There’s a board by the front door of the teachers’ office where they have been keeping track of sick students. Who from what class is absent, and with a fever, or not, influenza, or not.
I’m rather surprised that omgSwineFlu, which had such an impact on my summer experience that we dubbed it “Swine 09” and I have the t-shirt to prove it, is still around and is still a problem. For some reason, I expected the flu to be under control by now, or that no one would be worried about it anymore.
I never knew that remembering the word “fever” in Japanese would be so useful, nor did I imagine I’d hear “in-furu-enza” so often, here.
I thought maybe the fever watch board was just part of the way Japanese schools are so involved in the lives of their students. But, according to my fellow JETs, this is new.. they don’t normally do this.
Oh SwineFlu, why must you make life difficult?
Well I suppose that this, like the typhoon and economy issues, is just further proof that 2012 had to start somewhere, and 2009 was just far enough out.
yeah, we have a special board too for the flu, although at my school we always have an absentee board that lists all the students who are out. i think the swine flu problem is compounded by the fact that a lot of my kids have different stuff - some have B-type, some have A-type, and some actually have the oink. i can only imagine the chaos when actual flu season hits, it was pretty nasty last year and that was before any of this swine flu hubbub >_<
ReplyDeleteHm, and we aren't even very far into the fall yet. Here in Chicago, we had a researcher in my area die from the plague. So now we get to worry about the plague and swine flu! No whammy, no whammy, no whammy!
ReplyDeleteYou seriously don't believe the 2012 deal, do you?
ReplyDeleteIt's a huge deal in our school districts here in Georgia, too. Commerce is making a pretty big deal out of things because there was an omgSwineFlu issue back before the summer, actually, at one of our neighboring schools. I'm surprised that ya'll are keeping a chart... I wonder if that's worth bringing up (just because I'm curious!).
ReplyDeleteSwine flu at our school is big deal. We've had entire companies (40 corp/army people per company) sent home for a week on quarantine. it's indeed swine 09. lol.
ReplyDelete