2.16.05
Home now, but sick as a dog. Caught a nasty bout of the flu after being back for about 48 hours. Honestly haven’t felt this sick since I came home from Japan a couple years ago puking my brains out on the plane. Trying to piece together where I could have gotten it from, thinking it might’ve been the lady sitting across the aisle from me on my flight from San Fran to Honolulu, coughing up a lung the whole way. Then again it could have been a number of other sources, the metro in DC, the airport, heck, maybe even the beach or something. Had a 103 fever the other day, with chills and strange hazy dreams, my body was aching all over and I could barely walk.
Couldn’t help but notice that from my experiences in Japan, people who are sick wear surgical masks over their faces out of courtesy to other people, not to spread their germs from the misdirected sneeze or cough. This would especially be important in a closed environment such as an airplane cabin, especially over a transpacific flight of about 5-6 hours.
My dad commented that whatever it was that I have must’ve been pretty bad, citing my high tolerance for physical pain. Apparently there is a nasty strain of influenza going around in Hawaii this year, lots of people getting sick. Brings to mind some of the CDC’s literature on public health tips, about lowering the rates of infectious diseases by getting people to just wash their damn hands.
Speaking of which, I have no clue why they don’t have any soap in the public restrooms in Japan.