Remember, if you will, the post Money Can Make or Break You. (Or read it for the first time.) My teacher called us students germ factories. I am really and truly getting to see how this is true. Lately, the weather has been rainy and cold, and sickness has been spreading like wildfire. Unfortunately, those few who got sick originally did not stay home like they should have, and thus spread germs further and further. I have been fine up until now, and actually in relatively good health considering my lack of sleep and deteriorating eating habits, but now I'm starting to feel a lot of discomfort in my throat. Although I haven't lost my voice or started coughing yet, it might be only a matter of time. I am as steamed as can be. Unless this is a late punishment for something I did, I feel as if I am being hurt for something when I didn't deserve it, if you catch my drift. I mean, I as well as the healthy students were just attending school like good children until we were cursed by those who insisted on not staying home.

I know there are many reasons for students not staying home from school. This became clear during French class, when my teacher even said, "You should be at home, not here." The kids cried out, "It's our Asian parents!" (Very stereotypical, but I guess it makes sense to them.) The teacher said, "You must make your...Asian parents understand that by going to school, you spread sickness to other perfectly fine people. We are all stuck in a small, confined space with the windows and door closed. There is nowhere for your germs to go."

Then a classmate presented a different argument. "Both my parents work," he said, "so I can't stay home." The teacher didn't find this to be a problem. "You are old enough to stay home by yourself." I think this is true. I just saw a young boy (I am guessing maybe somewhere from five to seven years old) riding his bike, by himself. He seemed fine. What a nice independent young man. XD

And then there is another category of people, such as myself, where it is the student who really didn't want to stay home. One of my friends fits in this category since she went to school despite her mother saying she could stay home if she wanted. But she, unlike me, is more dedicated, which is admirable. For me, it would be nice to stay home, but I think it is too much of a hassle. You have to make up tests and PE and other junk, and it's just not worth it unless I'm very sick.

It's bad enough that there's a bug going around (two of my teachers are ill and one is recovering). But it's even worse that there was a CHICKEN POX warning. My teacher asked a student to run to the office to get some papers to pass out to us. When the papers arrived, he asked us to raise our hands if we had ever had chicken pox. There were only a handful of students who did (perhaps five? Six?) and they were all male. My teacher seemed surprised. "More of you should've gotten it." (Hey, is he suggesting that we're bad for NOT getting it?! Nah, that can't be :p) When I told my mom later, she said, "Of course we wouldn't, there's a such thing as vaccination." (But if that's the case, did those victims of chicken pox not get properly vaccinated? Or did the vaccination fail to work?)

Then the message came in saying that four students in my grade at my school had gotten chicken pox and that we may have been exposed to the disease. Within 2-3 weeks, infected people would start to show symptoms. I was immediately scared because one of my worst fears is disease (particularly something like chicken pox that would really, really force me to stay home from school, and it would cause trouble for my parents since they would have to stay home from work to take care of me). Then again, if I did actually get chicken pox, then it would protect me from getting it again. (Apparently, if you have chicken pox once, you're safe from it, because your body can recognize it and exterminate the virus quickly)

I guess now is the time to quote Thomas Paine's work called "The Crisis"... "These are the times that try men's souls." (And women's, and children's.)

Labels: asian, chicken pox, danger, disease, germ factory, immune, infection, make-up, parents, quote, school, sick, sickness, sore, the crisis, thomas paine, throat, vaccination

This question plagued me because I went to Trader Joe's one weekend (we were entertaining guests at my house and needed some dessert to feed them). By the entrance to the store were some plants for sale. The little white sign next to it said oriental lilies, but they looked plenty like tulips to me...Maybe it was the wrong label, or the tulips label had fallen off or was stolen. Here are pictures comparing the two kinds of flowers.

Oriental Lily


Tulip


See, not really like each other, hm? At least different enough to be able to tell them apart. I had been planning to ask about it (since some of you may have gardener friends or relatives) but I guess a simple image search did the trick here.

We are still going on with Human Growth and Development education in my class...It is getting a little old now, having to watch videos of developing fetuses and little cells which look like either tadpoles or some part of an onion. We have moved on to hearing about HIV/AIDS. This part of the year always freaks me out. I have a strange tendency to be frightened by the mention of any dangerous disease. See, HIV is especially bad because 1) It has no known cure, only medicine that can "slow down" the spread of the disease. 2) It can be passed on without knowing about it, if someone didn't realize they had HIV. 3) It can be passed on from parent to child! How horrible, if you're a child with HIV, having to eat many pills a day, and you'll probably die anyways after some years. 4) It hijacks your immune system. 5) It is a virus, not a bacteria. (I mean, viruses aren't even living organisms... I wonder how they came into existence in the first place)

My teacher showed us an amusing book that is teaching people about the importance of commas. I'm sure you have some idea of how to use them: When listing things in a sentence, or separating parts of a sentence (like taking a breath if you're saying it out loud, sort of?), or right after saying Dear so-and-so in a letter...You get the point. Except people tend to misuse the comma a lot. So an author wrote a book called Eats, Shoots, & Leaves. The author is Lynne Truss, the illustrator is Bonnie Timmons. Look at these two sentences. (May not be exactly the same as in the book)

Panda - A bear-like animal originating in China. Eats shoots and leaves.

Panda - A bear-like animal originating in China. Eats, shoots and leaves.

The meaning is drastically changed depending on whether you put a comma at all and where you place it. The first sentence is correct, since pandas do eat shoots and leaves (bamboo, to be more specific). But the second sentence means the panda should eat something, shoot with a gun or bow and arrows, and leave wherever he/she is. (I hope you got the joke. If not, the author has failed)

Labels: AIDS, comma, comparison, disease, flowers, grammar, hgad, HIV, humans, immune, language arts, oriental lily, panda, sickness, trader joe's, tulips, virus

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