March-June-?

A gorgeous apartment, a title to a new/old car, a crappy diet, three and a half months since my previous post, and I've finally decided to blog again (for the last time this year, no doubt). A lot has happened since March; happenings that I had every intention of writing about, but I somehow managed to become increasingly lazier as spring moved into summer (I blame the humidity... but I suppose it wasn't really humid until last week).

First: The new apartment. Simply put, it's positively amazing. I'm pretty sure I will never live in such a nice place again, as I'll never be able to afford a place like this in any other part of the world. Only in Korea could I get away with such a deal. Just to give you an idea of my new abode, here's a little peek:

I also purchased a car a couple of months ago to make the long commute between the above palace in Busan to my bothersome place of employment in Ulsan. I don't have any pictures of it (it's too dirty at the moment to take pictures for public viewing), but it's a little '96 Hyundaii Avante and it was cheap, which is the important thing. It gets me from point A to point B every day without any problems (yet... knock on wood), so I'm happy with it.

I've been cooking up a storm over the past couple of months, which I suppose is another noteworthy tidbit of news. It's as though my domestic-side has lain dormant for the majority of my 28 years, and now I'm making up for lost time. It should be mentioned, however, that my recent cooking adventures (and they are indeed dangerous adventures) have been the result of a diet change that would have left me with very few food options if I hadn't made use of my oven and frying pan. As mentioned in previous posts, I had been suffering from sinus infections and tonsillitis galore for eight months straight with seemingly no hope for recovery. After talking about all of my symptoms with a nutritionist-friend of mine awhile back, she came to the conclusion that I could quite possibly have Candida. She put me on the Candida diet for a month to see what would happen. I'm happy to report that, even though this diet has been a big pain-in-the-butt, I haven't been sick in six weeks (a huge accomplishment!) and I'm feeling the best I've felt in months. But, as I said before, the diet is indeed a huge pain, and I've been forced to become more creative in the kitchen as of late. Much to my surprise, I'm not the terrible cook I always believed myself to be, although I would be lying if I said I haven't had any huge flops (like making an avocado soup using avocados that weren't ripe... but I choked it down anyway!). This website has definitely been a huge help in my recent ventures.

In other news, rainy season is upon us here in Korea. There has been a perpetual rain/mist cloud hanging low in the sky for the past month or so with only a few breaks here and there long enough for the sun to come out and steam things up a bit. I have a feeling it's going to be an exceptionally humid summer and my hair, for one, is not up for such a challenge. Lucky me.... I've been looking like a brunette version of Einstein over the past few muggy days (without the brains).

Well.... I've never known how to conclude a blog post gracefully, especially when it's all over the map as this one seems to be. I could promise to write here more often, as I tend to dishonestly do from time to time, but I'm not even going to bother this time. So without further ado, this is where it stops. Good night.

Semi-Annual Update

I've done a lovely job of neglecting this thing, haven't I? I was going to blame it on the fact that I now have a routine, causing one day to blur into the other and thus leaving me with nothing of interest to say here. But I just scrolled down my page and realized I failed to write much when I didn't have a routine, either.... Maybe I'm just a woman of few words. (Or maybe I just lack any form of discipline.)

The sinus infection has almost completely gone (knock on wood)! A couple of weeks or so ago, I went to the doctor to have him examine my useless sinuses (that I'm still a little angry with) and he surprised me with a shot in my cedar end (as my grandma likes to call it). Fortunately he didn't give it to me himself--he sent his nurse in to do his bidding. His nurse was a burly woman (if burly women do indeed exist in Asia) and she seemed to be a little insensitive and cold toward my nervous, "Will it hurt?" questions. She told me to bend over the table, then proceeded to jerk down my pants, slap my bum twice as hard as she could (at least that's how it felt), then she stuck the needle in. If distraction was what she was aiming for, then she did a great job. I was so stunned by the spanking that I didn't even realize I had gotten the shot, so I was a little surprised when I noticed she was standing there glaring at me, waiting for me to pull my pants back on and kindly leave the room. And now let's hope that I don't get sick again within the near future, because I would really rather not go through that whole episode again, thank you very much.

