Have caught Teh Ick over the interwebs from KristinT. I blame everyone except me!

Oh no! I'm sorry, Nora. I'll stop sneezing on the keyboard.

Am trying very, very hard to pay attention to disability discrimination law in education lecture.

Ouch. Good luck with that.

Cash, that's very cool.

I'm proud of myself. Despite my personal ick, I managed to shower and spend 90 minutes grading. I've finished one set of tests and am about to start the next. I think (if I'm feeling up to it) I need to do something to reward myself tonight.

What's a good treatment for a cold sore?

Once it's there, fully? I pop Valtrex (Rx) when I feel it coming on, slather with Abreva, but if you don't have those things and it comes all up?

Stay away from acidy things, moisturze and don't pick. And wash hands before touching eyes or genitals because you can self-infect. Also, no mouth-to-mouth or parts nookie on unifected partner.

Signed, massive cold sores since age 5. Yeowch.

There's also a dietary supplement, an amino acid called lysine, you can take that's supposed to reduce their incidence. I am a bad, bad pill-taker and usually don't remember (and thus am usually sporting a cold sore because I like my beer plus I'm generally a nervous little dude), but I've definitely never had the smallest whisper of a cold sore during any time when I was remembering to take it.

Signed, massive cold sores since age 5. Yeowch.

Blech! I sort of feel your pain; for a while there I was getting a shingles outbreak about once a year. First time was at 15 after a bad sunburn, last time was earlier this year over something stupid that my body perceived as a stress overload.

I looked into lysine but it seems to be a cold sore supplement and doesn't seem to be effective for shingles.

My DH was quoted in The Lede blog at the NYT today, as a result of a press briefing he gave this a.m., but they got his name wrong. Boo!

De-stress?

Bwahahahahahaha! MiL still in hospital. Brother went on a drinking binge this week and Mom had to call 911. Christopher's getting ready to leave for Las Vegas for 5 days. Bwhahahahahahaha.

Erin, check, check, and check.

JZ, thanks! That reminds me. A doctor told my sister the exact same thing.

I'll get something at the pharmacy tomorrow. It's a the corner of my mouth so it hurts whenever I open my mouth or smile.

Well, I had my teaching observation/evaluation today. And this was a great day for it. I was teaching volumes of solids of revolution, and this class rocked. Two methods of calculating the volume, how to decide whether to integrate with respect to x or y, about eighteen different pictures and gestures and folding-paper-into-shapes on-the-fly to make sure everyone could picture what we were talking about, analogies including Russian stacking dolls with their heads and feet cut off. The students were engaged, they asked questions, there were about five times when someone literally said, "Oh! Now I get it!" This was an awesome class.

And my evaluation? About what I expected from this professor. Three sentences, all of them essentially, "She performs the duties required of a teaching assistant."

{{{{Cashmere}}}} The lip stuff that come in a little round blue container that will also soothe the cold sore a bit.

Yeah, I've used Blistex on cold sores, I think, and it takes some of the pain away.

Thanks, sj.

Man, I hope my sister has a baby so I can buy her this. It's so freakin' cool.