Just Omit Yeast: A Recipe for Simple Living or a Life of Loafing?

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A Literary Critique of Henry David Thoreau‘s Walden

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” (Thoreau 1681).

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, it is fire and brimstone for me. I wish I had a Genie or a Munchkin. What I would give for a munchkin with a clipboard to follow me around; a copious note taker to do my bidding. Instead, I have a six-year-old monkey who

follows me around chittering incessantly and eats like a NFL linebacker in a bulking stage.

Dreams. I dream of the day when I can go to the bathroom without company and Barbie puts away her own shoes. Do not get me wrong, I love being a Mom. My kid is as cool as they come, but she is a “mini-me.“ Yes, I said but. Have you ever tried living with a little version of yourself? It is not easy, and it certainly is not simple. It is complicated, very complicated.

You see the warning “they” fail to give, when you are contemplating Motherhood, is guilt. I read Dr. Spock and Dr. Seuss. I read “What to Expect When Your Expecting” and “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” Not one book I read mentioned anything about guilt. And I am torn. Between wanting to complete assignments on time and her freckled little nose and monkey-mouth that spouts Elmer Fuddisms like “weally” and “actuwally” and “will you wead me Hawwy Potter?”

Cover of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

Oh, the guilt. Come on! Why did I not get that memo? The one that says, “Oh by the way…Motherhood is riddled with a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” sense of guilt. Batten down the hatches and prepare yourself, Ginger.” Nope, didn’t get that memo. Instead, my mid-wife sent me home four hours after giving birth and said, “Have fun.” And when we in turn called her four hours later and said, “The baby, she won’t stop crying.” Our ‘Special Beginnings’ membrane-stripper in her infinite wisdom said, “Yup they do that.”

The thing is I do not think anyone can prepare you for the guilt. It is par for the course. It is the trade-off. With all the fun, the funny and cute things your kid does, the one thing that runs through your mind constantly is, “Dear Lord, please help me to not screw her up and please allow her to forgive me when I do.”

So, in a week when I am pondering my perpetual tardiness, The Communist Manifesto and analyzing loons and beans in 180 pages of Thoreau’s “transcendental strip-tease,” I cannot help but ask myself what is the point? What in the hell am I doing?

More to the point, that is THE point. Trust yourself. Get out of your box, your pattern, your head. Get spiritual. Think. Simplify.

Besides my regular prayer not to “mess up” my kid, my spiritual this week involved thanking the powers-that-be for the saints at Librivox.org who read and record the classics in the public domain, free of charge. Otherwise about page forty-five (give or take) I would have gouged my eyes out with a stick I’d rescued from the pile of clippings in my backyard and laboriously whittled down to a sharp point. After reading Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, it is clear that this self-published transcendentalist loved to hear his own voice and his verbose opinions almost as much as he loved nature. Thoreau, though he valued “economy” did not value the economy of words. By page 180, I am well acquainted with the loon’s diabolical laugh, racial wars between ants and schizophrenic squirrels. Of course, my mere opinion does not amount to a hill of Thoreau’s beans considering Walden has served his recipe of contradictions, of provocation, of poking for over 160 years.

So what was Thoreau trying to tell readers in 1854, that is ‘Thoreauly’ applicable today? What is the point? I had to dig deeper. I had to shed my preconceived notions. I had to apply Walden to my life. Yegads! That is when it hit me. Like a brick. I had a cutting aha moment. One of those moments that you hate to have because you realize that something you have learned has actually taught you something…about yourself. And you are not exactly sure it is a lesson you want to learn because learning it disrupts the life pattern you have created and perpetuated. And obviously, this pattern gives you some sort of chaotic satisfaction on a deeper level, which is precisely the reason you want to ignore the lesson in the first place. However, now knowing what you know means that you cannot go unknowing it and therefore you cannot ignore it…without guilt.

I racked my brain to come up with what to write on Thoreau’s transcendental principles, my weekly column, a third essay on Marxism in Huckleberry Finn, all due within 24 hours of each other, my pattern is to panic.

