Killer Flu and Crazy, Dedicated Students – Tokyo, Japan

Killer Flu and Crazy, Dedicated Students
Epitaph of a possibly soon-to-be-deceased English Teacher

This killer pneumonia that’s currently loose in Asia has got me a bit worried being here in Tokyo.

The World Health Organization has recently issued warnings about a new vicious pneumonia that is spreading through East Asia. They are calling the disease by the catchy name: “severe acute respiratory syndrome: SARS“. There have been a few reported deaths already including two in Canada. Those who catch SARS get very, very sick before (or if) they recover and it seems to be highly contagious.

As an English teacher I fear that if I catch this deadly disease, it will more than likely be from one of my crazy, dedicated students who will no doubt show up for their lessons even if they are coughing up black, gooey lumps and bleeding from every pore. Of course, due to their illness, they might be a few minutes late (rarely more than a teasing five minutes as experience has shown before). Inevitably, they will come bursting into the room short of breath and apologizing in wheezing gasps for being late as they leave a slimey trail of blood and mucus in their wake.

There is nothing more irrating during normal flu season when you ask a student how they feel and they tell you rather innocently: “Terrible! I have the cold terrible!” Great! Thanks for showing up to infect your teacher, you inconsiderate nincompoop! Just because you didn’t have the decency to cancel, you instead show up and infect me so now I won’t be able work for the next few days!

One of my co-workers had an extreme example of a crazy, dedicated student who went to his lessons while his wife was in labor! He was agitated and had his cellphone out in case the hospital called. Not surprisingly he wasn’t too much on the ball during the lesson so it begs the question, why come at all? Especially when your freaking wife is in labor!! Sometimes English lessons just aren’t that important regardless of what our brochure says.

I’m doubly worried because I also teach children. Children can be darling little bustling bags of vile, contagious diseases waiting to burst violently with snot and phlegm on an unsuspecting world and underpaid, under-appreciated teachers.

I don’t blame the kids themselves for showing up at school and infecting everybody, I blame the dumb parents for making their disease-ridden brood attend in the first place. I have a theory that this is how the black plague was spread in 13^th century Europe: by dense parents sending their kids off to medieval school oblivious to their child’s horrendous coughing, huge boils of pus on their skin, and their profuse bleeding.

If an epidemic spreads amongst English teachers in Japan it will no doubt be due to dedicated, dumb students who couldn’t have the decency to die in their homes and instead showed up to their lessons while at death’s door in order to pass their deadly illness on to others before dying in agony during the vocabulary warm-up exercises.

With Japan this boils down to that duty before and after death mentality where they feel honor bound to come to class even if their wife is in labor or they just lost a limb on the subway. The ones that annoy me are those who are sick, know they’re sick, and yet they still come thinking some ridiculous doctor’s mask (if they wear one at all) is going keep a teacher from catching whatever they got. All that these sick students risk is losing the money they paid for that day’s lessons, whereas the teacher is in danger of missing days of work and not getting paid for it while possibly dying horribly in the process.

So with these examples of flu-ridden students that still show up, damningly dumb parents, and clueless expecting fathers, I fear if any of my students becomes infected with this SARS sickness, they will dutifully, stupidly, inconsiderately show up and unwittingly kill me.

I hate them already. Let this be my epitaph. If it’s too costly to carve on my tombstone, just carve: “Thanks, stupid!” or in Japanese: “Baka ja nai!”

Remember me!

Screw that: Avenge me!