We were notified on Friday afternoon that we will be closing next week do to the flu.  Now this happened last year as well,the thing was last year I was sick. This year, I'm just sick of grading.

The semester ended at school on Thursday. My 10th grade final exam was first thing on Friday morning. I woke up knowing that I'd be spending the <em>whole </em>weekend grading. Then at the end of day after pushing myself to grade as quickly and efficiently as possible: ta-da. Flu vacation.

[caption id="attachment_4234" align="alignleft" width="614" caption="To Grade"]<a rel="attachment wp-att-4234" href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/?attachment_id=4234"><img class="size-large wp-image-4234 " title="To Grade" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_7024-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="409" /></a>[/caption]

The downside of the flu vacation is that while students are not going to school next week teachers are. We have a 9-3 workday. So, the good news is that I have my weekend back!!<!--more--> I don't have to kill myself grading this weekend at my table. Instead, I can grade next week at school in my classroom.

Now, all I have to do is try not to catch the flu. But with no students at school, that seems easy enough.

All of this said, the idea of a flu vacation is kind of hard for me to get my head around. It's just not a concept that I grew up with. In my experience, if you're sick you stay home. If there's too much ice or snow to drive safely to school, you get a snow day (or two). But in my experience the two never cross. There were no flu vacations.

Okay, don't get me wrong. I understand why a flu vacation could be important and/or effective. But what's hard for me to get my head around is how in the last two years the flu has been so bad in Bulgaria that we've had to close the school two years in a row but in my entire school going childhood, we never had a flu so badly that schools were forced to close.

This line of thinking makes me wonder: is it paranoia? is it hypochondria? a special love of public health concerns in Bulgaria? or does the flu specifically seek out school-going Bulgarian children? Currently, I am leaning towards the fourth option.