Jelly 4.0

Lawdy, lawdy - look who's fowty!

That's right: ME!

I can't even believe it's my fortieth birthday. I still feel like I'm a stupid eighteen year old most days. So far, my mother and brother (who is still five and a half hours away from his fortieth birthday, and e-mailed me to ask how it was to be so goddamned OLD?) have contacted me with birthday wishes. This year was really set up for a fabulous celebration, as well. My birthday falls on a Friday, which means I could spend the whole weekend kissing my thirties goodbye. My co-worker's planned a party for tonight, and other friends are staging a late night fête at their restaurant on Saturday. It should be a veritable whirlwind of presents and cake and well wishes and soooooju.

But then shingles came to town. Are you sick of hearing about the shingles? Too bad! This is Shingles Central up in here. Did you know Dooce has shingles? All the cool kids are getting it. You should get some!

No, don't. They suck.

So my birthday festivities have pretty much been called off due to rain pain. My boss cancelled tonight's party, and the Saturday shindig is up in the air right now. If I feel like I can handle it we'll have it. I'll do my best, but there's a good chance I'm not going to be a helluvalotta fun. Mixing painkillers and alcohol would be bad, right? But would it be "bad" in a good way? Hehehe.

I thought that I would buy myself something special tonight when I went downtown to HomePlus to fetch cat food. Since Tesco bought this Korean supermarket, they've been stalking a lot more British products, which makes me happy. In the freezer section, they have Tesco ice cream and some frozen Tesco cakes. I've bought a couple of those small-ish cakes and brought them into work. The black forest cake didn't go over so well with the co-workers because they said the cherries were too sour, but I thought it was pretty decent. I decided I would buy myself a cake and have myself a big ole' hunk of it at midnight to kick off my non-festive birthday. Then I'd come back after work on Friday night and eat the whole damned rest of it as I sat weeping and feeling sorry for myself. But, I was FOILED! The freezer section was filled with big packs of Chuseok meat gift-sets and there was nary a frozen British cake to be found. DRATS! Nothing seems to be working out these days.

So I'm going to get a T-shirt printed up that reads "I turned forty and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. And shingles. And a stye in my eye. And a cracked tooth from eating nacho chips." This has been a banner week!

I probably sound bitter, but actually I'm not. Version four point oh should be pretty awesome: new and improved. I'm optimistic. I think we just need a little more time to work out the bugs.

Lazy Lugs

I'm wholly absorbed in feeling sorry for myself. Shingles completely sucks, and has sapped just about every molecule of energy from my body. The fatigue is surreal; if I'm sitting down, then I'm struggling to stay conscious. Yesterday the doctor doubled my pain medication so I'm going to head into work for the first time this week and see how it goes.

I hear my co-worker is throwing an absolute tantrum at having to cover my classes. She spent Monday sulking and asked as she was leaving that day if I was going to come to work on Tuesday. When the manager said she didn't know, my co-worker started whine-yelling, saying she couldn't handle another day of working back to back classes. Poor thing.

I didn't go yesterday and at the request of the manager, sent her a long text message thanking her for doing her job helping me out and taking care of the students. My absence meant she had to teach a whole HOUR and FORTY minutes more than usual. Poor little lamb. If I could gather the strength, I'd smack some perspective into her pouty self. I've been suffering for about a week and a half with hands-down the most strange and all-encompassing pain I've ever felt and she's taking it personally, crying that she's having to endure working a six hour day.

Honestly, though. I'm going to give these little 20mg oxycodone pills two thumbs up. Waaaaayyyy up. Without them, there wouldn't even be a chance of me going in today.

Meanwhile, have you ever seen these?



Please contemplate them while saying, "Busy butterflies flutter by, but baby ladybugs are lazy lugs" over and over and over and over as fast as you can. Thank you.

Pills, Pills, Pills

Day- I don't know - with the shingles. It's the start of day 5 with the rash, but maybe day 11 since the first symptoms started? Something like that. I went to the doctor again for the third day in a row.

I went to the hospital on Friday kind of annoyed. I had gone back in to work that day. I probably shouldn't have, but I did. I was still in pain and I spent the day just trying to get through. I was guarding my body from the students who are always happy to see me and often gregarious in their greetings. The girls especially like to get a hug and were doling them out freely because they'd missed me the day before. I assumed a defensive posture like I was surrounded by ninjas ready to take their turns attacking me. "Don't touch me, please!" I wasn't so concerned that they would catch something from me, but knew that if they touched me I was going to curl into a fetal ball with the pain.

My manager asked me how I was and I told her "crappy" and showed her my back. She said "well at least your not contagious!" I told her I certainly was contagious and she said "no." The doctor had told her the day before I wasn't. "Well he's mistaken," I said ("I don't think so, he is doctor," she countered) as I googled to prove my point.

So I ended up going to the hospital just to argue with the doctor, and to get him to hook me up with some proper pain medication. He had told me the day before not to focus on the pain and I should "endure." I wanted to say "Okay. I'm going to follow you around for the day and keep kicking you in the nads. But, like, just ignore me. Focus on the patients." The thing is I'm not a wimp, and I'd been in significant pain for almost a week by that point. When I learned it was shingles and that intense pain was often the norm I was relieved and looking forward to some medicinal relief. We ended up arguing for a while about the contagiousness of shingles (and I mean really, either something is contagious or it isn't. Granted, it's not AS easy to catch as chicken pox - but still.) and then I petitioned him for some druuuuuuugs. He finally obliged and gave me oxycondone which makes me truly spacey, but makes life alright. It doesn't completely block the pain, but it dulls it. Me likey.