Thoreau says, “We need the tonic of wildness . . . At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature” (1802).

Instead of panicking, I did as Thoreau might have done. I went outside. In Nature, with my books, I basked in the sun, reading, writing, absorbing. Within forty-five minutes, I changed seats four times, brushed six carpenter ants off me (or perhaps it was only one persistent carpenter ant, I am not sure), evaded a wasp‘s stinger and feared skin cancer. On top of that, I now smelled.

Clearly this was not working. The only tonic I wanted was one laced with gin. I had yet to be inspired to whip up a quick essay like a clichéd walk in the park; it was no picnic. Then I remembered something. About the middle of last semester, I came across a book on sale at the campus bookstore and bought it. The book, an international bestseller, titled: Simplify Your Life: 100 Ways to Slow Down and Enjoy the Things That Really Matter by Elaine St. James. I dashed inside and, as noble as my intentions were at the time, there it sat, untouched, collecting dust, on my bookshelf.

Having yet to make the Thoreauvian connection, I opened the book to the inside flap of the dust jacket and read:

Simplify, Simplify.” That’s what Henry David Thoreau urged his fellow Americans to do a hundred and fifty years ago. With remarkable foresight, he saw our lives being “cluttered with furniture” and “ruined by heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim.” Now, Elaine St. James has turned Thoreau’s philosophy into sensible advice for the twenty-first century. (St. James)

So what next? How to apply Thoreau’s principles to my life? How could I transcend? How could I get wild? What would be my recipe? Figuring best beginnings are best began by defining moments; I went to the online dictionary.

Image via Wikipedia

Step One: Flour & Salt or Get Clear & Define Your Terms.

What is transcendentalism? Allan Sugg says it is “limited and subjective” with major principles being: freethinking, self-reliance and non conformity, growth and renewal of the individual, revolt against tradition and established institutions, civil disobedience, brotherhood of man, nature and spiritual unity, and educational reform” (Sugg).

Dictionary.com includes the following definitions:

Transcend: To rise above or go beyond; overpass; exceed: to transcend the limits of thought; To outdo or exceed in excellence, elevation, extent, degree, etc.; surpass; excel. To be above and independent of (the universe, time, etc.). To be transcendent or superior; To pass beyond the limits of: emotions that transcend understanding. To be greater than, as in intensity or power; surpass. To exist above and independent of (material experience or the universe). (Dictionary.com)

Transcendentalism: To be of transcendental character, thought, or language. Also called transcendental philosophy: Any philosophy based upon the doctrine that the principles of reality are to be discovered by the study of the processes of thought, or a philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical. A movement in nineteenth-century American literature and thought that called on people to view the objects in the world as small versions of the whole universe and to trust their individual intuitions. (Dictionary.com).

If not only Thoreau, but Emerson, are considered core transcendentalists, where the movement thrived in the 1840’s and shaped America’s personality; shaped her attitude towards “individualism, nature, religion, philosophy, education, politics, society and culture” (Sugg). If these rebels, “who expressed new ideas and new ways of writing on a whole spectrum of principles” (Sugg) defined the American, rugged and individualistic, can I allow it to define me?

What does being wild mean? What is wildness defined as? Is it thoughts? Actions? A mindset? The online dictionary defines wildness as:

1. Living in a state of nature; not tamed or domesticated; 2. Growing or produced without cultivation or the care of humans; 3. Uncultivated, uninhabited, or waste; 4. Uncivilized or barbarous; 5. Of unrestrained violence, fury, intensity, etc.; violent; furious: wild strife; wild storms. 6. Characterized by or indicating violent feelings or excitement, as actions or a person’s appearance; 7. Frantic or distracted; 8. Violently or uncontrollably affected; 9. Undisciplined, unruly, or lawless; 10. Unrestrained, untrammeled, or unbridled; 11. Disregardful of moral restraints as to pleasurable indulgence; 12. Unrestrained by reason or prudence; 13. Amazing or incredible; 14. Disorderly or disheveled; 15. Wide of the mark; 16. Informal. intensely eager or enthusiastic. (Dictionary.com)

