just another drunk...

the longer i'm here the more i realize that people are essentially the same everywhere. last night i was taking the bus to meet some friends. it was the number eight which never comes when you want/need it to, but last night it did.

as soon as i got on i noticed a man standing right behind the bus driver. it appeared that he was yelling at someone - i assumed it was the lady sitting next to him, since she said something back to him. he was like one of those nutters you see on the bus/metro who are just yelling for no good reason. of course, i had no idea what he was saying, so he could have been making some kind of valid point about something... but then a woman sitting a little further back in the bus piped in and said something that sounded like she was really annoyed... probably a polite way of saying shut up (i know it was shut up cause i know that in korean). then i figured he was just yelling and not at the woman just at everyone.

i could see the bus drivers frustration in the rear view mirror. the man was standing right behind him and was just rambling on and on. a few stops later the bus just pulled over and the bus driver got off the bus. just my luck, i actually get the number 8 - the fast bus - and we're going to stop until the bus driver can calm down and have a smoke or something. he disappeared behind the bus for a couple of minutes. when he came back he had a couple of police officers with him.

he got back on the bus and (i'm guessing here - language barrier) and started telling the guy he had to get off. the cops were talking to him too but he just kept yelling. he started looking around the bus for an ally - the woman in front of me ignored him, then he looked at me, and started rambling in korean... it took him about a minute to realise that he was looking at a foreigner, then he turned back to the cops. they finally coaxed him off the bus and we went on our way.

oddly enough, one of my students was actually sitting behind me and told me that the guy was really drunk. i tried to find out what he had been saying but the kids english wasn't good en ough to translate. it was just another drunk old man making trouble on the bus... i told my student not to be embarrassed - it happens everywhere.

the hand...

i can't beleive how much i wrote yesterday. with one hand typing is a real pain... so this will be short. the stitches don't look too bad. i think he could've put another one, but there are only four. my hand is swollen and aching. it hurts to move my forefinger and middle fingers. but i'll survive...as long as they cleaned it properly and i don't get gangrene or something! knock on wood. i bought some alcohol swabs and gauze to clean and dress it myself. so far so good. the pills they gave mee made me feel pretty loopy and tired all day which made for difficult teaching, thank god for nice co-teachers. anyway, this weekend seems like a wash because of the stupid hand... was supposed to go feed the sharks at the busan aquarium... but that won't happen now. i'll get there eventually, i hope. i was going to post a picture of the stitches, but i'll spare you... unless you want to see... let me know. have a good one.

a shout out

just want to shout out to an american in geoje for having an awesome blog... i get so many of my cool sidebar stuff from him! like my all new neo-earth map... lower down on the left... it shows where my visitors are from... might be a couple of days before much of anything shows up on it...

thanks a million!

drama...drama...drama...

no, i'm not leaving teaching for acting... there was a little drama here this evening.

i was making dinner - a yummy "mexican" stir-fry (chicken, peppers, onion, cilantro, lemon juice, pepper). i was going to put it on one of my three tortillas that i still have in my freezer with some salsa and avocado. mmmm.... yummy, right? of course!

everything was done and i was prepping the avocado. 1. cut in half. 2. remove pit. this is where the drama comes in... you know how to remove the pit? stick a knife in it and pull it out of the half that it's stuck in, right? that's how i was taught anyway. so the problem was when the knife went straight through the avocado instead of into the pit... what was on the other side of the avocado? that's right, my hand.

i saw it happen before i felt it. it actually took a couple of seconds to hit me. i'm not a squeamish person and i tend to remain quite calm during emergency situations; this was no exception. i quickly put my hand under running water and applied pressure. a few seconds later i peeked at it. i knew right away that i would need stitches. the knife didn't just cut me, it stabbed me and it looked really deep... so i grabbed a massive wad of paper towel and held it there. i figured if the bleeding stopped within 5 minutes that it might be ok. well, it wasn't.

