Trying to Avoid the "Cooties"

When I was a young elementary school boy, maybe in the 1st grade, we little guys believed that we could get the "cooties" if a girl touched us. So we ran around at recess trying to avoid all of the infectious girls. I imagine kids in most countries go through some sort of early gender segregation stage.

Now that I am all grown up (and sometimes even act like it) I feel as if my students sometimes have the cooties. I love my students, but there are days when I want to have no physical contact.

Last Tuesday night, for example, I discovered that 5 of the 12 kids in my middle school class were sick. Present in class, but sick. Two of them couldn't even talk, which, since it is partly a reading skills class, is rather noticeable. Several students in other classes were also ill; one look at them, a question for confirmation, and that was it--sick students don't get to use the whiteboard markers and I double my hand-washing rate (me washing my hands, though I encourage them to also).

I really don't want to get sick right now, since a) I recently got over a two-week cold, b) I will be moving soon and have a lot to do, and c) I will be getting on a plane soon, and clearly don't want to travel sick. (The interesting thing is that I don't know for sure where I am going; I know it will be to another country, to get a new work visa for Korea, but I'm not sure which country it will be.)