Finally I feel mostly whole. I started getting slightly sick Friday and it got a bit worse on Saturday then it hit me full on Sunday. Monday and Tuesday I still had to go to work although I didn't get much done because I felt quite bad. Yesterday though I felt much better and last night I at least had a comfortable, if not long, sleep. Probably I had some sort of flu. Usually I feel bad for a day but I can manage through it and a good night's rest fixes me up just fine.

But Sunday night I found out when I lay down on my bed that I had this pain in my lower back, on the left side. Only when I put a certain pressure on it. I tried to sleep on my left or right side but I'm so heavy my arm falls asleep and if I turn much more I drool all over my pillow. So basically I spent all night tossing and turning, catching a bit of sleep here and there, waking up late Monday not at all refreshed.

Same thing happened the next couple of nights, which I'm sure didn't help my body recover. I was tired all the time and sniffling and had the usual aches and chills and hot spells. All that I can sort of ignore, it's only things like throwing up which would make me take pause. But luckily it didn't get that bad and Tuesday night it didn't hurt too bad to lie down so I got more sleep. Then Wednesday I was mostly fine and when I went to sleep that night there was barely any pain.

Being sick and miserable is kind of cool. You have this sense of being apart from the world, it's not you doing these things but some other guy you're watching. I can forget about everything else and concentrate on getting this task done, then the next task and so forth. Actually, I have to concentrate because I'm so out of it. I wouldn't want to be that way all the time, but I must admit that it's neat to feel detached from the real world...

Yesterday I wrote about people I've interviewed this week. It brings me to mind that there are a lot of stupid people in the world, even in my field. Sometimes -- heck many times -- I feel like I'm really dumb and outclassed by my peers, that I struggle just to keep pace and that I must be one of the mentally unfit.

Then I talk to other people and I realize that I am smarter than 90% of the people out there. It's because I associate with other smart and brilliant people that I feel so unworthy. It reminds me of West Coast or High School. I was a big fish in a small pond, but then I went to a better pond with better fish and I was no longer a big fish. But I didn't change, just my sorroundings changed.

Heck, I'm not the hardest working person in the world and I make lots of mistakes and I don't know a lot of things. But even with all my faults (which I'm intimate with so they tend dominate my world view) I'm really good at what I do and I'm a valued member of my group, both at work and play. You don't see flaws in other people so it's easy to assume that they don't have any. But I talk to some people (here during interviews or at DunDraCon) and I realize that I'm not vain, corrupt, evil, laggard, or whatever as I thought I was in relation to other people.

This is but a fleeting feeling. I'm sure that next week I'll be back to my humble self trying to keep pace with my peers. That's not a bad place to be, at least I'm usually trying to do more. Though when you keep doing more you get to the point where you can't do any more and then you fall back to a low level and once again can do more and more and more.