Step Two: Olive Oil & Honey – Omit Yeast or Get Wild, True, Essential, Pure

In a lecture, Ann Woodlief at Virginia Commonwealth University describes Walden as “transcendental strip tease.” Thoreau forces us to think to get down to the essentials of our being, our thought process. To omit what is not necessary. For example, take Thoreau’s account of the art of bread making:

I made a study of the ancient and indispensable art of bread-making…going back to the primitive days and first invention of the unleavened kind, when from the wildness of nuts and meats men first reached the mildness and refinement of this diet, and travelling gradually down in my studies through that accidental souring of the dough which, it is supposed, taught the leavening process, and through the various fermentations thereafter, till I came to “good, sweet, wholesome bread,” the staff of life. Leaven, which some deem the soul of bread, the spiritus which fills its cellular tissue, which is religiously preserved like the vestal fire — some precious bottleful…did the business for America, and its influence is still rising, swelling, spreading, in cerealian billows over the land…one morning I forgot the rules, and scalded my yeast; by which accident I discovered that even this was not indispensable…and I have gladly omitted it since…Yet I find it not to be an essential ingredient…and I am glad to escape the trivialness of carrying a bottleful in my pocket…It is simpler and more respectable to omit it. Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances. (Thoreau 1665)

My pattern is chaos. It is analytical. It is a striving to be proper, correct, right…perfect. It results in hours of activity with little productivity. It does not work. It is not enjoyable. So why do I do it? Fear. Fear of being wrong. Fear of a failure. Fear of failing.

Thoreau’s Walden urged me to think about that. What would happen if I did not do what I normally did and got a little wild? Would I enjoy the process more? Would it reflect positively in my productivity? What would happen if I did not do it the way I considered the “proper” or “right” way, but instead infused creativity and fun? Can I be wild with purpose? Would I not be, as Thoreau, trusting my instincts and being transcendental?

Thoreau says:

Image by Matito via Flickr

As I came home through the woods . . . I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented . . . The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar. I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good . . . We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.” (Thoreau 1745).

For me, wildness would not involve eating a woodchuck, but something as simple as expressing my gut opinion, without second guess, thus allowing me to submit a paper on time. It would mean trusting myself to know, what I know, and put it into play without overanalyzing.

Step Three: Knead & Bake or Putting It All Together.

Several years ago, I accompanied my former spouse on a company trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I had just become a Mother; my daughter was six months old. The executives had scheduled an early morning excursion. Fifty-plus people loaded a tour bus, most hung-over from the night before, some still drunk, which deposited up at the base of the mountain. As a group, we then hiked to the top to the El Yunque National Rain Forest. I joked the entire trip that Puerto Rico was best viewed facing the Ocean. That is until I got to El Yunque. We had a magnificent guide who pointed out the indigenous species of the rain forest: the stick bug, the many breeds of orchids and my favorite the Coqui frog. Although I cannot remember the guide’s name, I can still hear his voice rising and falling an octave as he said, “Check it out” followed by some interesting description of a creature he had discovered.

“Check it out.”

“What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates his fate” (Thoreau 1634). If I take my cues from Thoreau, from nature, I believe it is possible. Thoreau says, “We need to witness our own limits transgressed and some life pasturing freely where we never wander” (1802).

“Check it out.”

I think that is what Thoreau, Emerson and the transcendentalist movement prescribed. To check it; to get out of your box; to get out of your head; to trust yourself; to do something different. Because there is, a sense of freedom in that trust and because you never know where that different may take you.

Balderdash Nonsense by Cassie Turner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

© Cassie Turner and Balderdash Nonsense, 2009 – 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Cassie Turner and Balderdash Nonsense with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Works Cited

“American Transcendentalism Web.” Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 27 Mar. 2010. <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/index.html>.

Lecture. Walden Lecture by Professor Ann M. Woodlief. Virginia Commonwealth University, 1994. Web. 25 Mar. 2010. <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/audio/walden.html>.

