When Allergies Attack

Hello all! I hope everyone is doing better than me, which isn't saying much.

The week started out in a way that I now can see was going to be indicative of the week to come. My throat had been a bit sore since Saturday evening, and on Monday I was hoping for some good soup at lunch. Unfortunately we had seaweed soup, but we had ice cream so I was like "eh this is fine."

Plot twist: it wasn't fine.

On Tuesday my throat condition worsened, I felt some pressure in my ears, and late in the afternoon I felt feverish, so on the way home I stopped at the ear, nose, throat doctor right near my apartment. I got some meds for a double ear infection and tonsilitis, and applauded myself for being an adult and taking care of things.

If only that had been the case.

Wednesday morning I started to notice some itchy red blotches forming on my body, especially my legs.

You can see them a little here.

 I thought nothing much of it, but on my walk to school EVERYTHING was so itchy. And when I walked into my office, So Jung immediately noticed and was like OMG ARE YOU OKAY WHAT IS ON YOUR LEGS

Definitely not just dry skin or a big bite.

We called the ENT to see if he had given me any sulfa medicine, since I'm allergic, but he assured me he didn't as it is in my file. He explained the medicines and my coteacher called the Mokdong hospital. If I wanted to see the allergist, I had to get the paperwork from the ENT, or go to the general physician and get a checkup and recommendation, then go to the allergist.


I took off of work asap and went to the hospital, where upon seeing my symptoms the nurse recommended the dermatologist (if I had to see the general doctor and the allergist I might not have time to see a new ENT, and since I was in the midst of a reaction the allergist can't do much since we couldn't 100% determine the cause) so I went there. Upon research with her, it appears I may have developed an allergy to Amoxil, in the amoxicillin family. She gave me allergy meds with the assurance that it was 70% sure it was a drug reaction. If not, it would get much worse. Yikes.


I saw an ear doctor and discovered I have some hearing loss in both my ears due to whatever infection is happening. Then I saw the throat doctor who game me medicine for the ear infections and for the pharyngitis he diagnosed. I was told all the times I came before I should have seen the ENT, not the general doctor, but they aren't always there and also to me they seemed to do nothing different than the general doctor. We even had an x-ray of my sinuses done and my throat wasn't red last time I went, so I don't think I was wrong I think something else came up.

I was also given 2 weeks of medicine and told to come back for a checkup. Also, if it;s not healed, I have to consider surgery for my ears and/or my tonsils. Send some good vibes for it to get better.

Thursday brought almost agonizing itching on my longest day of classes, so I am not sure how I powered through.

Seems worse to me... Very bad on my ankles I almost clawed them off.

Every day after school I just went to sleep, so this time Tina came over both to help take care of me and my loneliness, and to see what was going on. It's hard to show in pictures and words just how bad it was.

But I'll try.

Sorry it's kind of gross. 

Thursday evening. 

Again, really bad on my ankles.

I wasn't convinced I was getting better, so I decided to ask my coteacher to call again on Friday to see if I had to go in again.

Skyping my parents has been rough because they're worried but so far away. There's really nothing to be done. 

Mom made me feel better with some motivation to look forward to coming home:

Cannot wait to see these big lovebugs.

Don't worry, I'm fine now. And despite having at least 3 hospital visits this month, things seem to be looking up. 

Friday brought slightly less itching, but my rash was turning more purple, which had both me and So Jung concerned.

Looks worse? Feels better???

So Jung called the hospital and confirmed that it did look worse but that's how it heals, and it was actually getting better.

I must again take the time to thank whatever powers that be exist in this universe for giving me So Jung as my coteacher because she was really sick this week too and she took such good care of me just as a unni would for their little sister. 

So Jung had an ear infection too and when she went for an IV the nurse was like "this is weird," which is one of the things Koreans say quickly as they are quite reactionary people. "Does your arm usually turn this red when there's an IV?" So Jung said no and began to think of all the ways she could die now. Then her arm stiffened up and her wrist turned green, so she requested that the IV be removed so she didn't have to amputated her arm. When getting blood drawn, the nurse was like "that's weird," which So Jung and I agree is in the top 3 things you don't want your nurse to say while she's sticking a needle in your arm, "normal people this much blood comes out and for you it's this (indicating much less) so it will be hard to do the test." Very concerned at this point, So Jung says she will come back tomorrow to see the doctor. That was also an adventure, as to test her equilibrium the doctor put blackout goggles with cameras on her and shook her head a lot. In conclusion she too has an ear infection causing vertigo, so she was not in a good condition this week either. 