i grabbed my purse and left thhe house. thank god the realtor for the building was in the hallway. he doesn't speak english at all but i justt kept saying doctor and pointing at the bloody paper towel. he got his car and drove me to the hospital - a place i do not recommend visiting for ant kind of major surgery (more on that when i'm not typing with one hand). thank god he was there though, i don't know what i would have done if he weren't.

anyway, i've got i don't know how many stitches, since i didn't look and now my hand looks like this:

i have to change the dressing tomorrow, and i got some pills... not sure what they are so will ask at school before i take them... anyway... just my luck, isn't it? finally getting over whatever has been plaguing me for the last three weeks, and the laryngitis, and now, this. wish me luck taking a shower and doing the dishes... the nurse said no water can touch it for two weeks... i think that's a load of bull though... but won't be easy for at least a couple of days... here's to a healthier life! ha!

ahh... the sounds of home...

my last apartment in montreal was home to me for about seven years. for about four of those i lived next to a construction zone.

the city was re-building a highway overpass across the street from me. the Decarie Expressway in Montreal, which, where i lived was below street level - kind of like a giant moat. they were re-doing the overpass that went across it on the corner of my street. it turned out beautifully, but the four years of construction all spring/summer/fall wasn't very fun.

summer was the worst because you couldn't open the windows without hearing the trucks beeping, or the jack-hammers drilling... all through the night. that was the only time they could safely close the highway below without interrupting anyones' busy schedules - other than the people who were trying to sleep that is! thankfully (for me, not my room mates) i had an inner bedroom that didn't get ALL the noise.

i remember one night my roomie actually called the number they had posted on the signs outside to complain about noise levels. the guy on the other end could hear it through the phone. they sent over some sound pollution testers within a couple of days, but nothing ever came of it. there were some barriers set up, big pieces of plywood that did nothing to eliminate the noise, and i guess they figured that was enough. anyway, it was pretty bad but i suppose we got used to it for the most part.

this morning i was awoken to the nostalgic sounds of drilling in concrete and heavy machinery. i've been expecting it, since there is an insane amount of repairs to the sewers going on around here... it was only a matter of time until they got to my street... but it is a good thing they aren't doing it overnight - they only started, as i woke up, at 6:45 AM. (still, a little early to be drilling, no?) i had to take a shot from my front door... so here it is:
isn't that the cutest little excavator you've ever seen? and the mini dump truck too! too bad they don't sound so small! anyway, the view was quite similar to what i remember seeing in north america. one guy working and three guys watching! some things are the same everywhere you go!

***

on another note, my day went much better today than yesterday. i managed to get out for my lunchtime walk and found a new route to take that allows me a little time in the woods as opposed to staying on the streets. it was nice to be surrounded by trees, if only for ten minutes! the laryngitis is clearing up - almost gone actually - but i'm a little worried about the five classes i have tomorrow and friday... hopefully the upward trend of recovery will continue.

it's only tuesday

all day the one thought that continued to run through my head was that it is only tuesday. for some reason i felt like it was at least wednesday... but no... my first five class day of the week and it went on forever.

my first two classes of the day were great - well-behaved, attentive, and smart. i had third period off and went for a little walk. fourth class was pretty bad. they kept pretending like they didn't know anything - i don't know if they just don't understand me, or if they just really don't know the answers, but we're doing some pretty basic stuff that other classes already had a great handle on. anyway, it wasn't the best... but it wasn't the worst.

my lunch break was destroyed by a "meeting" of some group that i'm a member of just because of where i sit in the office. of course, no one speaks english, so the conversation was lost on me for over an hour. not to mention that i couldn't eat most of what was available at the restaurant. i managed to eat some fish and brocolli and a little soup, but when the main part of the meal is rice, i'm screwed. it did nothing to put in a good mood. i've taken to going for a twenty minute walk at lunch as well, it gets my blood flowing, gives me some time away from all the korean and the kids - but today there was no walk - which put me in an even worse mood. we got back to school four minutes before class started - not even enough time to check email, let alone gain some composure - and i still had two classes to go.