St, James Elaine. Simplify Your Life: 100 Ways to Slow down and Enjoy the Things That Really Matter. New York: MJF, 2001. Print.

Thoreau, Henry D. “Walden.” 1854. Anthology of American Literature. Ed. George L. McMichael Et Al. 9th ed. Vol. 1. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2007. 1612-8111. Print.

“Transcend | Define Transcend at Dictionary.com.” Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 25 Mar. 2010. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/transcend>.

“Transcendental Legacy–Sugg Essay.” Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 27 Mar. 2010. <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/roots/legacy/sugg.html>.

“Transcendentalism | Define Transcendentalism at Dictionary.com.” Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 25 Mar. 2010.         <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/transcendentalism>.

Turner, Cassie A. “If I Had a Genie.” Editorial. Central Florida Future [Orlando] 27 Mar. 10, Saturday ed., Column sec. Central Florida Future.com. College Media Network, 27 Mar. 2010. Web. 27 Mar. 2010.     <http://www.centralfloridafuture.com/blog-1.107/dogsdishesdivorcedeadlines?page155=BlogPosting&article155=19.1329210>.

Welcome to the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). Web. 28 Mar. 2010. <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/>.

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Three new programs launch at media center

Central Florida Future – Article Online  

By Cassie Turner

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Published: Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Updated: Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Emre Kelly

UCF’s Center for Emerging Media in Downtown Orlando celebrated the addition of three new programs, increasing student options and solidifying key concepts: partnership, collaboration and replication.

About 12,500 square feet of remodeled space is now dedicated to UCF’s MFA in Studio Art & the Computer; Flying Horse Editions, UCF’s non-profit fine arts press; and Citylab-Orlando, a University of Florida graduate-level architecture program.

These programs join several other high-profile programs at the center: The Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, UCF’s graduate video-gaming school; Vicon Entertainment’s House of Moves, one of the largest motion-capture studios on the East Coast; and the soundstage and editing suites of Studio 500.

“The Center for Emerging Media’s mission is to expand programs, access and opportunities for upper-level undergraduate and graduate emerging media students in Orlando, while furthering the city’s vision for a creative village that will connect professionals with students to help them land high-paying jobs upon graduation," said Chad Binette of UCF News & Information.

Rogier van Etten, a software engineer at 360Ed and 2007 graduate of FIEA, said they are instrumental in securing employer interviews for students. 360Ed focuses on games with high educational content. 

"The best thing you get from FIEA is teamwork: how to be an effective collaborator; how to be an effective communicator; how to be a valuable member of a team," said van Etten. "The skills you can get other places — it’s the team aspect that really stands out."

"We want to replicate what happens in the industry. Collaboration between students, departments and the community is the idea behind the entire building," said FIEA’s communications and admissions director, Todd Deery.

Professors encouraged Brittany Metz, a second-year MFA studio art & the computer graduate student, to get out of her box and focus on different mediums. Metz said she joined the program because the focus is concentrated on your own artwork, and the digital media aspect allowed flexibility and broad-range artistic expression.

"I’m drawn to whimsical, childlike, nostalgic things,” Metz said, “things I can create a story out of or that recall the past. 

Adding to the community learning and work experience environment, Flying Horse Editions brings in visiting artists who provide students with critiques and real-world experience lectures, said director Theo Lotz.

Beginning fall 2010, a creative partnership with Valencia Community College and the University of Florida will allow students to obtain a bachelor of design in architecture degree.

Michael Kuenstle, associate professor at the UF school of architecture, said the symbiotic relationship benefits students, faculty and community.

"Architecture is an urban endeavor. Students will gain a professional degree, immersed in the subject they are studying, while still living in Orlando, and we are able to teach in an urban environment, using the city as a library and teaching tool," Kuenstle said.

According to the UCF Web site, through a 2+2+2 program, students earn an associate’s degree through Valencia, a bachelor’s degree at UCF and a master’s at UF. The program aims at preparing students for careers in professional architecture, construction management and industrial design.

