Timmy the Tooth

I had a couple of "okay" sleeps over the weekend, including a 4 hour morning nap on Saturday, after I'd woken up after only a few short hours. I should have gone to the dentist at that time. All the dentists close at 1:00 o'clock on Saturdays, which doesn't make much sense to me. When do working people go to the dentist? Maybe they all get up bright and early Saturday morning and clog the waiting room at the dental clinic. Do people actually take time off work to attend a dental appointment? That doesn't seem very Korean.

I can't sleep again, but I'm shattered, and now have to decide to try for more sleep so I can semi-function at work, or to go to the torture chamber, uhh I mean dentist.

On Friday, while teaching, the nice shiny filling I'd had put in whilst in Japan fell out, and I was actually woken up just a couple moments ago, after less than an hour and a half of sleep, by another big chunk of tooth falling out. The thing's disintegrating in my mouth, and now I can stick my tongue into a hole surrounded by "tooth shell."

It doesn't help that I grind my teeth in my sleep, and I grind them when I'm awake, as well, if I'm feeling stressed out. At a couple points yesterday afternoon, I stuck a pencil in my mouth just to keep my teeth off each other. The dental assistants who called my boss to talk to her about the torture, ummm procedure that they'd just done on me last Thursday morning, requested that when I visit them again, I do so with a translator. My boss has already told me she's too busy to go there with me until next week. I'm not sure I can/should wait that long.

Today, we find out if Elizabeth intends to keep working with us. My boss did get to have a short visit with her this weekend. She's awake, and my boss says she's "fine." While there, she asked Elizabeth "Is it too hard to live?" To which, Elizabeth smiled. I was surprised, and asked "Why did she do that?"

My boss explained that in Korea, when someone wants to avoid a subject, they just smile and say nothing.
Interesting maneuver.
Now I've got to google "root canal," to see what they actually did this silly tooth in Japan. I want to know if the nerve is dead inside, because I'm afraid if I eat anything, and it jams up in the hole, my head might explode in white-hot pain.

It still might explode, food or not. You never know.

UPDATE: I learned about a root canal here. Check out the scary animated bit about placing a post in a tooth which has had a root canal. Jeeze. This website notes, "Teeth that have had root canal treatment are seldon as structurally sound as they once were." Mmmmm hmmmm.