My biggest problem has always been that of saying, “Oh well, there’s always tomorrow, I guess…” So, last night I wrote Everyday is a new beginning at the top of my planner. I wanted to wake up every morning and remember my determination to do better. My little quote in my planner is meant to be a reminder that while yes, I want to be more proactive, productive, and outgoing on a daily basis, but that I should also use every day as an opportunity to see how I can push myself onward, past the unpredictable obstacles that can easily be tossed in any of our paths.

Maybe I didn’t completely clear my list of tasks for the day, and maybe there’s even more to be added now, but in the end, I think that today worked out alright.