Back and Blue

Man, I sure did fall off the blogging wagon, eh?

Truth be told, I've got about six started and either not finished or not published entries sitting in my folder. I'll have a look through them but it's doubtful I'll do much more than delete them. No doubt they're all rubbish.

There have been times in the past where I've been out around town and looked up to see someone I know - a good old friend. A blast from the past. A person I haven't spoken to in ages. And, instead of hurrying up to them and tapping them on the shoulder to greet them with a big smile and a "Hey!! How are you doing? It's been TOO LONG!" I turn and duck behind a building. I slither away. I run as quickly and as quietly as I can in the opposite direction hoping my friend won't recognize the back of me as I flee.

It just feels like too much has happened. It has indeed been TOO LONG. It would require too much energy to slap on a smile and try to explain all that happened between the time I last saw them and now.

It sort of feels like that with this blog. And, it's not even been three weeks since my last post. Weird, eh?

Thank you to the people who commented or sent me an e-mail wondering when the hell I was going to write something again. I want to apologize, especially to Kevin, who remains a good friend to me, expressing concern even when he's got so much more concerning things going on in his life. I really am an idiot sometimes. It was only this morning that it occurred to me that I could have sent him an e-mail telling him I'm alright, even if I didn't feel like writing anything on this blog. Total duh.

I'm sort of alright.

Earlier this week I missed a window of opportunity to write when I was feeling downright fantastic. On Tuesday and Wednesday I was clear headed and energetic. I kept commenting to my students and co-workers about how great I felt. It was just such a dramatic difference in the way I had been feeling for weeks and weeks before. I still had the shingles, which technically aren't even shingles anymore. I've now got post herpetic neuralgia, which is kinda sorta like Shingles: The Sequel. Or the third installment in the Chicken Pox Trilogy. It's just easier to keep calling it Shingles. There are too many syllables in post herpetic neuralgia, and no one knows what the hell I'm talking about when I say it. Granted, not too many people knew what I was talking about when I would tell them I had shingles either, which is called "teh-sang po-jin" in Korean. So I was just saying "soo-doo part two" (chicken pox ii) which sounds cute.

But anyways, despite the shingles and perhaps boosted by the drugs I'm sill taking which include oxycontin and an anti-drepressant, I was skipping merrily along for two days this week until Wenesday evening at 7 o'clock when I stopped mid-sentence and told my class, "Man, I've got a headache!" Thirty minutes later I had the students open their workbooks and get their pencils out because my throat was hurting too much to continue speaking. By the time I left work at 8:15 my teeth were chattering and I was shivering from a chill that was coming from inside my bones. Back home at 9:30 my temperature was up to 38.9 - about 102°F. Can you guess where this is heading?

When I say "H" you say "1!" (H-1, H-1!) When I say "N," you say "1!" (N-1, N-1!)

It's not for sure, but it's probably almost surely and hopefully for sure that I've gone and caught the dreaded H1N1. Every week there are more kids coming down with the 'shin-jeon inplooenza" at my school, and it was just a matter of time, really. For sure I've got some kind of flu, but I'm not going to know if it's H1N1 until Monday morning. I said "hopefully" by the way, because since I have the flu - I want it to be swine flu so I can have it over and done with and not have to worry about getting it anymore. I'm taking Tamiflu plus fourteen other pills a day for whatever kind of flu it is I do have - and to be honest, it's not that bad. I'm not feeling too horrible at all. I'm just exhausted again and have already nodded off three times while typing this. Last night I decided I'd have a nap and figured I'd be down for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. I wanted to try to eat some soup after my nap because I hadn't managed to eat anything all day. I didn't even bother turning off the television or turning out any lights. I woke up with the sun shining on my face almost 10 hours later.

I didn't go to work yesterday, and I'm not going again today. I'm sure my co-workers just adore me. In some weird demonstration of empathy my computer decided to die on Wednesday night as well. Luckily, my boyfriend showed up Thursday morning with his PC which he set up before driving me to the hospital, so I'm not entirely quarantined from the rest of the world.

