You know what's lame?

Smoking is lame. It is even worse when it is happening in the back stairwell directly behind my bedroom door. My dear, darling apartment-neighbor was standing in the fire stairs, smoking a cigarette. I walked into my room and started freaking out a bit because I smelled something burning. I figured it might have been their food, but then I opened the door in my room that leads out the back, and there was the man, looking at his phone, nodding his head when I asked him if he was smoking. Super lame. I have since opened my window, and my bedroom seems to be airing out decently. This is my first apartment anywhere, much less in Boston, so I am pretty pumped to be here. I am, however, struggling between my love of my apartment's location and rent and my distaste with its sub-par cleanliness. I've killed two mice in the past week, although I think (hope?) that is the last of them, and the neighbors, blah blah, they'd better not burn down the building. Oh well. I just really don't want to have to move.

In other news, my first round of maintenance chemotherapy didn't go quite as I had expected. I was expecting a quick injection, a few pills, a nice chat with my doctor, and presto, I would be good to go, worry-free for four weeks. As I wrote last week, that is just about how things went down on injection day. What happened in the days between then and now has caused me some concern. Basically, the chemo, the one little injection and the few pills, took over my body. It made me lose my appetite and taste buds, it sapped my energy, and it allowed for my waning cold to regroup, strategize, and resurge. I tried to battle the effects by running (ten minutes straight! making progress, alright), but I think the exercise might have depleted my energy even more. Oh, and the best part are the steroids. I get to take them for five days every four weeks. These 'roids won't make me hit record numbers of home runs, but they will completely disrupt my sleeping patterns as well as give me crazy, lifelike dreams. Hooray! It has been a week now. My taste buds have come back, and my sleep is returning to normal, although I don't like thinking about the dreams I might have. They're not scary, just disgruntling. But anyway. I'm not sure if I will be thusly affected every time I get the chemo over the next year. I certainly hope not, but it is too soon to tell.

Otherwise, I've been working at the gym, reading some Salman Rushdie, and trying to mentally defeat my cold. Classes resume in one week, and I am ready for this semester to begin. I don't know what will happen, but I hope good things are in store. Enjoy the rest of the week, and find something to smile about tomorrow. Solid goal, I'd say. Pax.

**late addition! This is my first post of 2008. My adventures in the blog-world have officially spanned three years. Ridiculous.**