Epidemic

January was a dreary and boring month. Many of the students got sick, sometimes with influenza. The big elementary school wasn't affected too badly, but my other two schools were affected quite a bit. For four days, half of the teachers were out with influenza at the junior high school. Combined with student absences, this caused the whole school to close for one day and let out early the next. At the elementary school one day, three of the grades were closed because of absences, and one class was on the brink of closing and thus stayed in their classroom, so only sixteen students came to eat lunch in the lunchroom. It was a lonely week. Also, everyone in the school had to wear masks at both of these schools. I've mostly gotten used to this so I didn't mind it, but I had to wonder about the effectiveness of this policy considering half the school got sick at some point regardless.

I also got sick--I went to school one Friday very cold and without a voice, and was sent home about half an hour later. I had a fever and slept all day, but the next day I felt a lot better and by Monday I was basically back to normal.

Also, at the beginning of January I hurt my shoulder while rock climbing. I overexerted myself trying a particularly difficult problem on the steepest wall, and my shoulder didn't stop hurting for almost three weeks, so I ended up not going rock climbing for a full month. It was terrible, and when I went back on Saturday I was horribly out of shape. Hopefully I can recover my strength quickly.

In Japan there is a strange folk cure for a cold. Apparently you roast a green onion stalk and wrap it around your neck. Nobody I've asked has actually tried it though.