So Jung and I promised to meet each other healthier on Monday. 

Friday after school I was going to meet with Grace and Tina to see Mozart! I was glad to be feeling better despite my legs being like purple, so I left school optimistic. 

I did have an incident on the subway. Here copied from my facebook:

"Nothing like starting my weekend with a drunk old guy following me in the subway station and onto the train while yelling things at me like "WHERE ARE YOU FROM" over and over til I pull out my headphones and answer. Had to employ the classic "wait til the doors are about to close and dart off before he can follow" technique."

I had been waiting for the train and saw someone walk by slowly and glanced to see a man drinking out of a black plastic bag. He was staring at me a lot then yelled HELLO repeatedly, which I ignored but got the attention of everyone else. When the train arrived I waited for him to get on one car and darted to another and moved quite far in, sitting between two people rather than leaving an empty seat near me.

As we stopped at each stop, he moved into my car and moved closer in seats. The woman next to me got up to check the map, leaving her bag on the seat. He moved her bag and sat next to me, and began yelling questions at me about where I was from and if I was a student. I lasted perhape 2 stops, taking out my headphones to give a terse answer to shut him up as all the people on the subway stared.

Finally, Tina advised me to just get off, and as it seemed he was on for the long haul I did just that. I waited until the doors were about to close and quickly grabbed my bag and darted off so he had no time to react and follow me. I headed to the exit and watched the train leave before returning to the platform.


I don't tell this story to alarm anyone, but it's a very real thing I've had to deal with more times than I care to admit. I am certainly looking forward to not being so obviously different, since they don't act like it to other Koreans. Sigh. I made it, but it really makes me feel violated and disgusted when that stuff happens.


Finally we made it to Gwanghwamun and got dinner and chatted before the show. It's always nice to hang with Grace, and we all love musicals.


I didn't know much about Mozart. It's a German musical and has never been in English. Tina saw it before, but this time we went specifically because Cho Kyuhyun from Super Junior (Aka my first kpop bias) was Mozart. I have since moved on to other biases in SuJu (My Donghae~) and other groups besides SuJu (Beast being my ultimate group), but Kyuhyun is my first love~

My loves~

Cheap seats!

I had to pee for like all of the first act, which is 75 min. It was tough but I know this theatre is picky about letting you back in. Also the only song I really knew from the show was the finale of the act. 

But the show went really fast! It's mostly songs, and though a lot of them are introspective (why doesn't my dad love me, why is my son so arrogant, why do I have to do these things, blah blah) I was so into the music. The rotating stage was not as cool as Dracula, but it made me feel things all the same. The music reminded me of Jesus Christ Superstar, and also reminded me of the parts I like from like every other musical. It was awesome!

Here's Kyuhyun's amazing song from Mozart. His voice is no joke, It even has English subs~

After, we took pics with the cool things set up.

If you put props, we will use them.

In the show, the inner child genius of Mozart uses his blood to make masterpieces. 

Tina and I are quite dramatic

The Koreans watching kept being like "omg so cute! So fun! They're so creative!" Because Tina and I are cool with making fools of ourselves. 

I got that bitch back by stabbing her in the back.

 After taking pics, we went outside to the stage door. This is where we had met Park Eun Seok, Dracula, but we knew Kyuhyun was really famous so it would be a bit crazier.

Crazy it was. People were lined up from the door to his manager's car, and as soon as he came out it was a frenzy of phones and cameras and people shoving each other to get close. His manager was in front of him pushing fans out of the way, and when he got to the car people surrounded it. It was insane and honestly we all felt kind of disgusted.

Also this is the kind of picture you get when Kyuhyun, tired after a 3 hour show, is trying to rush to his car to avoid crazy fans:

I didn't take this, obviously. 

 Seriously? Come on. Calm down. Let him live.


