Oink

I should buy a lotto ticket, because today is my lucky day.

There are two confirmed cases of swine flu in China. One is out west, far away from me.

The other is here in Jinan.

Of the 1.3 billion people in this country, it just figures that of the two infected people, one of them has to be living in the same city as I am. What are the odds of that? A little under 0.5%?

In fact, the patient is currently housed in Jinan's infectious disease hospital, right up the street from my campus. And since I reside on the medical campus, a non-negligible percentage of the people in the area either work or study in this hospital.

Oh goody.

Naturally, Jinan residents can now talk about nothing but swine flu. Face masks are flying off the shelves. People are staying inside. Any and everything is being disinfected with vinegar, so the streets smell kinda funny. Everyone is reminiscing about SARS. And then there's me, with my sad little American immune system, which is pretty much a magnet for foreign diseases of all kinds.

By my calculations, it's just a matter of time.