i have made it very clear to all of my classes that they have to be in their teams and ready to go when i arrive. since i go to each class, they have plenty of time to get ready for me, but of course they weren't. no skin off my back, right? they'll just lose a sticker. but i expect them to at least settle down once i arrive. but no. they just kept on acting like the crazy little monsters they are. my korean "co-teacher" didn't do anything to make matters better. she did nothing, actually. i have specific instructions from the doctor to use my voice as little as possible... yet, i had already taught three classes that day. i wasn't feeling great. she was still under the impression that i just have a "sore" throat and not a serious throat infection. anyway, she didn't do anything to calm the class down and i had to take control.

one girl wouldn't stop chatting with her friend so i sent her to the back of class to stand with her hands in the air. that didn't deter any of them. i asked them a simple question - "what are the days of the week?" they are in first grade middle school - this is easy stuff that they learned a long time ago - we were doing a refresher. but not a single one of them answered. they just kept on chatting with eachother in kroean and fooling around. so i stopped the lesson. i told them if they didn't want to learn, then we could do something else - and then had the entire class raise their hands above their heads. a few minutes later i asked them what they liked better... learning english or being punished. of course they said learning, so we continued the lesson (hands down). i re-asked them for the days of the week and got all the answers in seconds... so what was wrong the first time around? anyway, i eventually had to make one of the teams stand up and raise their hands - about ten minutes to the end of class. and they stayed that way til the end. i need them to know that i'm serious and they need to give me the respect that they would their korean teachers... this is an on-going theme, is it not?

anyway, it was a really bad class, my throat was killing me, but sixth period made up for it. i was still with the same co-teacher, but now she was mad at me because i punished the previous class! WTF??? anyway, sixth went really well, then my co-teacher (not the good one) says, "we need to have a meeting about that class."

so what does she tell me? that she thinks i shouldn't punish them at all and that i was wrong and she's very angry about it. well, what does she expect, i say. she's the one who is supposed to be dealing out the punishments and keeping them in line... so where was she when i needed her? not to mention that i shouldn't even be speaking and that i didn't get a lunch break, and that i always do everything for all the classes, when i'm supposed to be assisting... not creating lesson plans and doing it all on my own. she was speechless - almost - finally after ten minutes of her trying to make me feel bad for punishing the rotten buggers, she decides to try and make me feel bad about being sick and her going to class without me yesterday! will it NEVER end with that? like i'm making myself sick on purpose. what does she think i am a middle school student? so then i get pissed and tell her that there is no way i'm having this conversation with her, that i don't need to justify my illness to her and that if she felt so rotten yesterday then why did she insist that i stay behind and rest. i offered several times yesterday to go to class anyway, and she always said no... don't come back a day later and try to make me feel bad about it. argh! anyway, sorry this is such a rant... i just really need to vent somewhere, and where better than here?

i just hope she gets over it and doesn't give me any more trouble... i teach more than half my classes with her... but i've been at the school longer than her, and she doesn't know me at all. she hasn't even tried to get to know me. hasn't asked me a single question about myself or anything... so who's really got the problem? i think she just doesn't like me cause i speak english and hers sucks and i make her realize that... anyway, will update with more as it becomes available... probably tomorrow... for now, have a great tuesday...

because i LOOOOOVE laryngitis SO much!

i can't believe it.

as you probably know i have laryngitis. i spent the weekend (for the most part) resting my voice and taking care of my throat. but today it was still bad, and the doctor told me on friday to go back today regardless... so i did. he said that it's looking a little better, but that i need to continue to rest my voice and take more medication until it's better. when i told him i'm a teacher and i can't rest my voice he looked worried. so did i. i was sure that the school doesn't really believe that i'm sick, they think i just have a sore throat and that i'm making a big deal about it. so i got the doctor to write me note. i figured this would at least legitimize my not being able to talk in class.

well, of course not. this is korea where people get sick for three hours and then are better again. does no one in this country realize that my body is different from theirs? physiologically asians and caucasions have different reactions to different things, and i'm no exception - their drugs don't work on me. so after i returned to school with the note and told Jo she acted like it was all ok since it would (hopefully) be a few days... then she went to tell the other teachers that i work with and they were all angry that i was sick.

