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.
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.
Question to my AP Computer Science class:
For the last week or so, I’ve been talking in my classes about Internet safety in light of some recent backlash against MySpace. There are quite a few cases now of kids meeting people on MySpace and being abducted, molested, raped, and even murdered. To be fair, MySpace isn’t the only medium for this time of abuse, just the current favorite. It is very easy to make friends on the Internet, and you never really know who you’re talking to. In any case, it has provided for some good class discussions, and I hope also raised the awareness level of my students.