Other than that little tidbit of news, I really have nothing else to report. Jimmy has gotten a little better about controlling his bowel movements (he only had an accident in my class two times last week!), and the rest of my students seem to be getting along just fine. The novelty of having a new teacher has finally worn off, so my classes are now surprisingly calm. And I would even venture to say that my kids are developing a bit of an attitude; when I walk into their classrooms, they no longer run toward me screaming and smiling and saying "I love you, Miss McClintic!" (they seriously did that every day up until a couple of weeks ago). Nowadays they actually seem a little annoyed that they have to sit on the floor and interact with someone in a language they would really rather not speak. I can't say that I blame them, though (and it definitely helps that they're still cute).

OK, it was a poor attempt at a blog entry, but at least it was still an attempt, right? I'll try to update sooner next time, but I won't bother making a promise, as I seem to almost purposely break them.

Fall, Sicknesses, and Poopy Pants

Obscene amounts of overtime at work and lesson-plans fit for 40-year-olds instead of 4-year-olds--I believe that's where I last left you. Since then, the overtime has dwindled into non-existence and the lesson plans have become more manageable (i.e. I've quit following them verbatim). Life is finally starting to settle down a bit in the grimy city of Ulsan. Fall is trying to make it's way into October, but it's failing somewhat miserably. There were a few days of chilly breezes last week, but they have quickly been replaced by sticky humidity and mildly warm temperatures. Maybe most people would be okay with summer lingering a little longer, but I miss the cool autumns that force me to bust out my sweaters and hideously pink (but ridiculously comfortable) fuzzy slippers. But maybe by the time November rolls around, the weather around here will finally decide to act according to the season.

With the changing of the seasons--no matter how small the changes may be--inevitably comes various illnesses, most typically the flu and head colds. I have not at all been immune to any such illnesses. If anything, I seem to be the carrier and primary sufferer of them. I have yet another head cold at the moment and it is acting suspiciously like a sinus infection (green snot and the works!). This weekend was number four out of the five weekends we've been here that I've been too sick to go out and do anything. (Poor me, yadda yadda. Remedy advice is welcome.) To top off the boredom that has been spawned from my current situation, I'm feeling a teeny bit guilty for exposing my itty bitty students to the nasty germs that seem to be seeping from my pores. A number of my students were absent due to flu-like symptoms on Friday, and I can't help but feel somewhat responsible for infecting the little tykes. (Then again, since Koreans insist on working through sickness and health and expect their foreigner employees to do the same, can I really be blamed?)

Moving on to other student-related news: I have a little boy in one of my 4-year-old classes named Jimmy, who I think is at least borderline retarded. Aside from his odd behavior during class (he randomly screams in neither English nor Korean at times and then stares off into space with his mouth gaping open for sometimes up to 10 minutes), he seems to have a hitting problem (he doesn't discriminate between teachers and other students), and he is always running into things--namely the wall (he likes to hit students and then run away while looking over his shoulder and, consequently, usually ends up in a head-on collision with the nearest wall or door). There is clearly something askew with the poor little guy, but his mother seems to be in complete denial and insists on sending him to a regular kindergarten, in spite of his inability to interact normally with other students, let alone with the teachers. All of that aside, Jimmy has a pooping problem. As in, he does it frequently. And he usually does it in his pants. While teaching his math class on Tuesday, I suddenly got a whiff of something fowl that resembled a ripe, poopy diaper. The smell was so strong that it immediately hit my gag reflex and I let out a dry heave. The two students on either side of Jimmy crinkled their noses up a little bit, but simply scooched a few more inches away from him, without tearing their faithful little gazes away from the chalk board. This was my first sign that maybe this happens to Jimmy a lot. I signaled a nearby Korean teacher to haul Jimmy out of class, as the foreign teachers are not allowed to take a student into the bathroom (a rule that I'm even more thankful for nowadays). She returned with Jimmy, who was clad in a new pair of pants, about 15 minutes later, a disgusted look planted on her face and a relaxed and rejuvenated look on his. On Thursday, my hunch about Jimmy having a pooping problem turned out to be correct, as the same scenario repeated itself in my P.E. class. Lucky, lucky me. Here's hoping I can keep my gag reflex under control for the remainder of the year.

Well, the believed-to-be-cold-medicine (one can never be sure when they don't speak the language of the pharmacist!) I took earlier seems to be kicking in and I'm getting a little too drowsy to be writing my deep, insightful stories on life in Korea. But I promise, more stories will come....