In the meantime, UCF undergraduate students and graduate students will be able to take elective courses at Citylab-Orlando and collaborate with top design, construction and planning faculty members from UF, said Binette.

Currently, Citylab-Orlando is working on a local urban redesign project to address different uses for future public space beneath Interstate 4 in Downtown Orlando.

Abolitionist, historian wraps up Global Perspectives series

Central Florida Future – http://bit.ly/8KleHL

By Cassie Turner

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Published: Friday, November 20, 2009

Updated: Friday, November 20, 2009

Caitlin Bush

"Most Americans do not know slavery not only exists in the world today, it flourishes," said Ron Soodalter, co-author of The Slave Next Door, in his presentation in the Pegasus Ballroom Monday morning.

"Somewhere around 27 million people are in bondage in the world today. Now, that’s over twice the number as were trafficked in chains in the entire 350 years of the African slave trade."

Soodalter, an active abolitionist and historian, kicked off International Education Week at UCF as the keynote speaker for the Second Annual International Breakfast. The Slave Next Door presentation concluded the three-part series on "Slavery’s Resurgence" facilitated by the Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Global Perspectives and the International Services Center.

The series began with Somaly Mam, a Cambodian human rights activist, former slave and author of The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine, when she shared her experiences in September.

In October, Micheline Slattery, a human-rights activist and former restavek, or domestic child slave, in both Haiti and the United States, addressed about 300 attendees.

Modern-day slavery includes around 800,000 men, women and children trafficked each year around the world. According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Web site, about 17,500 of them end up in the United States, with a high percentage received in Florida.

Soodalter suggests a simple Google search on human trafficking for astounding results.

In spite of major federal legislation and anti-trafficking laws passed in 43 states, 103 human-trafficking convictions have resulted, Soodalter said.

Trafficking remains hidden, is largely unreported and difficult to identify. According to the 2009 Trafficking in Persons, or TIP, report, published by the U.S. Department of State, forced labor/involuntary servitude represents the majority of human-trafficking cases in the world. The co-author of Soodalter’s book,  Kevin Bales, wrote the original 156-page TIP report, titled “Trafficking Persons in the United States — A Report to the National Institute of Justice.”

“The whole thing is disserving and extending,” said retired UCF foreign language professor David Gurney. “It contributes to the antagonism from people in underdeveloped countries to Western civilizations or Western countries.”

In the 1850s, purchasing a slave ran roughly $1,200, the equivalent of around $40,000 in today’s money. The reality is purchasing a slave today costs as little as $100, which makes them affordable and disposable, Soodalter said.

A trafficking victim lives in fear of violence or the threat of violence daily, he said.

Shawn Cox, victim witness coordinator and licensed clinical social worker with the United States Attorney’s Office, advocates that trafficking is a crime of absolute power over someone. According to the report Cox co-authored, “Victims of Human Trafficking and Trauma,” the psychological consequences of a victim are similar to the consequences of severe or chronic child abuse or experiencing acts of terrorism.

"In case you thought slavery doesn’t touch you, guess again," Soodalter said. "Chances are, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, has been touched by slavery."

The good news is there have been some inroads made recently in the area of agricultural servitude, Soodalter said. When Taco Bell refused to stop buying produce picked by enslaved workers in an effort known as the "Ban the Bell" campaign, it set a precedent that several other companies, including McDonalds, A&W, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut, Whole Foods, Chipotle and Burger King, have followed, Soodalter said.

"The message is clear," Soodalter said. "Slavery and worker abuse will not be tolerated. Not here, not now, not ever."

Mark Freeman, public affairs coordinator for the Global Perspectives Office, said they are hoping to continue the series next spring since response has been incredible. Because of the series last spring, students on campus were so spurred into action they formed the unofficial student group “Students Against Slavery @ UCF,” Freeman said. “Students Against Slavery @ UCF” has a Facebook page, and Harry Coverston serves as the faculty advisor for the group.