During the consultation, the doctor reached into this little mini fridge in his office and offered me one of those little bottles of "health" drink. (Black garlic and ginseng in this case - ugh!) I thanked him and set it down in front of me on his desk. We talked, he wrote down his notes. He told me he was prescribing me calamine lotion with would have a cooling effect. I thanked him, and stood up and he picked up the little drink, said "coooool" and rolled the bottle over my boob! I had shown him my breast when I went in there, because the rash had spread since the previous day, but still! Weird.

But this development - the speading rash - which now is about 3 inches wide and travels from my spine all the way around on my left side to the centre of my chest is going to be a problem. The rash hasn't yet turned into blisters which will eventually burst and crust over. That's going to be SO FUN! I barely got away with wearing a bra all day Friday. It's just not going to be possible on Monday and I just can't bloody fathom going into work without one. Seriously. The other problem is that the oxycondone makes me deliciously and helplessly sleeeeeeeepy. Like, nod-off junkie sort of sleepy. I don't know how well that's going to work out in class. Can I call in "bra-less and druggy?"

The doctor also warned me to be very careful about getting sick. I gather my immune system is currenty out of order. Wash my hands and brush my teeth (?!) a lot, he advised. He didn't mention specifically H1N1, but out of curiosity I asked if they'd had any cases at the hospital. I was told they had, which surprised me. This is a countryside hospital.

Another visit today, and thankfully nothing was rubbed over my boob. File this under "oversharing" but I've got a lesion right on the "pencil eraser" part of my nipple which is most unpleasant.

And pills. I gots oodles and oodles of pills.



That's five days worth. I should have a contest so you can guess how many I'll be taking, like the jellybeans in a jar,...but I'll just tell you: 115. One hundred and fifteen and a half pills, as a matter of fact!



Pills. They're what's for dinner.

Shingled Out

I've got the fever for the flavour of a shingle.

I had my friend text me the Korean word for "shingles" and I just opened my phone and showed it to the doctor at the big hospital. He said "odi?" (where?) and I pulled up the back of my shirt. He said "yeeeaaaah."

He prescribed acyclovir - an anti-viral medication, but he wasn't sure it would be effective. Even though the rash just started to appear sometime on Wednesday, I've been feeling the shingleness for a week. If one takes an anti-viral early enough it can slow the progression of shingles, but it's not effective after a certain point. So who knows? I've developed a new rash on my chest that started this morning. I also got some other pills but can't remember what they are. One does something good but will also make me dizzy and vomitty, so there's another one to counteract.

I also took the day off work. I've only managed to get about six hours sleep in the past couple days, so I'm just not sure I can handle hearing my name shouted at me all day long by my loud hyperactive students.

I wasn't very successful in canvassing the doctor for some hardcore narcotics. I don't know what his reluctance was in just giving me the druuuuggggssss. I'm supposed to go back on Saturday morning so he can see how I'm doing, but I'm going to head back there tomorrow with the texted word for "morphine" typed into my phone. I'm kidding. Sort of.

I really wish we humans would evolve to the point where we could telepathically share the actual feeling of what's happening inside us with each other. Buddy would say, "Hey, Jelly! How's it going?" and I'd say, "Ah, not too great. It feels like someone has peeled off my skin and is sticking red hot iron skewers into me." So, Buddy would say, "Aww, that's a real shame." and he'd wander off in search of more pleasant conversation but I'd say, "Hey! Wait a minute! Here, check it out!" and I'd manifest the feeling inside his brain and he's be all, "Aaarrrghhhh owwwwww aaaaccckkk!"

It would be great if you could send it over the phone when you're calling in sick. "Sorry, I'm not going to make it into work today, I'm feeling,..." *WHOOSH* And then your boss would start to cry and order you to stay in bed. My manager seems sympathetic, but really she would like me to come in regardless of how I'm feeling.

One thing that doesn't sit so well with me is that she actually called the doctor I saw this morning after I called in sick. Like she needed some confirmation from him. And the doc went ahead and told her all about what's wrong with me. So much for doctor-patient confidentiality, eh? I had a moment of being pissed off with her, but then realized I couldn't muster enough energy to really care. I get the feeling if I try to take another day off I'm going to meet a lot of resistance. As it was, my boss and manager wanted to come by for a visit after work. I told them that wasn't a good idea.

To be honest, I'm relieved that I know what the hell is wrong with me. I'd been getting steadily worse - and shingles symptoms are unlike anything I've ever felt before: sharp stabbing pains and then a rush of burning goosebumps. Without the goosebumps. I actually thought on Wednesday night that I might be having a heart attack.

Good to know I'm not.

A Pox on Me

I mentioned in the previous post that I obtained my PhD in Psychology from an order-by-mail website. What? It's legitimate! I took a test! Ink blots and stuff! Don't judge me.

While I was at it, I decided to get a few more designations out of the way, so I'm also a minister, a marine biologist, a pilot, a tree surgeon, and a family physician. So, like, if you need my services in any of these areas just let me know, mmm'kay?

Last week I wasn't feeling totally awesome. Thursday morning I woke up all achey, but I just figured I had slept funny on my left arm. I still felt weird Friday, and I spent all Saturday traveling clear across Korea and back on trains and buses. By the time I dragged my ass home the upper left side of my back was very angry indeed. Sunday was worse, and so on Monday I paid a visit to Dr. Dolphin (named thusly because he uses the sonar in his forehead to diagnose me.) His full name is Dr. Anti Dolphin Biotic. He gives me a red and yellow antibiotic for EVERYTHING!

