So I went to a pirate/ninja birthday party Friday night. I decided to be a ninja. I walked home from the party with a pirate and spent part of the time darting from shadow to shadow much like I'd envision a ninja doing (see picture).
Turns out Austrians think it's a bit odd for someone to lurk about Vienna in a ninja costume. I considered venturing down to the 1st district (the historical district), but thought better of it. I decided it would be difficult to explain to the Polizei why I was darting between shadows of historical statues and buildings carrying a red plastic broomstick…I mean bow-staff.
I've got mad bow-staff skills.
Excerpted from an actual student conversation:
Jake: I’m going to be a bad husband.
Fumbi: We’re all going to be bad husbands.
Jake: No, I mean, I just ordered a new bike and I’m already lusting after other bikes.
So a result of all the sickness these last few weeks at school are that a couple students and a teacher have scarlett fever. This old-timey disease reminded me of that old Oregon Trail game where you’d put your family in a wagon and try to make it to Oregon alive. A very noble goal. I would always be rolling along fine until, “Ralph has typhoid.” As far as I was concerned the cure to typhoid and all those other diseases was buffalo. And so I would go hunting, and little Ralphie would die, and then one by one my family died from diseases that buffalo apparently didn’t cure. Those were the good ol’ days.
Here’s some random thoughts from last week when I was sick:
- Wednesday night I got to watch the US women’s soccer team play Germany in the final of the Algarve Cup. The US dominated the game, but couldn’t put a ball in the net, and ended up losing 4-3 in a shootout. It reminded me of the time when me and some friends decided to become women’s soccer fans for the 1999 Women’s World Cup. A few of us painted our faces for the final (USA vs. China), dug out our American flags, and walked through west philly to someone’s house who had a big screen tv. I remember Bill Clinton being interviewed during half-time talking about how great the world cup is for women’s sports and how it was great that 1 billion Chinese people were watching the event unfold. We laughed about that for a long time. The US won on a penalty kick by Brandi Chastain who proceeded to tear off her jersey and launch a heated debate and commercial campaign about sports bras.
- While I was sick, I took to walking around the apartment wearing my green and gray plaid Martha Stewart fleece blanket like a cape. My roommate said I looked like a monk, and then I started wearing it over my head as well. Say what you will about Martha Stewart, but the woman can make a nice fleece blanket. Or at least some Indonesian kids in sweatshop can make a nice fleece blanket with her name on it.
- March Madness on Demand is the greatest thing ever. I got to watch my beloved Penn Quakers take on the mighty Texas Longhorns Friday morning. It actually turned out to be a really good game, as Penn clamped down hard on defense. Maybe you didn’t notice, but Penn point guard Ibrahim Jaaber hit a nice bank 3 pointer towards the end of the game. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, but you should know that the bank 3 was perfected at Penn by a group of intramural basketball players known as WonderBread. WonderBread was quite possibly the greatest intramural basketball team…ever. By our second season we hit at least one bank 3 per game. One time we even hit four in the same game. Four bank 3′s! It was amazing. It’s great to see that the legacy of the bank 3 lives on at Penn.
For the second time in the span of a month I’ve had to say goodbye to a good friend of mine. At least this time I know she’s coming back, albeit in September. Jo does freelance interpreting at the IAEA, but is without work until the fall. Though she is fluent in four languages, we often have trouble reconciling the differences between American and British English. For instance, last night I spent a considerable amount of time trying to explain the difference between an American biscuit (pictured) and a British one, and apparently “pudding” means “dessert” in British. Who knew?
Olivia, who left a month ago, has no set plans to return, and is now stateside unless she is still traipsing around Scotland. I suppose I could begin to use this large black bag she left in my room as leverage. Hmmm… What if I decide to keep one item from her bag for every week she’s gone?
At any rate all this leaving makes me sad. And it makes me think about the end of the school year when I’m going to have to say goodbye to more friends. I grew up as a Navy brat so all these goodbyes aren’t really a new concept, but they never get easier. Not for me anyway. Maybe that’s because I never had a lot of friends growing up. Heck, even over here I barely had a social life my first two years. I remember my first year when my roommate was gone over breaks, I would sometimes go two or three days without talking to anyone. When I finally ventured out of my apartment, I found I stumbled over my words as though I had forgotten how to speak. And I had, I guess.
So I tend not to take my friends for granted. I like my friends to know they are appreciated, and sometimes I probably place too much focus on maintaining my friendships. So when they go, it saddens me all the more. Though, at the same time, it makes me thankful for the friendships that God has blessed me with and motivates me to pray for those friends that I am now separated from.
So my fever finally broke, but now my head is congested and my throat is raw. School was actually called off on Friday because too many teachers and students are sick.
In true Austrian fashion I looked for a tea to treat my throat and came across Halsfreund. Literally “Neck Friend.” So I thought, my neck needs all the friends it can get right now. And believe it or not, this is probably something similar to what I would have come home with if I’d actually gone to see a doctor. Well, that, maybe some form of Alka-Seltzer, and some scolding about not wearing my scarf more often.
Yes, my scarf. Austrians have this reverence for scarves that I find humorous and frightening at the same time. Cold air on the neck is a sure recipe for sickness and scarves keep your neck warm and your health up. Germs? Anybody?
So now I have two Halsfreunden: my scarf and my tea.
I’m currently on my second sick day in four years in Vienna. I had a 101.8 fever on Monday, though I somehow made it through the school day. Barely. For my last class, I just gave out the assignments with minimal explanation and told them to read the book and work in groups. I promised we’d go over questions on another day.
I have spent the last few days between my bed and the bathroom, trying desperately to keep hydrated. It’s probably a bad sign that I’ve started thinking a bed pan is a good idea.
Apparently I’m in good company too, as 6 staff and almost 50 kids were out sick yesterday. 50 kids is almost a fourth of our enrollment!
I’m not really sure what happened. I mean, it’s been more than a week since I last ate a hot dog off the ground.
Though my roommate is taking good care of me, he is also gloating over the fact he has avoided this outbreak by getting a flu shot. That’s his theory, at least. I am half-tempted to lick his toothbrush as a test of his all-powerful flu shot, but that would just be mean. “How’s your flu shot working now?”
No, my computer’s not gay…or a cowboy. And really, it didn’t catch fire. But the screen is completely broken. Sad. It almost slipped off my lap Sunday morning, and though I caught it on the top corner of the screen I must have pressed too hard. All I get now is a white screen with a colorful crack running from the bottom left corner to the top right. Underneath the crack are thin rainbow-colored vertical lines.
So now it’s relegated to desktop status. Fortunately it’s only the display that’s broken, so I didn’t lose any data. Kind of defeats the purpose of a laptop, though.
I carried an old monitor from school home on Monday. I think I get extra geek points for carrying a computer monitor on the Ubahn. Not that I really need extra geek points.
Fortunately I have ordered a new laptop that will arrive with my parents in less than 3 weeks. I guess I overestimated the life of my computer. She lived a long life as a computer, and will live on as a code-free DVD player.
Question to my AP Computer Science class:
“Guess what I bought us today?”
Actual Student Answer:
“Pocket protectors?”
Making kids nerdier. That’s what I do everyday, here at VCS.
(Just for the record, I didn’t actually buy them pocket protectors, but I do think it’s a good idea).
Question to my AP Computer Science class:
“Guess what I bought us today?”
Actual Student Answer:
“Pocket protectors?”
Making kids nerdier. That’s what I do everyday, here at VCS.
(Just for the record, I didn’t actually buy them pocket protectors, but I do think it’s a good idea).