"Spreading the word is the most important thing," said Frank Hegedus, a senior political science and international relations major. "There is only right now."

 

http://www.centralfloridafuture.com/abolitionist-historian-wraps-up-global-perspectives-series-1.2093273

Central Florida Future – More H1N1 vaccines available

Central Florida Future – More H1N1 vaccines available.

 

24,000 vaccines requested last week

By Cassie Turner

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Published: Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Updated: Wednesday, November 11, 2009

John Choi

Danny Demoraes’ brother died of pneumonia, a complication of the H1N1 virus. Demorae, a senior at UCF, received his H1N1 vaccine last Thursday.

John Choi

A month after he watched his 27-year-old brother die of complications caused by the H1N1 virus, UCF senior Danny Demoraes entered the second-floor conference room at Health Services to receive the flu vaccine.

David Demoraes was two weeks away from becoming a firefighter in August when he began complaining of a cough, vomiting and body aches. By the end of the month he had been admitted to a hospital suffering from pneumonia, a complication of H1N1.

On Oct. 3, after a month-long battle, a blood clot blocked one of his arteries, causing his blood pressure to drop to zero, Demoraes said.

“I felt his heart take its last couple beats,” Demoraes said. “My brother and I used to do everything together. Now everything has changed.”

Danny Demoraes received his vaccine Thursday — one of the 1,500 doses available to students, faculty and staff delivered to UCF Health Services, 24,000 had been requested.

“It’s worth getting the vaccine because you just don’t know who it’s going to hospitalize…who it’s going to kill,” Demoraes said. “If the school is offering free vaccines why not prevent it beforehand?”

Chad Binette of UCF News & Information said that there have been 35 cases of H1N1 confirmed at UCF. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

in Atlanta, college-aged people are within a more at-risk category.

“For instance, between ages 5 and 24, the CDC estimates 2,196 cases per 100,000, but only 107 per 100,000 in the 65 and older age group,” Binette said. “UCF is one of the first Florida universities to receive vaccines and getting the vaccine is the best way to stay healthy and protect yourself from the H1N1 virus. The vaccine is safe and effective, and students can get it for free.”

Thomas Sutton, a UCF freshman micro & molecular biology major, agrees. Sutton said he gets his vaccine as a “force of habit” every year, but his grandmother nearly dying of the virus raised his awareness about H1N1.

Claudia Witcher, nursing director for UCF Health Services, began each session with a short presentation explaining to attendees the differences between the two vaccines. The shot is made of dead viral particles, whereas the attenuated nasal vaccine is a live virus that replicates only in the nostril, Witcher said.

“For homework, go out and tell your friends how easy it is, because we need all students to be immunized,” said Pharmacy Manager Sheryl Gamble.  

Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, reported Friday that 129 children have died from H1N1.

According to the CDC, Novel influenza A, H1N1, is a new flu virus of swine origin that first caused illness in Mexico and the United States in March and April 2009. It was determined that the virus was spreading from person to person with the infection causing a wide range of flu-like symptoms, including fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. In addition, many people also have reported nausea, vomiting and/or diarrhea. On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 6 in response to H1N1.

As of Nov. 1, the WHO reported the pandemic has infected 199 countries and overseas territories and caused more than 6,000 deaths.

According to a health alert put out by the CDC on Nov. 6, most people who get H1N1 will have a mild illness and recover in fewer than two weeks. Others, however, are more likely to get flu complications that result in hospitalization and, occasionally, death. Complications can include pneumonia, bronchitis, sinus infections and ear infections, or worsen chronic health problems such as asthma or congestive heart failure. The CDC urges clinicians to begin antiviral treatment of suspected persons based on direct observation as opposed to relying on rapid influenza tests or laboratory confirmation.

It takes about two weeks for the vaccine to become effective in the system, Witcher said.

She recommends maintaining good hand washing practices, not sharing food or drink with others and employing good coughing and sneezing etiquette in the interim.

“My brother was all about helping people,” Demoraes said. “If anything, he would be happy that at least this message can get out there and help other people. That’s what he would have wanted.”