Swine Flu Survivor ( Not Really)

Aaah. What would shadow be without light? Happiness without sadness? Love without hate? Pleasure without pain???? You get the point, I hope. Well now I'm in health after sickness...again. I woke up on wednesday night with a severe fever, the shakes and I almost fainted taking a piss in the middle of the night. My first thought, I must call in sick to work. For many reasons, I was not at first content with this decision, even though certain death was approaching (LOL). I felt "Fluish," and Korea has a mass panic of "every foreigner has Swine Flu and infects their precious purity" policy. I swear to God it's true. When I cough on the street 10 people jump out of my way which actually makes my commuting to work through 10 million people a little easier.

The students' parents have made ECC install hand sanitizer machines on each floor of my school. My students only use the sanitizer 30 times a day and that keeps the old Ajummas (helper Grandma teachers)on their toes. They have to earn their $4 an hour somehow...lol.

My dilemma was, however, is that when a teacher calls in sick the whole school goes into chaos because of the fact that we don't have substitute teachers and we are teaching at least 8-9 classes a day, some of which are hour long classes; all your "friends" have to pick up your classes which somehow reminds me of basic training when that one dude cries for home, doesn't crease his pants, and has the rest of the platoon punished on hi behalf. My pants are clean and creased, but, like we all do, we hate resentment when we can't help ourselves..... but, I could barely stand up and go to the phone without a blanket over me. Shivering and ill. Just imagining the "warm" words of my boss, only in her mind thinking of the massive amount of delegation-giving among my co-workers to what they probably thought was a hangover. Their Nazi ways of keeping sick days at a minimum is purely Third-Reich. And like Totalitarianism, has many people crawl into work, throwup, and go home after painful hours. Me.....I have a theory: If I can't get out of bed and take a piss without feeling like shit through a blender, I'm not going to work. After all, I have less than 2 months and have done and outstanding job (Self-Kudos used to be few and far between..sorry).

I called my boss really early and she didn't get back to me until 5 minutes before my first class started. What I told her was a white Lie that made perfect sense. Here it goes: I have a severe fever, can't walk or get out of bed (all true), it may or may not be Swine Flu, but I "talked" to my Doctor brother and he said I should "quarantine" myself from everyone (especially my students and staff) for a day. If my symptoms got more "flu-like" that I should check myself into a Hospital to be checked out for the H1 Swine Flu Koreans are shitting about.

Well, it worked out the way I expected. She had nothing to say about her worries for my health, especially not the courteous "I hope you feel better,"and I returned into my coma for 36 hours of viral hallucinations; some of which were quite interesting. I woke up this morning, no Flu symptoms except a fever and achiness, and roughed it to work.

PS- You think you have it bad when your home sick and have to watch dull TV? Try watching untranslated Korean TV for two days in bed. I looked in my Korean translator book for "Suicide" and it directed me to the KBS cable network....shit....at least I feel fine now.

I guess my two main points are as follows:

1.) Don't expect any sympathy from a Korean boss about your fever, pain, hallucinations, and lack of walking capability, and:

2.) Every time I get sick or feel pain over here alone, it only makes me a stronger person...........hell yeah!