I explained that the worsening pain was now wrapping around from the back of me to the front. He asked me three times what trauma had caused the pain, and I told him nothing had happened. He prescribed some pain medication, muscle relaxants, and of course the red and yellow capsule. I don't know what the pain pills are but By George they worked alright on Monday! Except they start to wear off after about four or five hours and then I'm reminded I'm messed up. It feels like someone is jamming corkscrews in me. And the pills aren't being as effective as they were on Monday.

I took the last packet of pills early Wednesday morning after a fitful sleep. Those had well worn off by the time I went to work in the afternoon and HOLY CRAP I felt bad. So I went back to Dr. ADB and he gave me more pills. Yay.

It's good that I'm by and large not feeling the achey fire burn of what the doctor said was a muscle problem, but my body is still acting all weird. I'm wobbly, and my arm is shakey. My skin is crawling. I've pulled muscles before but this feels different. Bad, bad, different. Tingle fire deep-rooted bad bad very bad different. Tonight when I got home I pulled up the back of my shirt to have a look and see if maybe I've finally started growing the big glorious angel wings I've been hoping for, but no.

I'm growing an angry looking rash. Too bad Dr. ADB didn't use his eyes instead of the sonar.

So I diagnosed myself and used the google on this Internet machine for a second opinion and I'm fairly sure I've got shingles. I called my mom who knows of these things. My grandmother got shingles about five years ago and she's still suffering from it. She has postherpetic neuralgia which occurs in about 20% of people who get shingles. It's ongoing pain caused by nerve damage. I'm off to the big hospital this morning, despite my mother's commands of "NOW! GO RIGHT NOW!"

If I've got shingles, I'm contagious. I can spread chicken pox. Shall we wager on whether or not I'm going to get some time off? (Not bloody likely!) Truly I'd settle for some opioids. If I don't get time off work, let's start a pool on how many kids I share my pox with.

Unifreakincorn

If I was walking around in Itaewon, I certainly wouldn't greet every foreigner I saw. That would be crazy. When I'm downtown in my city, where foreigners aren't as common, I'll often say "hi," or give them a nod as we pass on the street. There isn't any use, in my mind, in pretending that we didn't notice another one of ourselves walking toward us. There have been debates about this on Dave's Cafe: "To Greet or Not to Greet." I say why not err on the side of friendliness? At the very least, what's it going to hurt to throw someone a smile?

I live in a little town. It a suburb, really of a larger city and foreigners are like unicorns here. Rarely spotted, I sometimes have a hard time believing that I'm not just the only one of my kind. So when one unicorn spots another 'round these here parts it's a special day. A rainbow day. With butterflies!

Or not.

Yesterday I was walking around in the daylight, which is sort of unusual for this here vampire, and I spotted another unicorn. A white one! A NEW ONE! So I trotted on up to the crosswalk where he was waiting for the lights to change. He turned to look at me and nothing registered. El Cara Blanco. And then he turned away. And then my brain went "OH NO HE DI'INT!!" So I stuck my cara in his cara. "Hi! I'm Jelly!"
He stuck out his hand and said, "Jason. Where are you from?" (I then half expected his next three questions to be "Teacha? How old are you" and "Are you married?")

He told me where he was from, but I don't remember what he said. I asked him if he was new around here,...because I KNOW he is new around here. He said, "No. I've been here a couple weeks."

Huh? So then I asked him if he was an English teacher, because, like, he doesn't understand the meaning of the word "new?" Turns out he teaches at a very small school in the countryside. My co-worker was telling me yesterday that there are "only seven grade fives." and I asked "You mean seven classes of grade five students?"

"No. Seven grade five students!"

I can't believe that school even has a foreign teacher! Maybe Jason is freaked out about how easy his days are. He told me he was a teacher and "I taught grade 2, 3 and 5 today." I couldn't decide what to do with that information, so I told him I had toast and eggs for breakfast.

I know I only got my PhD in Psychology through an order-by-mail website, and that I only met Jasonicorn for about 5 minutes, but I feel confident enough to diagnose him with severe Autism with a side order of weird. Either that, or the guy is seriously depressed. As I smiled and spoke calmly, he'd screw up his face - knitting his eyebrows and wrinkling hs nose, shaking his head back and forth as if he was going to answer "no" regardless of what I was asking. As the light changed and we crossed the street I noticed a big glowing ball in the sky setting through the haze and maybe Jason thinks I'm weird now because I said aloud "Is that the sun?" and he answered "Probably." (It was glowing so bright and whitish it could have been the moon. I didn't think it was a UFO or something.)

Jason asked in monotone (Aspergers?) if I was going that way, because he was going the other way and good-bye, and he shuffled off.

I guess I'm not going to be friends with the new kid in town.

Run Away

I've got things to complain about. Who doesn't? So before I start complaining, let me share one thing I am NOT going to complain about: the weather! Haven't you guys who have been reading me for awhile noticed the lack of "Ohhhh my Gawd it's So Freaking HOT I want to Go Out and Commit Crimes" posts this past summer? No need, my friends. Not this summer.

