Saturday, June 27, 2009

Learning in a Time of H1N1

Finally, H1N1 hits my daughter's school c/o a high school girl's confirmed case. The text messages announcing suspension of classes incessantly entered my E71. I wanted them to stop sending it, saying: "I got it, thanks." The following day, I hear another neighboring school had suspended classes.





June 25: Moms receive the homework and schedules good for the next 10 days via email.





Kid's feedback: "Mom, the homework's really hard!"





Mom's balloon thoughts: "Ok, we need to tutor the kids daily! Set aside work--no yaya can do this!". I need to keep them to a study schedule, or else they'll be cramming all of this. Can the teachers set up a chat forum if the kids need to ask questions? Can someone from school please organize small group tutorials? Or at least online if they're afraid their classmates may be virus carriers?





Mom's knee-jerk actions: take Berocca, disinfect the house, pour boiling water on plates and utensils; buy face masks, check everyone for the smallest temperature rise, sniffle and sore throat, buy Bactidol; pray; create Yahoogroups to ensure speedy and more efficient communication amongst parents.





I remember the time of SARs when we were in Singapore, 2003. Everyone was deathly scared to go out. Assignments were sent via e-mail. Kids were more relaxed; I was less concerned about the suspensions of classes. I guess Canadian International School (my daughters' school at that time) was more ready for class suspensions.





What have I learned? So far, I've learned that reaction to the H1N1 spread is hyped. The winners are Tammiflu and facemask suppliers. They feed on fear to increase sales. True, the cases have increased--last count I heard 2 days ago is that we have 300 cases in the country. The good news is that only a few have died (and because of complications due to other ailments of the victim), there is already a vaccine, that my kids haven't gotten it.



My husband, who has had intermittent hi fever since last Thursday, is now sitting in front of the tv, laughing his head off at an early morning show. The hospital ran out of H1N1 test kits, so he has to wait til Monday or Tuesday to have himself tested. So I give him paracetamol in the meantime. Now he's de-stressing, beginning to notice things around the house he hasn't seen. Like the high ceiling, the woodgrain of our platform bed, the repairs that need to be done on the roof. I told him to set aside the laptop, it's a weekend--NO WORK, re-create yourself before you get burned out. Getting sick with a potentially infectious virus is the only excuse he allows himself to take a sick leave and relax.





That the flu allows one to slow down, and re-assess where you're at with yourself and the rest of the world is a good outcome of this H1N1 hype. Sometimes, we become too busy to slow down, that God allows a pandemic to happen as we didn't see many little signposts in our life.

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