Last week I suffered from dizziness, fever, chills, queasiness, sensitive skin, coughing, sore throat. And after extensive tests with an oversized Q-tip at the back of my throat, it was determined that I do not have the flu. I was sent home with instructions to take Vitamin C and Tylenol. My name is Lissa Scott, and I have a non-contagious virus.
Last night at the coffee shop word spread through the music crowd that the WOU campus was being shut down for Friday and Monday on account of a possible swine flu outbreak. It always amazes me how people know about these things late at night and still manage to tell everybody about it before school the next morning. Well this little bit of news doesn't help me at all since I don't have classes on campus on Mondays or Fridays anyway. So it's business as usual. I woke up this morning at 6:30, hit the snooze a couple times, then finally rolled out of bed. I had been expecting a phone call or email telling me school was cancelled and I shouldn't come to school today, but no amount of wishful thinking made my phone ring.
I got to school on time and asked one of the other teachers why school wasn't cancelled, and here's what she had to say: "Well these things happen, and we get these scares every once in a while. I think administration has just stopped paying attention. We're 90% sure it's a hoax, so it's no reason to cancel school." Needless to say, I was a little confused. Since when has there been another swine flu outbreak? Who would make these things up? Apparently, she informed me, a bomb threat was discovered yesterday afternoon stating a bomb was going to go off at 9:24am today. This note was found in the women's bathroom. But hey, it's just a hoax, right? No need to cancel school for nothing -- especially since we wasted so much time with snow days earlier in the year. The appropriate solution: a fire drill at 9:20. We'll pretend it's just a random fire drill (since we need to do them once a month anyway, and it's the first of May so let's get it over with early), usher kids outside, call the bomb squad and police dogs to sniff out this supposed bomb. After that's taken care of, let's get back to work.
Good thing for me, the vice-principal pulled me aside and said I needed to go home because I am a WOU student. We're all contaminated, I guess. Fortunately for me, I didn't have a hard lesson planned for my mentor teacher to execute, but still that's two days that I will not be present to go through my lesson plans the way I want to. And Monday is the first day of my full work-sample. I can't even be there for my "official" teaching.
Just to recap, not only is the neighboring college shutting down school for two days because of a possible swine flu case, but there is also the threat of a bomb at the high school. But let's not cancel school. This isn't enough of a reason for missing out on seven hours of mindless slouching in chairs and tuning out of teachers. This is the world we live in folks. Yes, this all happened by 8am.
Final note: While walking home from the coffee shop, one of my students drove by pointing at me and shaking his head. Yes, I did skip his class. But school isn't out yet....does that mean he's skipping too?
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