As I understand it, people in other parts of the country haven't been as lucky. I know Seoul was pretty muggified for much of the summer - and Daegu? Well, that's just a bowl of soup. But down 'round these here parts we've had an easy breezy time. The rainy season started late and lasted a long time. Many a day has been cloudy and mild, and there has been an ever-present wind that has kept things very tolerable. This has been my most favourite summer thus far in Korea. For the last couple weeks the temperature at night has even dropped enough to be deemed "yummy sleeping weather." There's a hint of fall in the days here, and it's even occurring in the big city, as my buddy John takes note of.

Alright. So that's the not complaining. Moving on.

I've got a real challenge in my adult class in the form of a new student who is driving me crazy. I haven't had a problem student like this for quite some time. If it were a child, like most of my students are, I wouldn't be having such a difficult time. He just joined my class a couple weeks ago, and I sort of knew something was up when he insisted on having a 30 minute meet and greet with me before the class started. Fair enough, I suppose, but usually the sorting of levels and initial interviewy type things are left to my manager, The Princess. So he spent 30 minutes with her and another 30 with me, and then entered the classroom and monopolized the room for the next 50 minutes.

This has become his M.O. now. He usually shows up about a half hour before the class starts and wanders into the Teacher's Room, helps himself to a seat, and starts chatting. I'm usually busy preparing for the lesson and I'm not really keen on giving him a mini-conversation class before the actual class begins. I'm always apologizing, and saying I have some work to get done so can't really talk. Sometimes he takes the hint and leaves. Other times he says, "That's okay," and then just hangs out watching me do stuff.

My adult class in an Introductory one. We tend to spend about 5 or 10 minutes conversing and then we hit the book. My new student, however, would prefer to have a conversation for the whole 50 minutes, and doesn't' care that he's railroading the class and shutting out other less-confident students. As a matter of fact, I've had three students drop out since New Guy started, and I know it's because they dislike him. I resent having to try to disengage myself from his one-on-one yammering and refocus the class on what we're studying. Last week we were working on the future tense with "going to" and we were talking about special occasions. The format was "What are you going to do for New Years? Where are you going to go? Who's going to be there?" and so on. We're going around the room asking each other questions, and it's going well - but when we get to New Guy he turns to me (of course) and says, "Do you believe in Jesus?"

I said, "Awwwww come on. The question should be 'Are you going to believe in Jesus at Christmas?' but I'd like to focus on the textbook, New Guy." Sheesh. When I try to gently correct him or guide our conversation toward the group, he gets pouty. Yesterday I said, "Hangul mal hajima-seyo," (with a smile on my face) -- "please stop speaking Korean" and he said "yeaaaahhh," and then zoned out, jamming his finger into his ear, inspecting the treasure he had dug out, and then rolling it into a ball before flicking it on the floor. Awesome.

He wears his shoes in the classroom. It bugs the shit out of me. The taking off of the outside shoes and putting on of the inside shoes is a Mister Rogers Korean thing. My brother doesn't mind if you walk your outside shoes right on into his inside home in Canada, (I can't bring myself to do it anymore) but here in Korea we do no such thing. We've got big shoe shelves at the entrance of the school and all my students are wearing the provided-for slippers. So, why do I have to remind New Guy that he's Korean and needs to take off his (big ugly) outside shoes?

Whereas I used to end off my work day three times a week feeling really good from having completed a productive and enjoyable class with people taller than my elbow, I'm now heading home pissed off and feeling like a crap teacher because I can't wrangle the New Guy. I don't want the students I actually do enjoy very much to keep dropping out.

A big part of the problem is the way my manager (The Princess) will stick students in a class that's not appropriate for them. I've got Elementary school students who are the same age, yet aren't at the same ability for our classes. At five o'clock I've got eight students who can read well and understand the direction I'm giving, but there are a couple who have serious trouble with even alphabet recognition. I'm spelling something for them (trying to move things along) and I say "E." They write an "i." "No, E. Not I." They erase and write "g." Arrrgh. When I bring this up to The Princess I'm told the student can't join the earlier lower levelled class because he/she can't "make the time."

So this is what's happened with my adult class. New Guy wants an intermediate conversation class (and really, he could well benefit from the introductory one if his ego wasn't an issue) but we don't have something suitable - so we stick him where he doesn't want to be, and we're all suffering.

Anyways. We broke a new record today at my school. I mentioned it before, but almost a year ago we took over the music school down the hall from us, and my boss converted it into a math school. Recently, The Princess fired our spirited math teacher because she's got a problem showing up to work on time and there were some complaints about the way she dresses. She does kind of look like she's going to a nightclub, but whatever. She agreed to finish working at the end of August and we found a replacement teacher just in the nick of time. New Teacher signed on just last Thursday. She came in Monday for a bit of training and the 1st was her start date. I was hanging out with the middle school girls before their math class started at 8pm. The bell rang and there was no teacher. Five minutes passed and still no teacher. Another five later, and I asked them, "Where's your teacher?" Shrugging of shoulders. You know where she was? She was gone, baby, gone! She had taught four classes and decided that was quite enough thank-you-very-much. She left a note saying buh-bye and turned off her phone as she ran out the door.

I don't know WHAT is going to happen tomorrow!

Puppy Dog Tales

In the previous post when I said there was "more tomorrow," obviously I meant "tomorrow" on Jupiter. Right? (Man, I'm such a geek - I just googled "How long is a day on Jupiter?" and learned that in fact Jupiter's day is under 10 hours long. Go figure.) Okay,...so what I meant by "tomorrow" was "a week on Jupiter," or something like that.

