Sunday, February 03, 2008

Bits and Pieces

Well, here it is, Super Bowl Sunday again. Last year was exciting, because it was two teams I like and therefore could be happy with the outcome. This year, I couldn't care less. Yawn. But then, I don't actually care much about pro football anyway. I don't even "watch it for the commercials." I view the SB as a social event.

This year, though, I am recovering from some horrid bug which, for convenience' sake, I will call the Flu. One day of total dizziniess and movement-induced nausea, followed by a day of wobbly weakness with a bit of dizzy and a sore-ish throat, and today still wobbly, and very, very tired.

No respiratory symptoms, no digestive symptoms, but otherwise the general malaise that flu brings. So what was that? Perhaps the vaunted flu vaccine (which I got--I live in a dorm; I'm not stupid) made it less severe after all. Which is good--combining the last few days with respiratory symptoms would have been miserable.

In any case, no Super Bowl party for me this year. I should be sorry to miss it, but I feel yucky enough that I don't care. Plus I have work that has to get done before tomorrow, so I will be doing that.

Flu has been making the rounds of the dorm (as well as campus) and it puts me in mind of the 1918 flu epidemic. What a nightmare--as if the world hadn't suffered enough the previous four years. If I remember right, more people died of the flu than had died in the war...and that's saying something. L. M. Montgomery lost her best friend to the flu that year, and it devastated her.

As bad as things seem sometimes, history shows that there have always been times that were worse. It's really *not* "the end of the world."