THE SETTING
It was a Monday night. I was cold, and shivering, my skin felt rough, and I could not get through my homework. I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I had a fever, and nothing would do but to take some NyQuil, finish my homework, and go to sleep. In that order. (I was feverish, okay? I wasn't thinking straight.)
THE BACKGROUND
I have no tolerance for anything. I go crazy after a cup of wine. I'm not even going to talk about liquor. And I had not had NyQuil in a very, very long time. Sometimes I don't think I deserve the recognition of being a college student because of my inability to drink, and then I look at how magnificently I procrastinate on everything, how profoundly messy I am, and how malleable my sleep hours are, and I realize that I still belong.
THE EVENTS SET IN MOTION
I know I took the NyQuil because of how gross it tasted. Also, I found the pill wrapper on the sink the next morning, and one pill was missing. Yes, one. A half dose. If you didn't read what I wrote before, I have a very low tolerance. At some point, I fell asleep. And then, the next morning, I woke up.
THE RESULTS. PT. 1
I went to my classes as usual on Tuesday morning. I still felt a little strange. We watched a video in my first class. I said hi to people, and took notes. I didn't have any homework due for that class, which was a good thing. I asked good, insightful questions. I think. I left the class when it was over, and went to my next class, where we did have a significant amount of homework due-- this was music theory. We were asked to open our workbooks, and I turned to a page filled with neat markings and numbers. Most of them weren't on any particular line, but they were in the general vicinity of where they were supposed to be. We went through the answers, and I was pleased to find that most of them were correct! This continued for several pages in the workbook until we turned to the final section, in which we had to analyze a Stravinsky piece. When the professor called out this page number (and the title of the piece), my stomach plummeted. I had not done this page. The piece sounded completely unfamiliar, and I knew I had not done this assignment at all. Moreover, I could tell my professor was just about to call on me for the first question.
I turned to the page as fast as I could, to try and figure out the answer of the first problem before being called on.
To my surprise, the entire page was completed-- in my handwriting, too! I proudly read out the answer of the first question, which was completely and totally wrong. The numbers I read had absolutely no relation to the piece in question. As I scanned the assignment while the rest of the class and the professor moved on, I saw very little connection between the numbers I'd recorded and the numbers I was supposed to put down. At one point, I had written a sequence that looked something like this:
45894589
When the text asked me if I noted any patterns in the aforementioned sequence, I'd responded with:
The numbers 2, 3 are repeated often.
When one question asked me to list the numerical value of all the notes in the piece, and to label them, I'd written
0, 3, 6, 9; a diminished seven chord
The correct answer was:
0, 2, 4, 6, 8, t, 0; a whole tone scale
(for those of you who know nothing about music, know that this is a mistake that can only have been caused by not reading the question in addition to not reading the notes in the piece while pulling numbers out of thin air)
After hesitantly turning in my homework, I then went to my independent study lesson, where I showed my professor several summaries I'd compiled for a bibliography on non-canonical early Christian texts. Except I hadn't recorded any of the sources, and had failed to reference them in my summaries. I would describe, at length, how this text covered a certain argument, and was backed by its author. Luckily, my professor seemed to find it more amusing than anything else, but I spent a good hour tracking down all the texts I might have looked at the previous night, and recorded in my "notes."
So, that was my experience with NyQuil and homework. A mistake that, while egregious, was in the past. Or so I thought.
THE RESULTS, PT. 2
The next day, I came home to check my email, feeling very much recovered from my fever. I opened my inbox, responded to some messages, and came across an email from my professor with an attachment containing a short-response piece I'd turned in a couple of nights ago. I opened up the document to view his comments and my grade, and found, instead, a single question from my professor: "Are you still working on this?"
I scrolled down to see what I'd written:
I suppose that I am still a little confused by the seemingly conflicting ideas that, on one hand
THE LESSON
At that point, I resolved never to take NyQuil again. Or, if I did, write a note beforehand for me to read about how I am NOT to do ANY schoolwork post-drugs. Or just double-check my work afterwards. Or be with a friend who can monitor my work. Or something. Anything. The important thing is that I have learned: I should never, ever, do anything ever after taking a half-dose of NyQuil.
In short, this is why I'm not a drinker.