I went up and visited Bella and the puppies a couple weekends ago. It was a nice short visit; we only spent a few hours there, but it didn't start off so well. This time, I went with my boss and "manager." I like my manager, I do - but she is a Korean "Princess" of the highest order. I find it frustrating to accommodate her prissiness and have, on numerous occasions this past summer, decided that if she adjusts the temperature on the school's air conditioner just one more time she will surely die. She'll die and I'll go to prison for it.

So we're driving along and she's busy in the front seat adjusting a sweater over her body whenever an errant beam of sun dares to come through the window and shine upon her person. In addition to having crazy poor circulation and therefore a serious aversion to a cool breeze, she's also decided she's allergic to the sun. I sat glowering in the back thinking about how I could accidentally "trip" her so she could fall into some manure once we got to the farm.

So we arrive, and Bella - the sweet gentle shih-tzu comes bounding out to greet us and The Princess FREAKS OUT!!!! She's also terrified of dogs. So Bella got banished to a bedroom while we sat down for lunch and I sulked. I was there to play with Bella and the puppies! To her credit, The Princess did calm down enough to be in the same vicinity of Bella after awhile, as long as Bella didn't approach her. For some reason (Go, Bella!) the dog wanted to follow the Princess around and mess with her. I'd like to think Bella thought it was fun to bug her, but I think the dog just interpreted The Princess's screaming for excitement. Anyhoo.

Puppies.



Cute.



Cute.



Cutey cute cute cute cute.



The Princess-Eating Monster:



"Hey, Princess! I'z running at you to eat your face off! Raaaargh!"



"I don't have teeth yet, but I'm pretending this toy is The Princess's face. I shall eat her face off when I'm a little older."



After all the playing and the planning of eating faces, all the wee doggies were tuckered out.



Bella was too tired to make it through the doorway.



And so, Inshallah, this chapter of "Rescuing Dogs in Korea" will soon be over. We have found homes for the three puppies. They'll all go to Korean families and my boss has tried to placate me, assuring that they'll all be well cared for, vaccinated, and spayed or neutered. I don't really believe that, but what can I do? Bella is bound next weekend for a new life. She'll join an American family who already have a shih-tzu (a one-eyed male dog named Jack, how cool is that?) and she'll have four kids doting on her. I've learned Bella has a bad habit of wandering off, but I hope her new family will be patient with her. She'll be spayed and micro-chipped, as per U.S. army regulations, and will live in a gated community, where I hope the neighbours will recognize her if she escapes for a little solo adventure. I'm glad that this extended rescue story is coming to a close and I'm looking forward to not worrying about the outcome anymore. Yay.

Jupiter Fun Facts:
Jupiter isn't a rocky planet like Earth, it's a big ball of gas. Stormy gas. The winds on Jupiter gust at over 322 km/h. While a day on Jupiter is about 10 Earth hours, a year on the giant planet is equivalent to about 12 Earth years! Jupiter's equator spins at a rate of about 43,000 kilometres an hour.

I Got Your Cute

Right here, pal.



More tomorrow!

Poachers

I've been in contact lately with one of my former co-workers. I ran into her a few months ago at a department store downtown and we had a little chat. She seemed really excited to see me, which was a bit surprising. I hadn't spoken to her at all since she screwed us over a year and a half ago. She grabbed my hands and apologized for how she had behaved back then, and she had learned a lesson and she missed me so much and yadda yadda. Water under the bridge, I say - and we made tentative plans to meet up sometime soon - as people always seem to do: "Let's get together soon!" She followed up on that promise and I sort of blew her off. Not with malice, but more that I couldn't get my shit together to arrange some time.

Anyhow, she noticed recently that we're advertising for a new teacher and contacted my boss. There was some discussion. Karen advised to absolutely not consider hiring her, and I told them what I thought: that she was unreliable back in the day, but popular with the students. Maybe she's changed. I don't know. When my manager called to follow up, Sunny said she'd just started working at another school. So that was that.

Until yesterday.

I got a message from Sunny that her new boss was looking to hire a foreign teacher and wanted to talk to me. I wondered why. Did he think I might know someone looking for a job? Was he looking for advice? He wanted to come up and meet me yesterday after I finished work - at 11 o'clock! I declined, but said we could perhaps meet another night when I wasn't so tired. I mentioned this to my manager who got instantly suspicious and said I needed to tell the guy to call HER the next time he contacted me.

So, Sunny called me again today and it turns out her boss wasn't really interested in any friend I might have, he was looking to poach me! He was offering 50% more vacation than what I currently get, plus a raise in salary, less working hours, and an apartment downtown in the trendy university area. I laughed, and asked if the guy realized I already had a job,...and half joked "Hmmmmm, but more vacation and less hours,...hmmmmmm!"

After I got off the phone, I told my boss about it. I thought it was funny and frankly, felt a little bit flattered. Sunny must have given me a really glowing review to her boss if he was pursuing me. My boss, however, definitely did NOT find it funny. Within a few minutes he had worked himself into a real lather, and once my manager finished her class he had her get on the phone to Sunny to chew her out. Later, while I was teaching my adult class, the would-be-poacher called my boss and apologized profusely. After my class, I entered the Teacher's Room my boss was still reaming him out. I think he threatened to use his clout within the English School Directors Association to have him permanently shunned. Yowza.

