Ok...this is rediculous.  What is so different about this year that we all keep getting sick?  Is there some reason that fall of 2009 has caused the THS Band Room to be one big germ factory?   I mean it.  This year has caused our school to look like a sample test tube in Alexander Fleming's lab (yeah, thats right...I did a book report on him in 9th grade.  Look him up). This marching season will certainly be remembered as one of those periods when everyone gets sick with something.  You name it, we've had it.  Bronchitis, Swine Flu Novel H1N1 virus, Regular Flu, Sinus Infections, Strep Throat, Laryngitis, not to mention countless fevers, runny noses, headaches, stomach aches, and plain old colds.  Imagine what that means to the band director: more whining, complaining, and groaning than ever.  And that's just what you hear out of me. 

    We were lucky...I've heard of other bands, of comparable size and in our area, who were missing a third to half of their band on some game nights.   Kudos to you, THS Band, for carefully arranging to each take your full week or more off from school at staggered times so as not to entirely deplete the group of playing members.  Double kudos to you also, for doing it in the mist of perhaps the rainiest stretch of Friday nights ever in the Western Hemisphere.  Seriously!  Wyalusing, nice.  Wellsboro, rained.  Towanda, rained.  Cowanesque, I can't remember.  South Williamsport, rained.  Athens, rained.  Sayre, rained/snowed.  North Penn, rained.  Forecast for tomorrow night at Muncy: rain showers.  All this rain cannot be good for your health. 

    Which brings me back to why I am writing.  At one point, I looked around at a practice or game (last week I think), and realized that we were all there, save one or two kids, of whom one was not sick.  I considered this to be the moment we crossed from being in the woods to out of them.  I was feeling good!  I was sucking down Vitamin C drops at the rate of 400% RDV a day.  Kids were happy and working hard. Wouldn't you believe that less than one week later, here I am sitting at my desk not feeling well again.  Believe me...I don't like to complain about my health.  I don't usually want others to know, and besides, have you ever been excited to hear that someone isn't feeling well?  Imagine the following conversation: 

So thats generally why you won't hear things from me about being sick.  I just don't want YOU to freak out.  If I'm sick enough that you shouldn't be around me, you'll know.

 

Basically, it would just be nice to know when I'm going to have to wear a facemask to school.  I mean it.  I want the place to look like China in the middle of a SARS outbreak, or I'm outta here.  You guys can rehearse yourself!  Just kidding.

 

 

PS.  Thanks Bri, Erik, Jackie, and Sarah.  You guys made my afternoon yesterday :-)

 

Mr. Schwanger