Restless Seoul : Sick and Tired (of being sick and tired)

Hello all! I wish I was coming to you from a better place, but I'm pretty sick these days. I'll keep it short.

Some funny things:

My fifth graders for 50 class points so we had a snack party. They bring in snacks and we watch a movie. Kids are so easy to please. I learned from last year that Narnia transcends culture and time, so we showed it to them and they are totally hooked and will not shut up about it.

So much focus

Love my 5th graders

Not so funny things:

We had a dance performance Saturday and I had an open class Wednesday, so I knew I would be really busy all week. What I did not account for was how sick I would get and how hard this week would be on me overall.

These losers give me life though

I didn't sleep well Sunday, and my class schedule was all sorts of messed up this week for open classes. Then we had frustrating rehearsals on Monday and Tuesday in which I didn't get home until after 12.

Whenever I tell people I'm leaving Korea they get all nooooooooooo whyyyyyyyyyyy and then on Tuesday my principal called So Jung into her office and basically interrogated her as to why I'm not staying. She listed off all the reasons I should stay, like that the kids and teachers like me and I'm a good teacher and I'm a good representation of America to them and I'm so open to Korean culture blah blah blah. So Jung has stopped teasing me about leaving since she knows it upsets me, and she told the principal she wouldn't ask me to reconsider.

"I'm trying to understand her heart," So Jung told the principal about me, "and I am sad but if she wants to leave I want to send her off happily."

I wish I could bring So Jung back to America with me because she is my guardian angel.

So I was emotional and tired, and experiencing a bit of a panic attack about all the pressures of leaving and staying, along with symptoms that I would later realize were my illness.

Come janggu class time, in the back of my head I knew I shouldn't go. But I like the teachers and it's fun, so I tried to destress with it.

It did not work.

We started off with the janggu, which is pictured here as the bigger hourglass shaped drum, before moving on to the drum we started learning last week: the Ggwaenggwari (which is named after the sound it makes).

It's much harder and much more annoying of a sound.

Last week we started learning it and So Jung and I were really bad at it, but it was hilarious. This week, however, I was still bad at it and kept being picked on for my posture and other things. Mind you, all the teachers who do this are Korean and the whole thing is taught in Korean in terminology that I don't exactly understand, so it's hard for me to keep up and translate everything in my head. If the Koreans are bad at it, it's expected that I'm going to be worse, but it really struck me and I had to leave to collect myself in the bathroom.

When I came back, So Jung (bless her) kept asking if I was okay right until we left, but I couldn't really tell her all the turmoil going on inside my head so I kept it to "I'm having a bad allergy day" which explains my puffy eyes away.

When I offered to take her stuff up to the room so she could leave straight from class, she looked suspicious but didn't push it. I sat in my classroom and cried for a while for so many reasons, none of which I can remember or explain. I used to get panic attacks like this in grad school a lot, and they're really draining.

Unfortunately we had a full evening of shopping for our dance outfits then rehearsal Tuesday night, so no rest for me. Thankfully the girls in my group are really great and supportive, but the dance studio politics are wearing on me.

I got home after midnight to find this:

The bottom rack in my closet collapsed.

And then I woke up Wednesday to an incredibly sore throat and a fight I'm still in now with my stupid body.

I thought I just needed sleep, but after several days of 5 classes and sleep not really working, I went to the international healthcare center at my hospital on Friday. We had our dance performance on Saturday and I couldn't let anyone down.

The result? Just like in real Kpop style, I got to live the life of a Kpop star. Sometimes when they are really busy they get exhausted but still have schedules, things like this happen:

Yup. Real Korean hospital experience of getting an IV of vitamins and antibiotics.

When the nurses saw my temperature they all gasped and basically threw a mask at me. Then when the doctor looked at my throat for .0000001 seconds she almost dropped the stick and gasped "It's so red omg" and they didn't understand how I was functioning. Weirdly, on Friday I had felt the best since Tuesday, so I was surprised too.

I thought I was going to be better.

After an hour letting my IV pump me full of goodness and 3 days more worth of pills, I went home to rest.

I know I shouldn't have done my dance thing but I felt shitty either laying around my apartment or being out so I might as well make it worthwhile for all the hard work the girls put into the performance.

It was a really fun day but I couldn't enjoy it to the fullest since I was weak and woozy. We got it done though, and we did well.

Here are some fun pics from Stella (far right in the white shirt) and her husband of the performance.