Perhaps I should have thought more about how my boss and manager were going to react, but I never thought they would get so pissed off. I guess trying to steal teachers mid-contract is a serious offence. I can see that point, but now I'm also a little embarrassed that they didn't just leave it up to me to accept the guy's offer and ruuuuuuunnnnn awwwwaaaaayyyyy graciously decline. This might be the final fork stuck in the relationship between Sunny and I, but I'm alright with that.

Bees & Enns

I've got lots to post, but my keyboard is broken. I can't type question marks, or the letters after A or M. It's amazing how annoying this is, especially since I had a giat aaa oaza post plaed. (Using cut and paste - that last bit was giant banana bonanza planned.) Sucks.

Sudden Vacation

My good friend Herb, who I used to work with in Japan, let me know on Monday that he and his lovely wife Mika were arriving in Busan the next day. I'm lucky I had some vacation days left over from last year and was able to wrangle a couple days off on short notice. (One co-worker is super pissed about having to cover my classes, though.) (Tough!) So I'm in Busan and just about to head out for dins. I highly recommend Busan. It's so the wonderful opposite of my sleepy little country neighbourhood. I'd like to also recommend the Elysee Motel in Nampo-dong. For 50,000 won I'm staying in a sizeable room with a giant TV, free computer, fantastic steam shower, and spending an hour this afternoon in the jacuzzi with a half of a bubble bar from LUSH completely mellowed me out. I feel max relaxed and everything is fiiiiine. How are you doing?

Zappified

He's got fangs, sure - but even more dangerous are the laser eyes. He's super pissed because he accidentally directed his lasers into a mirror and they reflected back, zapping off his ear.



Now he can only hear half of what I'm saying as I beg, "Please Kami, look away from me. I'll get you some fish, just please don't disintegrate me."

If I were you, I'd back away from your screen slowwwwwwlllyyyy.

Side By Side English Fail

Maybe these business owners used the same company to create their signage.



"Yea Won," but "Nay Engrishee!"



Salong Juan, and thanks for all the fish.

Yep

I'm so backlogged with posts I've intended to write. Oftentimes I'll take pictures of whatever it is that has inspired a thought about what to write about. After the uploading and copying and pasting and resizing I become distracted by shiny things. Or the TV with its sounds and words, and I just never get around to writing. Or I write and I can't bring myself to publish for some reason. For many reasons.

Here's my cake for my fifth birthday. I'm five.



I'm not five actually. (Just emotionally.) This was the cake marking my fifth year anniversary at my school. Cuh-ray-zee. I never never thought I would last five years here. It's as much a triumph as it is tragically pathetic. I remember my first day at the school, visiting the ladies washroom and encountering the first two stalls with disgustingly splattered squatty toilets and I swore if there was a third version in the next stall I was absolutely outta here. There was a Western throne waiting for me as I opened the final door, so I decided to wait and see.

That cake was good, though. My cake. My co-worker (manager?) celebrated her birthday this past week and my boss got her a cake and a big bunch of pretty but nearing death flowers. If there is a bigger fan of chocolate than my co-worker Cindy, I haven't met them. She spent some time in Australia and hath tasted the riches of a deep moist sweet dense chocolate cake. She's spent time here searching for such a brown unicorn, but I think it's a lost cause. Still, there's no question as to what kind of cake to get for Cindy, but leave it to a man - and you get sweet potato cake. An abomination regardless.

As it was, I woke up early and put together a giant pasta salad. I grilled up vegetables on my silly grilly sandwich press thing, and included smoked chicken and sun-dried tomatoes with a tasty dressing of garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary, thyme, and fresh parsley. After our little celebration less than one third of the heinous "goguma" cake was eaten, while two very big containers of pasta salad were gobbled up. Score!

So there. I've written something. Maybe it'll shake me out of my funk. I'm into my third day of a "staycation" - a term I just came across this week, and I've found that I've had too much time to hang out by myself considering how much I actually hate my current circumstances. Hate-hate.

Hatey-hate-hate-hate.

Here. Look at this bug.



I don't even know what it is, but it looks like an evil flying newt. It's representative of my unhappiness. I coaxed it onto a piece of paper and set it free outside an open window at school. Not a bad lesson: capture the unpleasant and set it free.

**UPDATE: I received an e-mail from someone (perhaps an entomologist?) who points out that bug up above is actually a mole cricket! Here's a couple fun facts: these bugs are quite common, but rarely seen because they spend almost all their lives underground. They're commonly considered to be pests, except in Eadt Asia where they're sometimes considered FOOD! (Fried mole crickets, yum yum yum!) Thank you, E-mailer!**

On the Farm

Last weekend I ventured out to the countryside to visit new mom Bella and her three little puppies.



She's looking quite a bit more svelte than the last time I saw her, but this angle is deceiving, as she's got some juggy pendulous milk filled boobs on her undercarriage. She's being a good mother. I watched her step into the box where her little puppies stayed and lick them awake before settling down to let them nurse. The pups can't see - they're eyes weren't open yet, and they can't walk either, yet they were able to wriggle their way toward Bella's teats to get their milk on. They look like fat little cows.



I had no idea what the puppies would look like. Bella's beau is a mystery. But they're very cute. Once I'd otten back home, I googled "newborn shih-tzu puppies" and I'll be damned, but I'm pretty sure Bella's puppies are the real deal. Here's one of Bella's:



And you can compare that puppy with the ones here.



So they're going to be super cute! I'm planning to go back there next weekend and play with the puppies. By then, their eyes will be open and they'll be mobile. Even though they were cute, on this last visit they just weren't very much fun. Sleep and eat and repeat. Still, I was so pleased that Bella's being such a good caring mother.



