Running Ourselves Ill

What kind of crazy work driven world do we live in that I feel guilty calling in sick to my FOOD SERVICE job when I am coughing and sneezing all over the place? And not guilty because I need the money, but guilty because I feel like I am making excuses and should just suck it up and come in.

No. 

This is BS. 

And it's weird how this plays into our cultural narcissism and ego-centrism; in a world where me-me-me is the driving factor, you'd think we'd take better care of our health. But instead we're encouraged to constantly go to school, go to work, go to whatever, sick, because... it's not acceptable to take a day off. You are cheered by friends and colleagues when you "call in sick" to go on some grand adventure, but then we constantly greet each other at work haggard and health deprived because we save our "sick" days for ditching. 

It's extra funny, because I sit here thinking of Sunday morning, how I woke up with a killer sore throat and knew it was my own fault for exhausting myself over the week and so went into work (and oh, by the way, risked giving it out to all my customers. Though, I was extra especially careful to wash and sanitize my hands all day.) Then I slept, all of Monday. And a significant portion of Tuesday. But the thing about Sunday, was that it wasn't (pardon my grossness) a projectile germs sort of sick; no snot, no sneezing, no coughing. I could pretend. (Though I'm sure Greg is shuddering in his seat right now from the terror of how I was full of germs with sore throat anyway.) 

Culturally, our priority hierarchy is pretty freaking messed up. 

Work is important. I'm not advocating placing our own desires to rest and slack off above working hard. But today, my best way to serve my workplace is to stay home. And understanding that sometimes, our bodies need a break. They weren't built to drive at an American pace. (And coming from me, this is pretty funny, because my pace is slower than most and I, at least recently, pay pretty good health attention as well.) 

All of this to say:

Friday Morning Caffe Veloce Special! Snot Lattes and Germ Mochas. Stir those microbacteria into your coffee and you will never taste the difference. Just suck it right down and reap the benefits! Yum, yum, yum, work and productivity winning the day! Hope to see you again soon. :)

When I externally process in class,

I think: Sweet, this is all starting to make sense. I can synthesize this information now that I've made this hypothesis outloud.
Everyone else thinks: Dang, that girl has a lot of strong opinions about things. I wonder if I should come up with a pointed question to challenge her.

Seriously though... It's kind of difficult when speaking is one of the ways I actually process information in a room full of other educated seminary students among whom I'm the super young liberal political theory kid. My hope is that by speaking my thoughts I at least make the people who aren't speaking at all think about things? I thoroughly appreciate the fact that I kind of have "seminary parents" now though; three people in my OT502 class have taken it upon themselves to affirm or challenge the young kid. It's two women and a man who are all my parents age; guess which one is challenging and which is affirming.

Seminary is a very interesting place.