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I came back from ICSE a week ago, and I've been spending the last week at home since I didn't want to give whatever I was carrying back from ICSE to my lab mates.
This turned out to be a wise choice, since on the second day back, I started experiencing mild symptoms. This was after I had experienced 0 symptoms at ICSE, and had tested negative each day I was there. I wonder if I got it on the plane back, or (worse) I was just asymptomatic for the first few days. That said, nobody I was at ICSE with experienced anything, so maybe I just got really unlucky.
It's a good thing I had Advil at home. The two days after I became symptomatic were pretty annoying. I was pretty congested, and had a bit of a headache. This meant that I was in-and-out of bed, and not as productive as I wanted to be. The Advil also helped me get through an interview I had on the phone. In hindsight, I should've tried to reschedule that interview because I pretty much sounded like Christian Bale's Batman by the end. That said, it went pretty great! And that's something I rarely say about interviews. After those days, I experienced a marked change in how shitty I was feeling for the better, and by the end of the week, I was feeling pretty much normal. I'll be going into the lab next week after what feels like an eternity (it's only been 13 days!), and I can't wait. I also got a new box of Chemex filters so I'll be able to restart my coffee program very quickly. There's something oddly satisfying about starting my day with a fresh brew that I make myself.
In terms of research, it really does feel like I'm in the final stretch. I spent the weekend writing up a rather complicated ethics application for the user studies I'm planning to run for my tool (literally the only missing piece of my thesis). Once I have that approved, I'll start advertising the study on Twitter and trying to get as many participants as I can. After that, it'll be a matter of analyzing the data and writing about it in my thesis... what could possibly go wrong?
Until next time.