Good morning, John. Let me take you back to... (coughs). Let me take you back to Sunday of this week. I'm tired, but I'm elated.

VidCon has gone very well. Lots of amazing things happened. YouTube announced that everybody who makes money on the YouTube platform can email a real person and get a response within 24 hours. People were very excited about the launch of the Internet Creator's Guild, and the Crash Course curriculum materials. The community at the conference felt cohesive and supportive of each other. And all of the little problems that seemed really big at the time got solved or dealt with really quickly by a great team of staff and volunteers who I'm just so pleased to work with.

So it's Sunday. Sunday evening, and I'm waiting in line at my favorite rollercoaster anywhere in the universe - Space Mountain. And I'm pretty sure that the little tickle in the back of my throat isn't just from screaming for 3 days straight. But, you know, I take a medicine that suppresses my immune system, so I get sick a lot. I deal with it. It's no big deal. By the time I get back to the hotel an hour or so later, I'm full-on muscle aches and chills.

Drag myself out of bed the next morning, get on the plane, and immediately fall asleep. And as we are descending the first leg of my flight, I awaken to a pressure building in my head. I swallow to pop my ear, nothing happens, we continue to descend. The pressure continues to build. I'm swallowing, I'm yawning, I'm massaging, I'm chewing, I'm doing all the things. Nothing is working, the pain, The PAIN, THE PAIN! It goes from pretty much like "Ah, I stubbed my toe, but it's in my ear" to pretty much my top experience of acute pain, which is when I shattered my toe when I was playing basketball without my shoes on. Don't do that, by the way.

So the thing never happens, it never pops, and I can't hear very well out of one of my ears. But as we're on the ground in Seattle, the pain subsides, I get on another plane. It's fine on the way up; on the way down, again, but in both ears this time. I'm sitting next to a stranger, he doesn't know what's going on with me. I'm trying not to have outward signs, but I'm, like, crying and I'm basically losing my mind.

So, long story short, I ruptured both my eardrums. Good news is, apparently this happens fairly frequently, super painful, but it gets better. I told you this whole story, mostly because I went out to get Vietnamese food last night, and I got a fortune cookie. I'm about 70% of my normal hearing right now; this is the fortune I got: "You will be rewarded for being a good listener this week." Oh, fortune cookie. Why are you being so mean to me?

Everything that happens inside of my head is very loud. Breathing, chewing, my heart beating. Everything outside, less so. Another thing I found out this week, and I can't believe I didn't know this, is that all normal pain relievers interact very badly, like are literally dangerous to take, if you have ulcerative colitis. I don't know! No one told me this! So I had taken a bunch of DayQuil and ibuprofen, and suddenly my colitis starts acting up and I'm like, "What?! This too, at the same time?!" So now when I've got that night-time sniffling sneezing coughing aching stuffy head fever, I can no longer, no, never again.

Hank singing: I will remember you, will you... (interrupts with coughing)

Hey! Remember when I said we were going to make a really big announcement at VidCon, that it was going to be super important for people who live nearby or inside of Boston? Well, this February, to celebrate 10 years, 10 YEARS of Vlogbrothers, we are going to be bringing this community, part of it, into the real world with a thing called NerdCon: Nerdfighteria. It is as close as we're ever gonna get to bringing Nerdfighteria into the real world. We're gonna have concerts and talks and panels and games and a live recording of Dear Hank and John. We're gonna have a ton of super cool people there: Charlie McDonnell, Maureen Johnson, The Perfect Strangers, George Watsky, Megan Tonjes, Emily Graslie, Lindsey Doe, four of The 5 Awesome Girls, if you're from the old days.

We are going to have a really weird, cool time. It's not going to be anywhere near as big as VidCon, to be clear. Much smaller, more intimate event, so it will probably sell out pretty quickly. We're also doing one weird thing during registration. It's a little unfair that the only people that get to come to things like this are people who happen to have a spare $60. So as you check out, if you are able to, you can provide either a half, or a full scholarship for another nerdfighter to come for free. Applications for who's going to get those scholarships will come at a later time, once we know how many we have.

Thank you to all of you for being a part of this community, especially those who are not gonna be able to come out to NerdCon: Nerdfighteria. You will be there in spirit; we will hold you in our hearts. John, I'll see you on Tuesday.