My sister had the flu last week, so she stayed home from school. All she did was sleep and she didn’t have to worry about anything other than drinking a lot of liquids and taking her medicine every four hours.
This weekend, my mother came down with some sort of mutation of the illness my sister had, which I now have. Only I don't have the same luxuries that she had. I don't get to stay home from school and just relax and focus on getting better- I have to suck it up, take my medicine in the morning, and go to school.
Many of you are probably thinking, "WHY??? Why would you go to school even though you feel like death?” Well, I have two words for you: final exams.
See, second semester we are allowed three absences to still be considered for exemptions from our final exams. Four or more, and you have to take your tests. Of course there are other contingencies, but those aren't easier to deal with since I usually abide by them anyway: 85+ average, no more than five tardies and commended on all your TAKS tests. Those are things that I've always just defaulted to, but the whole absence thing is a little harder.
First off, you have sickness. It's something you can't truly avoid. I mean, sure, there are precautions one can take such as eating healthy, drinking plenty of fluids, taking vitamins and washing your hands a lot. But in the end, germs always seem to overcome these obstacles and take over your body.
Now I'm pretty sure that you've all had the flu at some point in your life, so you know how difficult it is to do things when you have it; you don't really have any motivation to just walk around your house, let alone focus on schoolwork.
But I don't really have a choice. Not only will missing school point me farther away from getting exemptions, it will also put me farther behind in my studies.
There's a lot more information to cover in high school than there ever was in elementary, or middle school. Or maybe that's just how it seems. Either way, there is a lot more work that the teachers all throw at us; more tests to study for. It's sometimes too much to handle even when I'm in my right mind. That's why these past couple of days have been so hard on me.
I've been at school, trying my hardest to pay attention in class, when I should have been back at home, curled up on the couch watching TV, or sleeping. It wasn't as bad yesterday because at least I could sing during choir, although in hindsight that was probably a bad idea because I'm sure I sounded terrible, but today I was forced to sit there in silence as my choir worked with our beloved assistant director. (Though in my opinion, and I know many others in the choir program agree, he should be the head director; he's more than qualified for the position.) Anyway, they ended up doing some work in the breezeway, this little room that has amazing acoustics, and I was in awe.
In a way, I was both happy and sad that I was able to just stand aside and listen to my choir for once. Happy because I could finally hear how we sounded from the audience's perspective, but sad because they had sounded so amazing without me that I'm almost afraid to rejoin them and risk ruining their sound.
Anyway, I think that three absences are not enough because with this rule many students, such as myself, go to school when they are ill. This cannot be good for anyone, and I feel very guilty for going to school in my condition knowing that I could possibly cause a fellow classmate to catch my disease.
Well, I say disease, but it's obvious not that bad, or else I wouldn't be able to go to school. Besides, the only reason most people can tell that I'm sick is that I'm not as spirited as usual and apparently I was pretty pale today.
But don't be fooled. Inside, I feel completely awful. It's hard to even focus on this blog post, but I need to do something or else I will go insane; I feel like I've just been wasting my life these past couple of days because I've done nothing but sleep.
I guess my main point is that I'm frustrated with my school for having the absence policy they do because it means that I have to go to school when I'm sick and just want to stay home and rest.
I hope you have managed to escape the evil clutches of the flu virus, but if you've suffered the fate as I have, then you have my pity.
No comments:
Post a Comment