Strep Throat and Saintly Drinking

Holy crap, a blog post from me that's on time?! Impossible. So, you're not gonna believe this: I'm still fucking sick. Yup. 3 weeks now. This time, though, it's a new sickness. I got me some strep throat! I haven't had it since I was a kid, and I definitely never got it this bad then. Swallowing hurt (I can think of at least three specific people who are now going to make a stupid joke about that. It's okay, I would too. You are forgiven.). Not just food, but water, even saliva if my mouth was watering or whatever. At one point, breathing even hurt. For realsy. I wasn't able to get enough sleep for about 4 or 5 days this week because I would wake up at random times and not be able to fall asleep again because my throat hurt so bad. Insane. 

Anyways, I didn't want to call in to work so soon after last time, so I toughed it out for a bit. Pain started on Tuesday, and it wasn't until Friday that I threw in the towel. Friday started with 4 back to back private lessons. After the first one, I left a note for my head teacher (who was busy during the five minutes I had between classes) that I had to go home after my next class. Why? Well, I was rapidly finding myself unable to speak. I would randomly lose my voice during class, and when that happened I also kind of lost my ability to breathe for a few seconds. I was a little dizzy as well. But my second student was already there, and I wasn't just going to tell her to go back home, so I finished up that class too. Mayumi took my temperature and sent me to the doctor, who informed me I had a fever of 101 and strep throat. I've never had strep described to me, but apparently my case involved a throat that was "extremely inflamed and red, with white and black covering the tonsils". O.o White and black? That was enough to terrify me a little. I got five different kinds of medicine this time, including one that I have to gargle twice a day. Fun. On the up side, it has definitely helped my throat, and I feel a lot better. On the downside, when I went back to work to tell my head teacher and manager, their responses (both entirely separate from each other) were along the lines of "So it's not the flu? Good. You need to come back this evening to teach your classes. If you had the flu, you wouldn't be allowed to work." Sadly, that's barely paraphrased. Basically, I got to go home for 2 hours, then come back and teach for 2 and a half hours. With a bad case of strep throat. They were only worried I had the flu because company policy says it's too contagious to teach with. Do they realize that strep throat is about as contagious as the flu and more serious? Whatever, if any of my students are sick, it's not my fault.

Stayed home on Saturday, and Naoko already had plans to come over in the evening. I was really worried about getting her sick, but she didn't really seem to care... Anyways, there was an early St. Patrick's Day party and parade this weekend in Matsue (parade was cancelled, probably because of the quake and everything associated with it), and Naoko has been wanting to go since last year, when she couldn't go because of work. I didn't want her to miss another year because of me, and I knew she wouldn't go without me, so I put on my big boy undies, manned up, chugged a lot of medicine, and spent about 4 or 5 hours at a St. Patty's day party! Luckily it ended at about 10:30, at which point all I wanted to do was go home and drink more medicine ><

The coolest thing about the party? The location of the bar. It was in an old, historic building, and apparently it used to be a bank. This was the entrance, so I guess it's down where the vaults used to be. There was another, smaller vault inside, but it was too crowded for a picture.

There was a lot of music. Didn't get a picture of the first two guys up there when Naoko and I arrived, but the dude on the left with a shirt on his head was really into it. Occasionally he let out a really folksy shout. Awesome stuff. Also, sorry for the stuff in the way in these pictures. Crowded place, and I did NOT have the energy to get up and find better angles for these shots.

Fantastic Guinness pictures.

Violin time!

Then some Irish singing time!

Then it was harp and guitar time! These two had a little flyer on all the tables with a picture of them that was probably 15-20 years old... we didn't even know it was them at first XD

Suddenly, bagpipe!

And dancing!

Yeah, the dancing was pretty much the end of things. Really pleasant evening aside from the strep throat part of it. That's really all I got for you this week :/

Random shit!:

1.)

Wow, look at this awesome ceremonial dragon helmet. That would be an interesting souvenir to buy...

Oh. About $1,000? Yeah, never mind.

2.)

Leave it to the Japanese to make a Predator adorable.

3.) During my discussion class this week, we discussed whaling (which they later said wasn't that interesting, but they were talking way more than normal, so now I'm confused). Anyways, the resident old man was trying to theorize on why Americans felt the need to protect animals, and he uttered this gem "All Americans have cute, little pets like monkeys and dogs." Oh man, resident old man, how I wish that first one was true. 

See ya next week folks. Well, cat critics, what did you think of this week's entry?

Indubitably 

Edit: I suppose I should say something about the earthquake, and that something is that it really hasn't crossed my mind all that much. Honestly, I feel about the same way I felt about 9/11. I'm aware that it's a tragedy, and I truly do feel bad for the people who have lost their lives or homes from it, but it hasn't affected me directly in any way, shape, or form. Matsue is too far away for me to have felt anything (it happened on the day I went to the doctor, so I wasn't aware anything was wrong until I checked my facebook when I got home for my two hour break and saw all the "are you okay?" messages) and we're on the opposite side of the coast, so tsunamis aren't really a problem either. I've donated twice (both the times I've seen donation boxes), but beyond that, I don't really follow it much. Most of you in America know more about the situation than I do. I think the fact that I'm saying this in an edit about a half an hour after I posted this update says all you need to know about how much this has been on my mind.