roseembolism (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
roseembolism) wrote2003-05-21 03:24 pm
roseembolism) wrote2003-05-21 03:24 pm
Sickness, culture notes, and one-act plays.
Sitting around sick today, staring at this horrible one-act play I'm supposed to finish for class by tonight. It's completely pointless, and as Sandy commented consists of one person ranting and waving a gun. Bah.
It's an interesting thing- I have some sort of weird sinus infection, that results in my sinuses being completely clear, whicle my lungs are clogged. So for this, I ran into Thrifties this Monday to buy some cold medicine. While there, I noticed something that really symbolizes how our culture works these days.
I was looking for some night-time cough/sinus medicine so I coulsd sleep, and found that nearly all of the drugs in Thrifty's were non-drowsy. Non drowsy cough syrup, non-drowsy antihistamines, non-drowsy cold and flu pills...it took me five minutes of dedicated searching to find any medicine at all that would help me sleep. While irritated, it occured to that this is how our culture responds to illness now- we've shifted from a "Buy this medicine, go home and rest until your better" attitude, to one of "Buy this, go to work and ignore your illness until it goes away". It's not a particularily healthy way to live, but thinking of the number of people I've seen coming to work while seriously ill, the work ethic is now so ingrained it takes priority over everything.
I do it as well- I was willing last week to drive all the way up to San Francisco last week to go to an interview- but I wasn't willing to take an extra day off because of the workload. So I drove up on Monday Evening, and drove back on Tuesday afternoon. Aside from a lunch at a great restaurant, and an hour of shopping, I left the Bay area. I didn't take the time to properly enjoy it, and ended up doing 12 hours of driving in 24 hours. And then I didn't rest properly afterwards,- so it's no wonder I got sick. And I had to be argued into staying home.
And even so I can't sleep properly, I'm here at the computer, staring at this damn play. And I still can't get it to work. Maybe I should just submit my live journal as a one-act monologue. Bah.
It's an interesting thing- I have some sort of weird sinus infection, that results in my sinuses being completely clear, whicle my lungs are clogged. So for this, I ran into Thrifties this Monday to buy some cold medicine. While there, I noticed something that really symbolizes how our culture works these days.
I was looking for some night-time cough/sinus medicine so I coulsd sleep, and found that nearly all of the drugs in Thrifty's were non-drowsy. Non drowsy cough syrup, non-drowsy antihistamines, non-drowsy cold and flu pills...it took me five minutes of dedicated searching to find any medicine at all that would help me sleep. While irritated, it occured to that this is how our culture responds to illness now- we've shifted from a "Buy this medicine, go home and rest until your better" attitude, to one of "Buy this, go to work and ignore your illness until it goes away". It's not a particularily healthy way to live, but thinking of the number of people I've seen coming to work while seriously ill, the work ethic is now so ingrained it takes priority over everything.
I do it as well- I was willing last week to drive all the way up to San Francisco last week to go to an interview- but I wasn't willing to take an extra day off because of the workload. So I drove up on Monday Evening, and drove back on Tuesday afternoon. Aside from a lunch at a great restaurant, and an hour of shopping, I left the Bay area. I didn't take the time to properly enjoy it, and ended up doing 12 hours of driving in 24 hours. And then I didn't rest properly afterwards,- so it's no wonder I got sick. And I had to be argued into staying home.
And even so I can't sleep properly, I'm here at the computer, staring at this damn play. And I still can't get it to work. Maybe I should just submit my live journal as a one-act monologue. Bah.