"can't you think of something to do in class where you don't need your voice?" she asked me.
ya, cause keeping my mouth shut keeps them in line. that's for sure. wtf? she started getting all "well you know how it makes us feel?" to which i said no because she hadn't told me. and then she starts going on about how all teachers get sore throats, and it's normal and there isn't really anything wrong with me... and can't i just go to class like normal?

basically i've been teaching their classes for them for the last six months and now i can't talk they can't return the favour! this is called "co-teaching" for a reason! it's not "let the foreigner do everything." i already make all the lesson plans, and then follow through in class, they never do anything - even discipline, which i found out i should not be doing at all! ie. no other foreign teachers have to do it, their koreans do it for them. so what's up with my school? and they have to make me feel guilty about having a throat infection that i couldn't have prevented! what if i broke my leg? or got hit by a car? what would they do then? bring the kids down to the hospital for their lesson? it's not like i'm saying that i'll stay home all day, i offered to go to class and be there, but that i can't project my voice or talk for long periods of time. of course, while i'm telling her all of this my voice is cracking and my throat is aching and she STILL can't see that this is real?? i'm just pissed off. all a person wants sometimes is a little understanding and compassion - two things that don't exist in korea... and they wonder why i'm not staying for another year.

anyway, hopefully this stupid laryngitis will go away and things can go back to normal... maybe i'll tell them all about how other foreign teachers only teach for half the class... see how they like that... god! find something where i don't need my voice... ya... right.

smog or fog? (or that pesky yellow sand...)

i wish i knew the answer. there were a lot more koreans wearing face masks today... something you see on a regular basis, but it seemed like almost everyone had one today. here is a 'before' picture from the roof of my building:

and here is what it looks like today:
i like to think that it's fog... but i can't be sure. maybe this is the asian dust finally raining down on us. these definitely aren't storm clouds as there is no rain, and doesn't feel like it will rain. it's actually quite warm out. kind of scary to think about what i'm breathing in...

just had a call from a friend, and she says someone else told her it's the dust. and looking out my window i can see a buildup of it on the window... don't know how i'm going to manage to clean that off... i hope it rains! anyway, here are a couple more pics of my walk through the park today:

the colour seems a little off because of the colour of the sky... but i didn't adjust it so that you could see it... anyway, guess i'll stay indoors for the rest of the day to avoid breathing in the crap as much as possible! maybe i should pick up one of those masks... ;)

korea in bloom... and a laryngoscopy

as promised yesterday i took some pictures on my way to school this morning of the cherry blossom trees (i think that's what they are) that i walk by every day... they didn't look like this two days ago... i'm sure of it! and the photos don't really do them justice. i'll try to get out this afternoon or this weekend and get some better shots.

it kind of reminds me of the trees covered in ice in winter... but it's not cold out!!!

a close-up in one of the trees

this one branch caught my eye... the tree itself looks like it's waiting for death, but this one branch just won't give up! beautiful!

