Upsides and Downsides

* One of the downsides to being a lawyer is that nobody in the office understands the hilarious xkcd comic strips that you post on your door.  Then again, the upside to this is that people are really impressed with your mathematical abilities when you can understand what makes a spreadsheet work, handle compound interest calculations, and work with percentages.

* There are a few upsides to being sick to some degree for more than six weeks:
- you can follow the starve yourself and barf diet without having to suffer from the psychological conditions or social disapproval associated with anorexia or bulimia.
- your intensely sore throat encourages you to listen rather than speak to the extent possible.
- your family is less annoyed with the fact that you can't keep up with your share of laundry chores.
- you tend to catch up on sleep after months and years of routinely cutting corners in that department.
- when you see the world fly by in a senseless jumble that makes no sense you can take some comfort in the fact that you really are feverish and delirious, so it might just be you rather than the world that is messed up.
- you can feel pride about the fact that you are doing your part to keep the health care industry healthy.

The downside, of course, is that even though you are working fewer hours and even missing multiple days of work, you aren't able to enjoy your time off and do anything fun.