My boss's parents have a farm out in the country near Yeoungchun (which is about halfway between Gyueongju and Daegu.) They have jindos out back.



The jindos did not like me and barked their heads off whenever I went near. I just hate the idea that these beautiful big dogs spend their lives chained out back, and I wished they were friendly enough that I could take them all (or one at a time would probably be smarter) for a nice walk. Still, they seem fit and they have shelter and food and water. Actually, my boss's parents had ONE jindo - the one on the far right of the picture. Then one day they were surprised at how fat she'd gotten and wouldn't you know, she'd had a suitor swing by at some point and gotten herself pregnant. So now her two grown children live beside her.

I don't understand it, but I've come across a lot of resistance from folks around here about having animals spayed or neutered. To some, it's unnatural. There are lots of things I've come to learn and understand about K-culture in the near six years I've been here, but generally, their attitude toward animals is just something I can't get my head around. I try not to think about it very often becuase it riles me up something wicked. So let's change the subject for now, yes?

Pile of puppies, pile of puppies, pile of puppies.



(Oh, let me add that even though the Jindos live chained out back, Bella is being spoiled. She has free run of the farm and seems so happy! I was laughing at how she would come BOUNDING toward me when I'd call her. She's well fed and cared for. I just hope she stays the hell away from the big yellow dogs who seem like they would very much like to have her for breakfast. (Same goes for her puppies. I'm already worried that they won't have the sense to keep back once they're mobile.)



Out back, my boss's mom keeps pots filled up with kimchi, denjang, and gochujang. His mom is a fantastic cook, and we enjoyed rustic home-style delicious meals. With pork. Lots and lots of pork! No pictures, but we had fried fish and denjang jjigae for dinner Saturday. Kimchi jjigae for lunch Sunday, and (I forget the very long name for it) delicious pork bone soup and sliced steamed pork (bo-ssam?) for dinner. My boss's mom makes the best kimchi I've ever tasted and she's always so generous making sure I'm well stocked.



They grow grapes. Yeoungchun, I was told, "is famous for it's grapes, plums, and peaches."



They're not ready for harvest. Around Chuseok it's grape season. In the early fall these greenies will be purpley-blue and ready for eating. I still prefer sweet seedless grapes from North America, which I'm so glad are available at the larger supermarkets these days.

I don't think I'd ever seen a chestnet tree before.



And o'er yonder is a plum orchard.



I left the farm Sunday evening loaded down with plums, cukes, eggplant, and a massive amount of their spring harvested crops: onions, potatoes, and garlic. I've actually given about two thirds of my loot away and I still have enough to last ages. Oh, and I scored a nice sized tub of my boss's mother's outstandingly stinky denjang paste.

At one point Sunday afternoon I picked myself up off the livingroom floor where I'd been alternately dozing and watching a movie and walked outside with Bella into a field where I just stood for awhile and listened to the river gurgle by, and cows lowing in the distance. Hundreds of dragonflies flew around me. I felt so calm and content.

And hot.

My god, it was hot. I could have slipped into a joyous happy trance if it weren't for the fact I felt like I was bloody well melting. I had to go get some cream on Monday for the heat rash that had enveloped my mid-section over the weekend. Damn!

Still, good times.

Soft Core

My neighbourhood has recently become dotted with these punchey vending machine games things that have replaced the crane candy grab and slidey platform game things that replaced the old timey yellow crane dollar store sing a song grabby game machine thingies.

You know what I mean, right?

The new punchey vending machine game things are high tech looking neon lit boop-dee-boo happy la-la tune things.

*Excuse me a moment* "GAM-BEH! ONE SHOT!" *CLINK*

Where was I? *Hic!*

The prizes offered were these little animated cartooney things. You put the in the sunlight and they waggle their heads and maybe their feet and they also sing a happy song tell the time hold your spare change do nothing else. Their cute factor is engaging for about five minutes, but then they're fairly boring. I know this because I stupidly threw out my television when I won at the punchey vending machine, figuring I'd have all the viewing entertainment I'd need with Doraemon here:



Turns out, not so much. I keep violently shaking him, "DO SOMETHING ELSE!" But, he just smiles at me and wags his head and feet back and forth.

I guess the neighbourhood kids complained to the vending machine makers. In this age of computers and game-boys and cellphones, I imagine the solar powered bobble head animated character things aren't cutting the mustard. So there have been some new additions in the machines to please the kiddies:



Soft core pr0n anime dolls! Yeeeee haw!
(Money Box! Cherries! Bwa ha ha ha ha!)

They come in a variety of poses, and don't even move in the sunlight, but still - they're TAKING OFF THEIR CLOTHES!



Can't....look....away!



I wonder what they'll put in the machines next?

Some Students

I shouldn't hate kids. I know this. I'm a teacher and I should embrace the challenge of bestowing some Engulishee on children in my classes; especially the ones who don't give a crap and are better suited to some sort of class where the goal is to wander around trying to stab other students with pencils. Pencil stabbing class. Fun!

Most of my students are great. Some are outstanding. I often feel like scooping up one or another into my arms and telling then how spectacular they are, but generally the scooping and the smushing is embarrassing for the kids - so I find another way to point out their awesomeness.

