Not the Pork!

As I am starting not hate the news, I've started to watch CNN a little bit more and I started to hear about this swine flu. Of course it's CNN so I zone in and out and only catch bits and pieces. I keep thinking nothing about it because it's in New York. As I get on here to write a new cover letter (not telling you why... can't jinks it... crap I may have said too much) I see on my WRAL and News and Observer RSS feeds a story... The swine flu in North Carolina.

What? How did that happen, then I started to remember, it's freaking North Carolina... Smithfield pork is here and that we have 900 business that deal with pork. We even have a pork council! First I had to deal with West Nile while in Toledo and now the swine flu. Why are we getting the flu from pigs? I read the story and mostly people are getting the flu because they were in Mexico. Then I read this douse of a line;

Although the the flu has been deadly in Mexico, it appears to be mild in
the United States, where 40 people have had confirmed cases.

Why is the US strain less deadly? So I go to where all people get "reliable information... Wikipedia. The entry for swine flu is well medical at best and does not tell me if I am going to die. I then type into google "Will I die from swine flu" and I find a story on CBSnews.com that tells me:

Tamiflu, that have been shown to be effective, but they need to be taken within
days of the first symptoms

What are the freaking symptoms! The article is also telling me to not freak out. Too late for that, because you are making it sound like I'm in a bad episode of 24 and I have to go on a rampage to find this miracle drug or I might die because I don't knowwhat the symptoms are.

The same CBS article tells me not to travel to Mexico (Check), wash my hands and cover my mouth when I sneeze and cough. So is sneezing and coughing a symptom? Crap I'm going through allergies right now. Maybe it's the swine flu, I've had that for a month now. Am I allowed to play the game Pass the Pigs? I mean it has little pigs in it, how am I to know if they have the flu or not... I'm so going to turn into a swine zombie I know it.

What is This Stuff?

Are the gods angry? Why do they send white flecks from the sky? Do we need to sacrifice something? Wait a second... I lived in Ohio for most of my life, I think I've seen this before. I think they call it snall... no bwall... that's not right sn-ow? Yeah, snow!

The weather guys actually got the weather right for once and we currently have two to three inches of snow and to be honest, it feels strange. I moved here to get away from all this. Then again, I don't have to work in it... WOO HOO! So, The Wife and I are going to hang out and watch movies all day. For me that's not a lot of deviation, but for her it will be a nice change of pace.

One thing about the snow I was not foresure about was Lucy. How would she deal with it? She loves it, she has been outside for most of the morning. We keep bringing her in, but within minutes she is at the door wanting to go back out.

I've seen people here freak out over the threat of snow, I can only imagine what the roads and stores look like. I'm envisioning Mad Mad with a little bit of snow.

Freaking Out

If you don't watch news or work in it let me inform you a little bit about news and weather; they love to freak out over it. No matter where I have worked if the word snow is used, you will find people running around screaming, changing schedules, whaling and gnashing of teeth. I use to work in Toledo and they would freak out, come on your in Toledo, it's cold and snow will happen. At The Network the weather guys would be live for hours on end and the news director would order pizza.

Here in Raleigh I understand that they are not use to snow, I mean the average temperature in January is around 40. Yesterday they had a slew of people running around trying to get snow video. They got some video of said snow, but all of it was gone by 9 in the morning, yet we were still running video of it in the 11. Now we have a serious threat for Saturday and I seriously believe that if Durham was attacked a la Red Dawn (WOLVERINES!!!!!) we would not be going this full out for it.

The sad thing is all the other stations are probably doing the same thing, why do we do this? People get tired of the freak outs. Back in Columbus people would laugh at the stations for going all out for rain storms. The public is tired of us telling them that the world is about to end because we are getting three inches of snow.

I'm probably cranky about this because if it does happen, I will have to work 13 days in a row. Not a happy camper about that... stupid snow

The Pink Eye

I have never worked in a place that has had this many pink eye epidemic. Within the last 5 months we have had at least 3 out breaks. Everywhere I have worked I've seen at least one out break but this is getting ridiculous. I first went through the producers and a couple or reporters then more producers and an editor and now its the producers and sports. I would guess part of the problem is the producers share desks and then they go into the edit bays and it spreads from there.

I'm not a hypochondriac, but I am freaking out over this new cycle. Even though I am now avoiding the edit bays like the plague, I usual the docking station near sports, who am I kidding all the docking stations for the photographer laptops are near sports. Plus, I'm having my usual fall allergy attack and every time my eyes get dry I keep thinking I have pink eye.

I think the biggest reason that I'm freaking out is that I only have 3 hours of sick time left. With the two injuries and my previous allergy attack I can't get sick for the rest of this year. If I do get the pink eye I better get it today, I have a doctors appointment tomorrow and I'm taking Thursday and Friday off. It would suck to have it, but at least I'd only loose 5 hours and not more.

Old Memories That Cause Night Terrors

I was thinking about doing a post about the North Carolina Central/North Carolina A&T game and brawl and the press conference in Greensboro I had to go to. Then while driving back Sports Gal and I started to talk about college. She finally told of a story where a historic journalist turned professor told her "I will pass you, if I never see your face in one of my classes again." From her story, she got behind in the class and the professor was intimidating and stopped going because she was frustrated and couldn't face him. That got me thinking about my worst college moment.

It was my last semester and during finals week I had three hard tests, one 25 page paper, two video projects, a couple other papers and a resume tape. Oh yeah all of this within three days, I know I could have done the papers earlier, but I was... well am a procrastinator so I waited till the last possible minute. It was Wednesday and I was down to my last ever in class college moment, a test in my Telecommunication research class. Oddly enough this was the second time I had to take this class. The first time I just didn't try and got a D, but I needed a C to graduate. I was doing well and thought I might have an outside chance at getting an A, even though I had missed a couple of the last classes to finish other projects I thought I could get a good grade.

I get to the class, sit down and start the test. I don't recognize anything on the papers in front of me. I have not clue what I am suppose to be taking a test on. I struggle through and finally give up and answer as many questions as I could. I walk up to turn the test in and I still remember what the professor said to me. "Do you want me to grade it now so you know what you got?" Even though I can not remember anything of the test I still remember what I said "No, I failed it, I don't want to know that I got a zero."

I didn't get a zero I got a 14.

Yes a 14, that takes great skill to get a score like that, it's so close to zero but it's not and yet I pulled it off. I seriously thought I was not going to graduate, my parents were planning to come up. All my friends were still in college, how could I come back next year and have to take this class for a third time! My sister, who works for Bowling Green, knew I was worried and called the professor and found out that I did not fail the class, I came close. I went from a high B to a low C.

I was relieved, but still to this day I will occasionally wake up from a dream thinking that I never passed that class and that I have been fired because I never graduated. This happened almost 9 years ago and I still get this dream. Will this ever stop? Do I need professional help about this?