Week 27: Sick in the Second Semester

The food poisoning and other general maladies from Bali left me with a stomach bug and a sinus infection, unfortunately. I spent the whole week taking meds, seeing doctors, and feeling unwell. As the week progressed, lots of other cohort members also fell ill, so I suppose we're all readjusting to teaching life (and being in such close proximity with each other).

On Monday, I slept in a bit, then did productive things. Not much else.

I also didn't do much Tuesday. There were some chocolates in the main office for everyone to share, and we were all given a huge serving of claypot rice to celebrate a co-worker's new baby, which was nice. During lunch, I went to the hospital on Little K with one of my co-teachers to get some pills at least.

Since it was Valentine's Day, I picked up a card and some chocolates for my partner, and then the two of us got flowers and hung out together. He was incredibly sweet, and he also got me a stuffed dinosaur (still unnamed), some chocolates, and a handwritten poem.

I also made a lovely Kinmen-specific Valentine's Day meme, which was well received in both the Kinmen cohort and entire Taiwan cohort chats.

Wednesday went relatively well. The kindergarteners really seemed to miss me, as did the sixth graders! After our half day, I went to EV with everyone else, then had dinner with my partner, our ETF, and his girlfriend. My partner also told me that he started to feel sick, so I started to worry I'd gotten him sick.

My stomach still hurt the next day, but I made it through work. I went to the ENT after school, then hung out with everyone else in Mr. Hong House. Didn't do much else.

I think I rounded a corner on Friday. I went to EV and did prepwork for the rest of the semester with the other ETAs. Since my stomach started to feel better, I managed to finish my lunch without feeling nauseous. Later, I went to Carrefour, then did some productive work. For dinner, I went to Sushi Express with some other Mr. Hong House ETAs, but I only ate the cooked dishes. It was a nice time.

This week was also one of the six-day workweeks, so on Saturday, we all went to school too. I taught my Monday class schedule, and it didn't go too poorly. The preschoolers (the three year olds) had extra birthday cake, so they gave me some. In the afternoon, I didn't have any classes, so I did some productive things, then got dinner.

Saturday was also our Valentemma x Fuck Marry Kill event, which was meant to commemorate Valentine's Day and one of our cohort members' birthdays as well as incorporate the concept of the game, "Fuck, Marry, Kill." Each apartment had to dress as an iconic trio, and mine dressed as, "gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss." I went as "gaslight", so I wore some red paper flames and a little sign that said, "this note isn't real."

Everyone was a bit tired, but the event went pretty well. One apartment dressed up as their home states, while another went as Kinmenese stores. There was also one apartment dressed as types of alcohol, and another as trash, recycling, and paper (the iconic trio of Taiwan trash disposal). After we chatted for a bit, we played some games, then hung out. I had a hard time for a while thanks to my sinus infection, as I couldn't hear out of my right ear, but at least my stomach was okay.

I slept in on Sunday, got lunch with my partner, then spent the day doing productive things with him. We were both still kinda sick, but it was nice to just enjoy each other's company while doing work. He also took a break in the middle when to check out a new donut place he found, which makes malasada donuts. I shared a tiramisu one with him, and it was excellent. We also had our weekly Sunday hotpot dinner and chatted with a bunch of the other Kinmen ETAs for a while.

I missed seeing my kids! It was interesting to at least see how some of them had grown or changed over the span of a month. I just wish I'd had more energy to welcome them back to school. Although I still went to my classes, I spent some of them sitting down or being less active in teaching than usual.

Even though I'm recovering well enough, I feel like I'm taking so many meds that I'll probably end up hosting the next medicine-resistant superbug. Also, I think one doctor prescribed me probiotics while the other prescribed antibiotics, so the state of bacteria in my body is particularly dubious anyway. Hopefully, I recover quickly next week so I can enjoy the upcoming cohort-wide trip to Taichung!

Writer's Note: This post was originally written on Thursday, February 23rd, 2023.