Sunday, December 11, 2011

Down with the Sickness

I have been rather ill for the last few days, at first I thought it was just because it is so incredibly cold in my school (they do not allow any heaters on unless it is less then 10C outside), but then it continued at home. I would get chills so bad that being under a mountain of blankets just a few inches from a heater felt like being out on the tundra, followed closely with heat waves so bad that even without any blankets on me I was drenching my bed in sweat. 
This was uncomfortable, but still tolerable. Then came the horrible waves of pain, I convulsed pathetically even while lying in bed and spent most of my time lying around moaning while David looked on helplessly, he tried to comfort me, but it is hard to make someone feel better when they feel as if their organs are trying to explode through their body (all I could think of when writing that was the stomach scene from Aliens).

Then come this morning, I am faced with the decision of if I should go to school or not. I did actually start to get ready, but then doubled over in pain and thought this might not be the best decision. I called my company and the Board of Education, they both told me that that was quite sad but to try and feel better as quickly as possible, which is fine, that’s what you would expect from an employer. Disappointment in the situation, but understanding that you cannot change the current circumstances.
Then, I get a call from my school, telling me I should come in anyways. I explained that I have a fever, am in pain, and that blood is literally coming out of multiple orifices (lovely, huh?), they followed this up with, “so are you sure you can’t come in and teach?”
I bit my toungue, said yes it is a rest day for me, and hung up. This was closely followed with a call from someone at my company, asking me the same damn thing, “so are you sure you can’t come in and teach?”
Did these people miss the part where I said the words fever and blood?


I know quite well that here in Japan, most people still go to school or work while ill, they just simply “tough it out” and wear a mask, which has always been something that angers me, but I try to ignore it since it is their culture and it is not my place to pass judgment on how they run their nation. It annoys me whenever a teacher comes in quite obviously under the weather, sometimes they have even gone to the hospital and then come in to teach now that they have medicine to get them through the day, but that is not me. That is NOT how we do things in America. If you are sick, you do not pass it on to an entire school filled with children, you fucking stay home.  You do not allow yourself pass out in the middle in the middle of class from sickness. And you do not, ever, tell a person who is sick to “suck it up.”
If they want to do that, that is their prerogative, but there is no way in Hell you are going to get me to suffer through a day of work and possibly get 700 people sick.


I apologize in advance if this entry is not entire logical or sounds overly angry, still feeling ill and emotions/logic are a tad bit out of whack.
Example: cried like a baby earlier cause the cats knocked over a glass of tea. Fully know that that is not the normal reaction, but currently my brain seems to be saying “fuck logic.”