Now on to more gross things. as you may or may not know, i've been sick off and on for the last two weeks (or more). for the last week my throat has been particularly sore, but just thought it was the yellow sand of china irritating it. this morning, however, i woke up at about 5am with the sorest throat i've had in ages and i could feel that it was swollen - much like in fall when i had tonsillitis. so, i figured i should go to the doctor. a friend of mine here has tonsillitis, which is highly contagious, and i thought i'd caught it from him.

i walked to school as usual, figuring i could do the two classes no problem, i'd just have to talk really quietly. when i got to class the kids in the back couldn't hear me so my co-teacher took over. the second class i spent resting in the "resting room"... the other co-teacher i work with told me not to bother coming to class that she could take care of everything.

so after school was over (thank god for the science thing that let me out early today) i walked to the ear-nose-throat guy i saw last fall. he speaks better english than any other doctor i've been to here and he's a specialist in what is wrong with me.

i didn't have to wait more than two minutes, (what a difference from canada) before being shown into the office. he looked down my throat with a light and told me that my pharynx looked fine, as did my tonsils. he wanted to get a good look at my larynx (deep down in your throat - it's your voicebox). so i had to lean forward, stick out my tongue and breathe through my mouth. he tried to stick this long pole with a light and camera on the end down my throat... i gagged. he stopped and tried again. i gagged. then he suggested spraying a local anasthetic to relax my throat. i said try one more time... so he did, and i gagged.

finally he sprayed my throat - which was actually really nice cause it lessened the pain - with anasthetic and i waited a bout five minutes. we went through the same procedure as before and he managed to get it down there. then he told me to make a high pitched squeel, well i tried, but all i could do was kind of groan! finally i gagged again and he stopped saying he'd gotten enough pictures to make a diagnosis.

he was really great. he showed me pictures of a healthy throat, a slightly infected throat, a really infected throat, and then the ones of me. this was really cool, cause how often do you get to see inside your own body? anyway, i could tell the second he pulled mine up that it was pretty bad - see for yourself:

see the dark red? that's supposed to be really light pink.

see the two sort of balls deep down there? those are the mucous membranes of my voicebox, you aren't really supposed to see them... they're totally inflamed. anyway, that's a little gross eh? sorry for the squeamish out there!

so, i have laryngitis. i'm not allowed to talk (or supposed to talk as little as possible) i have pills up the wazoo to take after every meal for the next three days... i don't feel sick really except that my throat hurts. i mean, i'm not excessively tired or achey, or anything else... so this really sucks! and of course, it's right in time for the weekend! what's a girl to do? anyway, hopefully it'll start feeling better and it won't ruin my weekend too much. guess i should carry a pen and notepad around with me!

not so angelic... or maybe...

well, the kids today weren't as angelic as i remembered them, but they were definitely better than school #1. it was a long day with five classes, but at least they aren't in a row - that's friday. BUT tomorrow i get a break! there is some science fair going on and the kids have to prepare for it, so there are no regular classes after second period. to make things even better, my weekend gets to start as soon as i'm done class!!! that's right! for the first time since arriving someone at my school is giving me a break and letting me leave early! yay! (i'll still keep my fingers crossed while i sleep tonight!)

in other news, i'm still going to the gym six days a week. i've lost a total of 5.3 pounds in three weeks! did i mention that i joined weight watchers online? i don't think that i did, but having it out there makes me more accountable for it. as an online buddy of mine said, "they're only numbers and they only have the power of shame we give them." so, i'm not giving them any! it's a positive life change that i'm making... no matter how i'm going about doing it. i'm proud of myself for wanting to change... it isn't easy, but if i can move to korea on my own and survive, then i can do anything! i know it works since i sort of followed the program a couple of years ago and lost about 20 pounds, which have never come back... but i got lazy with it. it became increasingly difficult for me to follow it while i was in school and i ended up just giving up. i learned a lot about health and nutrition during that time. those things are still with me, and that i used every day before and didn't gain anything, but now i'm ready to be a loser! (i know, i already am one!!! LOL haha... ;) but seriously, it's time for a change and when i go to thailand this summer i want to look incredible! and i will.

on that note, have a good one! coming soon, korea in bloom! i looked up today for the first time in a while and noticed that the trees in gimhae are covered in flowers! i'll take some pics and post 'em soon!