Get Ill Soon
Drawing by: Kevin Niederman
Column like I see 'em
This is why I sometimes get sick on purpose.
It's no secret I dislike long vacations, especially in college. Of course it's going to take me four years to get a degree. Every year I take enough time off to forget everything I've learned so I can pay another 30,000 to relearn it all next fall.
Dumb.
But even I know vacations have their place on the pyramid of usefulness.
When used well and constructively, vacations can become about relaxation and, more importantly, rejuvenation. We need time to recharge so we can keep going at our best.
Like sleep, that rest is just the fuel we need to keep trucking in the face of all adversity. The absence of action is what makes action possible.
Similarly, I believe in giving my immune system a much needed break.
As a nursing student, I can’t miss like, anything. I have to be punctual, professional and present for every class and scheduled event we have. This means I can’t afford being sick during the school year.
Through sheer power of will, you can boost your immune system into overdrive, fighting off the ever present microscopic threats present in our world.
The assault on your body is constant, day and night, and your defenses need to be just as ruthless for you to make it through unscathed, and that takes its own toll.
As good as it is eventually, your immune system will weaken and fall, if from nothing else than pure exhaustion.
It will happen. The only thing you can do is control when.
About five days before vacation starts, find a sick person (with preferred contagious illness of your choosing). Take them out to eat, preferably Applebee’s. Two for twenty is a sweet deal. You share the appetizer, making sure to take food that the infected may have come into contact with.
Their appetite is low, so be sure to fast before the meal so you can finish their helping yourself. Also be sure to sit across the (incredibly small) table from them so as to maximize reception of any airborne exposure.
By the time vacation begins your chosen sickness will be in full swing, and you now have a month to:
Let your immune system take that much needed vacation along with you.
Cough, vomit, or expel whatever at will. Just watch Netflix with a bucket at your side.
Take your time to slowly and effortlessly get over said illness.
Return to school renewed with immune system rested and intact with enough vigor to keep you pathogen free for the entire remaining semester.
Before the naysayers come knocking, this isn't science. This is my old grandma’s hokum and superstition.
But my grandma's hokum and superstition also cured me of warts by tying tiny threads around said warts, then slipping the threads off and burying them in a field.
Never had another wart in my entire life.
Hokum? Not in my book.
Think of how productive you’ll be with a top of the line immune system like that. You could really be all you can be. All you have to do is get sick, really sick, and then you’ll be back and at ‘em like I am.
Just be sure that when you’re intentionally getting sick, you aren’t unintentionally getting others sick.
Unless they want to be sick, like you do.
Kevin Niederman is a junior studying nursing.