In between naps I will march right up to this blog and say "Hey! It's been TOO LONG!"

We WILL catch up. I promise.

Write, Off to Work

I'm heading to work in a few minutes, and I'm going to meet my new boss. My real boss assured me that he is a "wonderful man," but he doesn't know that at all. From what I understand, he met the guy on Friday when he made an offer on the school - and my boss followed the advice of The Steve Miller Band: "Go on, take the money and run." So he did. Only he's not running until tomorrow, so I'll have one last day with him at the school.

I'm sad. Like pure and simple straight up sad.

I was out for a quick dinner after work on Friday night. The table next to us had four women grilling up their meat and drinking up their soju. Eventually two other men joined them. The women seemed happy to see them - one of the fellows made like he couldn't find the door to get into the plastic wall encased patio we were sitting in (can you believe they're forecasting for minus 2 degrees Celcius tonight?!?) and the women laughed at his little comedic entrance. At one point not too long after I said, "Ahhh, settle down!" toward the table of six, not loud enough for them to hear by any means, but more for the benefit of my boyfriend sitting across the table from me who I was having trouble hearing amidst the laughter and enthusiastic "GUMBAEs!!" coming from behind him. They certainly were having a good time, that other table, whereas I was sporting red swollen eyes and trying hard not to cry more while recounting the miserable day I'd had at work.

Soon, the mood at the table behind us shifted - and one of the women was clearly unhappy with one of the men sitting across from her. The other members of the party hushed up as she got louder and angrier, filling her speech with a lot of "YAs!" and "dog babies" through gritted teeth. At one point, she threw her napkin across the table toward him and started to gather up her belongings like she was leaving, but her friends reached for her arms and convinced her to sit down and stay, and she seemed to calm down for a moment. But the guy across the table said something that displeased her and she "YA'd" him just once more. He stood up very suddenly, knocking over his stool, and picked something up from the table. With the fluency of a major league pitcher, he wound back and hurled whatever was in his hand as hard as he could, which connected with precise accuracy on the woman's head. Chaos ensued, with all the women screaming and the other man ushering the attacker out the door. The ladies checked the injured woman's head (her ball cap had protected her well) and the object - what I thought was one of those heavy soju shotglasses - which could have been perhaps lethal, turned out to be a metal rice bowl.

The women all sat in stunned silence for a long time. All of them were crying, but the one with the sore noggin and the woman sitting next to her, holding her hand, cried the hardest.

I feel like that woman. I feel like I've been hit in the head by a sudden unexpected object, and the sadness I'm experiencing is a bit overwhelming. I'll write about the hweshick later, but after it I just felt exhausted. I turned off my my phones, crawled into bed before eleven on a Saturday night (unheard of!) and slept until the sun was well up in the Sunday morning sky. I kept my phones off all day and hid myself away in my apartment.

But now it's time to go to school and meet the new boss. Unable to sleep much last night (about 3 hours or so) and uninterested in eating anything since Saturday night - I'm feeling sad. Sad sad saddy sad. One of the drugs I'm taking for the shingles is an anti-depressant, enafon - and I'm glad for it. Praise Jeebus glad. Without it, perhaps I'd be a weeping blob of sad, instead of a walking semi-functioning mess.

There are lots of questions. What's the new guy like? Am I going to be three times lucky? (I've been incredibly lucky to have really good bosses two times already. I worry I might have run out of luck.) My initial inclination is to quit; give my notice and leave at the six month mark in December. That's still the leading horse in this race of unknowns. My boss expressed happiness at the work party on Saturday. I can imagine what he's feeling. He must be so relieved to not have the daily stress of this job. I think when the time comes I'll be elated.

But, now I'm sad. And I have to go to work. Before I do, let me say there's no point in laying blame - but let's do it anyhow. If The Princess hadn't started this all,...

To be continued.