Friday morning

"Is this your paper?"
"Umm, I was just finishing my paper."
"Is this your paper?"
"No, it isn't."
"So you were cheating."
[insert 2 nervous minutes]
"So you were cheating."
"Yes"
"I am going to have to give you a zero."
It was at this point that the last student in the classroom huridly left the classroom, and was either about to or already in tears. I gave my oral English classes part of their final exam. It was a randomly selected portion from one of their books. I know that I will have students that aced it and I also have some students who will struggle to get at least 1/4 of the selection correct.

-


During lunch today I attempted to explain to one of my sharper students what an decongestant was. I have had a little bit of a head cold, and I am trying to stay on top of it by sleeping enough, dreaking a lot of water, eating a balanced diet, drinking Airborne about 2 times a day, and by keeping my sinuses clear by taking decongestants during the day and antihistamines at night. My students then went on to talk about how medicine was bad for the body. I asked them what they meant by this. They said that there is a saying in Chinese that "Each time you take medicine, you are actually taking a little bit of poison" and that although the medicine might help the sickness, it will actually hurt your internal organs. I asked them why they thought this. Evidently, they had heard from somewhere, that there was some doctor that said that medicine actually hurts the body. Naturally, it is reasonable to be timid about drugs like Phen Phen, cholesterol meds, or antidepressants, but should I be so afraid of things like aspirin and sudafed? It is not the conversation about medicine that concerns me, but that there are so many sayings in Chinese and in English that have an unnatural control over the way people think. How many old wives tales do I put too much stock into?

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I like my birds, and they like me.

Comments

  1. Caleb19/12/06

    Nice birds!!! They look well trained!

    I have a co-worker that never takes medicine also. She is into the natural cures. I have tried some of her suggestions before with mixed results. Sometimes the natural cure works wonders... but I had a tooth ache recently and the alternative methods actually hurt worse!!!!

    Technology is great. Advances in medicine are not just a technological feat, but a marvel of the capacity of our intelligence and how little we have actually revealed.

    Just recently, a science journal had an article on how alzheimer was being reversed in test subjects using a virus injected into the brain! A virus! I guess sometimes two negatives equal a positive!

    ReplyDelete

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