I am currently teaching cartooning at a high school and working with a science teacher who has assigned various diseases of the human body to her students to research. Then I am helping the students illustrate a children’s pop up book about the specific disease to which they have been assigned.

This has created some very harrowing sounding snippets of conversation in the art room during my classes, such as:

“So what disease did you get?”

“The science teacher gave me AIDS.”

“I have bladder cancer.”

“What disease do you have?”

“I can’t believe it! I have both alzhiemer’s and skin cancer!”

“I can’t believe I got kidney disease! I wanted AIDS!

“Mr. Alex can you help me? I have lung cancer.”

….A hypochondriac like me comes home from that class very stressed out.