Don’t worry : 2 Reasons
Ah… for the last few days my body has been resisting whatever sickness that has been thrust upon me, so I think that I’ll just give in. Several of my students have been apologetic about missing classes lately but when they described their circumstances, I couldn’t be too mad… just concerned for my own health. One of my coolest students, Sean, relayed his story to me very casually, even though Korean parents rarely send their precious snowflakes to the hospital unless they are profusely bleeding or missing limbs.
He explained that his neck started to hurt in one of his classes. After a day or two, he couldn’t move it left or right. At the time, I tried to nod in understanding, but realized that it was difficult. He then told me about raging fevers, dizziness, nausea. My blood ran cold… or maybe it was a cold sweat coming on? I had walked home the previous night and felt very dizzy as I walked up the stairs in my building.
Either way, I have been sick but I am happy to report that a hospital visit has not been provoked. I have a few goals while in Korea and one is not to visit the hospital since my employee physical (other goals consist of ordering pizza in Korean and so forth, so this is probably my serious one). So here I am, rehabilitating in my day off. Yesterday I had to wear my glasses to work because some kind of extraterrestrial mucus has lined around my eyes. I feel it again this morning, but now my throat feels coated in the same ooze. I’ve had hot oatmeal and coffee to try to loosen it, and I think that it’s working. Sorry if you’ve already lost your lunch.
Sickness aside… there have been some concerns about the struggles between North and South Korea. I have to say, the sentiment in Seoul is “Eh, no worries.” So I will adopt that same response here: don’t worry. The North has pretty much stated that they will not do anything unless provoked and honestly, no one here wants to incite riotous behavior or solicit more threats of retaliation. For more on this, you can check out CNN.com
Aside from my sickness grievances and notions about preemptive strikes, I’ve been having a good time here recently. Though I was on the cusp of becoming sick, I still felt the need to go out this past Saturday with friends - I don’t let no illness get me down. I went to Hongdae with Tomasz, Terri, and some friends of theirs. One of Tomasz’s friends arrived that Saturday night in Seoul around 11ish and met up with us after leaving the airport. I have some ridiculous photos of the guy walking around with his suitcase and drinking beer. One one point, me and Terri carried the suitcase for him because he had cordially been welcomed to Seoul with more booze. We ended up going to a really nice hookah bar (was truly light tobacco, no crazy Korean wacky tobacky here), but after some drunk Korean chick ran into our table and knocked over our hookah - to cause burning ash to rain down upon a few of us - I decided that it was time to go. If I’ve learned one thing so far, I’ve learned when to make an exit.
Talk to everyone soon!
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