Takeoff delayed

The start of my internship was delayed by, I believe, a commercial airlines flight. I’m blaming the airborne petri dish I took from San Juan to JFK for infecting me with the virus that led to a pretty nasty gastroenteritis.

That I got sick on the plane coming back from my vacation was unfortunate on two counts. First, I love airplane travel. I count on planes to do my best thinking about life, work, whatever (driving on expressways at night also works.) It seems as though my mind takes its cue from the plane as it takes off and soars through space. I especially look forward to traveling at night, when I can sit and contemplate the world by my little overhead light as everyone else dozes off around me. Now, however, I know the next time I fly I’ll be bogged down by thoughts of creepy microbes on the plane plotting to continue their journey on me.

The second and most compelling reason this mishap was unfortunate is that it made me miss the first day of my internship (the collection development part). After quite some anticipation, it felt pathetically anticlimactic to call in sick the very first day. Also I knew Jesus had a carefully planned itinerary that accounted for each and every 5-hour day during the term. That week I would have been able to attend a departmental activity and meet some of the professors of the Caribbean and Latin American studies program. In addition, we would have been reviewing Argentinian publishers, distributors and approval plans.