But there are some students,....hoooooo boy - I wonder what their mothers are thinking. By and large they are "first sons" which is a prized position here in Korea. Even more often, the ones that give me the most hassle are "only sons," and I think to myself,...well something about maybe the kid should visit a temple and praise Buddha they're not MY first son because I would smite them for their shitty behaviour. Smite, I say. ("Beat" I don't say, because that's not PC. I would never beat a child, but yet sometimes my imagination runs wild.) Still, I realize that my worse students have been somehow created to be wee monters, so I sometimes imagine smiting their moms who probably find their children's tantrums adorable.

It's the students who make me micro-manage my classes that bug me. The ones who can't stay in their seats. The ones who are compelled to hit their classmates. The ones who can't help themselves from constantly interrupting my lessons with their bad behaviour. I have one middle school student who just recently started, and I knew almost instantly he was going to be trouble when I tried to give him an English nickname. (This is fairly common in English classes, and I don't dislike it - it's so much easier than trying to remember 200 names that are foreign to my vocabulary. Regardless, that's the way it's always been done at my school, so I don't have a choice. "Be Yoon Ji" becomes "Joe." Fine by me. I like to provide the students with a few choices and let them pick their nickname. It takes a little more time than me just knighting them, "Ye shall be 'Donna,'" but I think it's good that make they own their choice. Usually I start off suggesting their name should be Spider Man.

So I knew my new middle school student was going to bug me when before I could get out the first syllable of my first suggestion of "Ja-son," he interrupted with his choice: "Hit-ler."
"Sorry?"
"Hitler! My name-uh is-uh Hitler."
"Are you kidding? Nong-dam?"
"HITLER!"

I assured him his name would NOT be Hitler, and asked him if he knew who Hitler was. Perhaps he did know, but he lacked the English to tell me. Hand to heart, he actually looked a bit like Hitler, with a severe side-part and hook-nose. Had puberty grown him a wee mustache, he could have entered a contest. I named him "Tony," after a thorn in my side boy I taught five years ago who has grown into a fabulous high school student complete with charisma and manners.

Long story short, Tony's new name didn't make a lick of difference. He railroaded my classes, and made teaching a most unpleasant experience. With four boys in that class, two of which lacked ability and the other two lacking interest (or enthusiasm or manners) they became my most hated class. They are my last class of the day on Wednesdays and Fridays. My second most hated class is chalk full of "first sons." I've got them first thing on Monday morning. They fight and whine and tattle-tale and take every liberty they think they can get away with. It's like my week is bookended by crap.

Yay, me.
And, "to be continued,....."

Bella's Babies

Bella had three puppies last Friday morning! There are two little boys and a girl! I haven't seen pictures yet, but I'm sure they're adorable. I'll share them as soon as I get them. Puppies!!

In other news, I stood outside for five minutes tonight hanging up laundry, and two hundred and forty three mosquitoes bit me.

That is all.

Bella's Belly

Remember the shih-tzu I rescued? She's so pretty! Things were moving along very well. An American military family who lives up in Seoul contacted me, very interested in Bella. They already have a shih-tzu they adopted from Animal Rescue Korea and with four kids and a mom who stays home, I knew it would be a great match for Bella. She's a very loving dog and really loves attention.

The Friday before last, we brought her into the animal hospital to get her a summer hair cut. I had wanted to wait, thinking that she might not get adopted as easily if she looked like a rat, but it turns out she's a pretty little girl under all that fur!



When I went to pick her up, I saw that her fur had also been hiding some massive nipples on her belly. I pointed at them and asked, "Is she pregnant?"
"No. Ande."
"Really? And she's never had babies before?"
The nurse confirmed she hadn't. I asked what was up, then, with the big knockers - and was told that she wanted babies.

Oh!

So I later googled something about dogs wanting babies and discovered that indeed, unspayed females can conjure up phantom puppies in their bellies.



"And the bitch was all 'I gotz me some ghost babies! Boo!' (Yaka!)"

So, okay. I agreed to have Bella spayed down here before I brought her up to Seoul on Saturday to meet her new family. My boss took her in Thursday morning and the vet expressed surprise at how seriously Bella was growing up her phantom puppies in her belly. One ultra-sound later and guess what? The ghosts are not so much ghostly as they are actually. Puppies. Fur realz.

One week later,....



"But he was so sweet, and promised he would still love me in the morning!"

So we didn't know quite what to do. My boss and co-workers (and the vet) thought I was sort of a monster for suggesting a spay/abortion sort of thing, but turns out Bella's quite far along and it could be dangerous for her, as you'd imagine. On the other hand, if they'd confirmed her pregnancy over three weeks ago when I'd brought her in for health tests and asked if she was pregnant - and told no,...the spay wouldn't have been an issue because the puppies would have been tiny. They wouldn't have even known she was pregnant before they operated.

I LOVE animals - and puppies!! Well, who doesn't love puppies?! But with so many dogs being put down at shelters everyday, and so many dogs roaming around Korea without homes, what we don't need is more puppies. Still, I would never want to risk the safety of any animal, so if the vet says no-go, then okay.


"It's okay. You can haz puppies."

So Bella's been moved to my bosses' mother's house out in the country. It's not the first time that she's overseen dog labour and birth. I'm glad that Bella's being watched so closely, and know that she'll be taken to the vet's if there are any complications, which there could be. Since only Bella knows who the papa is, she might be growing some big puppies in her belly. It could be troublesome. Fingers crossed everything goes well, and soon!

Hopefully the family who decided to adopt her won't change their mind while they wait for her to nurse her babies until they're ready to be adopted. So one down and, according to the vet, maybe four or five more to go.

Anyone want a cute little puppy in a couple months?