A PLAGUE ON ALL YOUR PUPILS

Today and yesterday have proven themselves to be official “sick days.” I didn’t take off from work, and I myself am not feeling ill in any capacity. What has happened, it seems, is that many of the students have gotten sick by their own accord…or each others.

Yesterday in Acting class, I couldn’t help but notice one of my students with Pink Eye. I mean, there, watching me, learning from me, on the face of this pupil was an enlarged and rather pink Pink Eye. Other students in the class found it hard to improvise any scenes with him, out of fear that he was contagious and would too soon turn their eyes pink as well. I’d say he wasn’t rubbing his eye and then pretending to rub his hands all over other students, but he was.

Later in the day one of the seniors that came to audition for the musical said he had Mono. His eyes and face were already swollen, but he convinced himself to sing American Pie anyway.

And then today it was like an entire plague had been thrust upon this quaint and thriftless domain of private education. In another Drama class of 6th graders, a student was absent, having broken BOTH of his wrists horsing around in gym class. During first period the student I usually tutor one-on-one was completely bleached of color, her face a little blue (she still, however, managed to be quite argumentative when going over her Spanish homework. YES, “uno” is spelled “U-N-O” not “O-O-K-N-O-W”).

The student that followed found her nose just as stuffy, her throat just as sore, and I took it upon myself to Windex the desk we were using...three times in 40 minutes. Now I’m paranoid I’m doomed to get sick, if only from working in the same environment as all these sick people. One of my coworkers told me the NYU fencing team has been stricken with Mono (almost all of them have it) and that fencing practice has been reduced to sitting around complaining and using rapiers as toothpicks…which is probably how they all got Mono in the first place.

Only time will tell if I’ll soon succumb to this pestilence stinging my place of work. As for now, I’ll be consuming bihourly glasses of Airborny-Water and drinking hot glasses of Whiskyey-Tea in the hopes to avoid having any sick days of my own.