Dropping like flies...

The Seminary returned to the salt mines last Monday, beginning with the "Vocational Intensive" that I referred to in an earlier post.  However, the mining activities have moved to our shiny new campus which, truly, is worl;d class, state of the art, and any other superlative that comes to mind.  Having spent time in study at three of South Africa's most august institutions - University of Johannesburg, University of South Africa, and the university of kwaZulu-Natal, I can say without idle boast that the new SMMS campus must undoubtedly be the finest campus for tertiary education in South Africa.

Unfortunately, one of the many new toys we have to play with is airconditioning in each lecture vanue.  I say "unfortunately", because while this will be an absolute boon in Pietermaritzburg's hot summers where the temperature regularly exceeds 40 degrees during the day, airconditioning is also one of the best devices known to humankind for spreading germs when one or two have a cold or flu.

The result is that quite a few of us have been walking around looking like the "living dead", coughing and spluttering and, in the process, making our own contribution to germ warfare at the Seminary.

Some of our colleagues have already been off ill towards the end of last week and early this week, but Jenny and I have been hanging on gamely despite being as sick as dogs - mainly because Ross, our Seminary President, has also been feeling under the weather but has still managed to drag his sorry self to lectures each day.

But after gamely battling the bug for over a week, Ross decided today that it was time to throw in the towel, and went home at lunchtime.  So having been relieved of the need to keep up the "cowboys don't cry" facade, Jenny and I applied for dispensation and have now retreated to our respective homes in the hope that some rest will prove to be restorative.

Please pray for our respective families, for hell hath no fury like hyperactive people derived of their work "fix" due to illness.  Pray especially for my wife Belinda, since - as everyone knows - men are big babies when they aren't feeling well.