the swine who?

So obviously I just love this. I have been a germaphobe/
diseaseaphobe/worry-a-holic for just about all of my life, and the thing is, those of us who are this way try to minimize the actual magnitude of potentially horrific situations, while blowing out of proportion those that are unlikely to amount to much.

And then how to treat this latest 'pandemic' threat, of swine flu? Particularly as the epicenter of the US cases is probably just about an hour and a half away? I don't know. So far it doesn't seem to be a terrible threat in the US, aside from the increasing numbers of infected persons. But the CDC makes sure we know that they do, in fact, expect some of us to die, and the WHO is quick to tell us that this cannot be contained. It is too late.

Well. That's helpful. Why can't they DO something? Screen the family members of the hundreds of infected students, or at least, stop talking about them all the time as if each time they are mentioned, they are new cases. When no news has been released, agencies are releasing articles previously run under different headings, giving the illusion that more news has happened in a day.

Not to downplay the threat, because clearly, a germaphobic chronic worrier would never do that, and mean it. But I just wish they would either give us a straight story, or stop being so darn scary.

But that aside (and speaking of scary), Brian's report card came today. It could have been worse, but it was the worst of the year so far. However, the lowest grades were B's, and there were two of them. There were two A's and the rest were B+'s. Of most concern was math which has followed the progression over the year from A to B+ to B. Science also slipped to B from B+. Math troubles me the most because it has never improved, while science fluctuates ... math just steadily drops. But Brian doesn't make the extra effort to go in for extra help or to try for extra credit. Those things make a huge difference. And he is going to have to learn better study skills for his career next year.

Anyway, Kevin has just returned home and broken my concentration so I will have to leave the rest of my thoughts for another time. In other news, tomorrow I will work in the afternoon only. The job I had to turn down for yesterday and today may turn into quite a long one instead of just two days, due to some misfortune befalling the poor teacher, but obviously I won't be in that spot anyway. :-( But I won't complain. Otherwise, swimming has started up again for Megan and it will sap away so much of her time again. It was nice for her to have all that spare time for three weeks. With swimming for several hours every night after school, it's really difficult to stay efficient with homework. (disclaimer: post not proofread!)