We went home and tried to relax, but we had had such a good time that we were up quite late.

Tina and I rested until we headed out late in the afternoon to Wink taphouse to see some Korean Indie bands. They're trying to bring Korean Indie culture to foreigners, apparently. We thought it sounded like a chill night, so we went.

They seemed pretty similar to mainstream Korean music to me, but I like the second band a lot. They did some covers of American songs. And they were adorable and said things like "I can't language" and I love those little phrases, plus I thought it was cool of them to come out and do lots of English and Korean songs.

The Corona

Not the beer though

Tina got the Wink dog

Sunday we went shopping for some makeup in Sinchon and saw these cute kids performing TWICE and SISTAR songs we know

Cute kids~

Then we went to dance class! I'm still far from 100% so I got really worn out, but I did much better than last week anyway.

This week it was IOI - Dream Girls, IOI is the group formed from that show Produce 101 that I watched, and the song is cute.

If you want to see the dance better

And here's meeeeeeeeeeeee.

It was pretty fun but I am so tired haha. 

Tina, Shannon, and I busted out our AOA-Apink skirts. Tina and Shannon killed it too!

I hope this week is less sick than the last few have been... We don't have too much time left teaching, which is really nice. Hopefully things go smoothly!

Love you all!

Game of Thrones finale tomorrow :(   What will I do with my life???

Stay well~

How is June already halfway over?

Hello all~

Here I am unable to believe that time is flying by. Each day feels kind of long but suddenly everything is going so fast. I can't believe it's the end of June. Whoaaaa



First of all BEAST IS HAVING ONE MORE COMEBACK BEFORE I GO HOME YASSSSSSSSSSSS

So excited

It will be weird to see them as a group of 5 instead of 6 but still. So stoked! Maybe they'll have one more concert before I go~

This week was long and complicated. On Wednesday we had a teacher bonding day and we were split into groups. Mine was a bunch of young teachers I like, so I was happy. We had 15,000 won to spend on each person and couldn't spend it on food, so we went to Mustoy in Hongdae where you can make a little ceramic doll thing. 

I'm not very artistic so I was like oh no but it was really fun.

Some examples like characters from Kakaotalk (The popular Korean texting app) and Inside out!

So many!

All so good

I got the girl model that had a hair flip on the side, but I used ll my artistic knowhow to make it so my character was facing the side. I made No Face from Spirited Away~

First you draw it on paper then with marker. There's rubbing alcohol if it doesn't work well or if you mess up

So Jung is reeeeeeeally good at artsy stuff so she made Alice!

Shinae made Captain America and I can't remember what Seul made but it was also awesome. We also got complimentary teas and coffees~

No Face is a simple design, but coloring the whole thing black was it's own problem. You have to let the marker dry or else it will come off on everything, and sometimes the marker makes weird lines. So mine took longer than expected.

Coloring~

I just wanted it to be recognizable 

No face, no problem

No Face, Captain America, Alice, and Ponyo 

We looked for a restaurant but all the ones I knew were on the other side of Hongdae, so we opted to look near the studio. But the place we found was closed. They were set on Japanese curry, and were like "oh this one really good place is close!" And we proceeded to walk... to the other side of Hongdae... 

On our way, we found a Ghibli Store!

The theme from Howl's Moving Castle was playing while we were inside and I got really emotional about going home. Ghibli stuff reminds me of home and Ronnie's house so it hit me really hard that day.

All aboard! 

Cat bus to Hongdae please~

We made it to the restaurant but I had to leave a bit early since I had other cool arrangements to meet Lauren, Grace, and Tina to see an acclaimed Korean movie: Agashi, or The Handmaiden.

All I knew about this movie beforehand was "lesbians" but to reduce such a spectacular movie to just that is a sin.



Plot: "Korea, 1930s. Con man Count Fujiwara hires a pickpocket named Sook-hee to become the maid of the mysterious and fragile heiress Lady Hideko, in an attempt to seize her wealth. But the story takes a twist when the lady falls in love with her maid."

There are so many plot twists and turns in the movie that my head was spinning. It was seriously such a good movie. 

We got home really late so Thursday was a bit difficult. Fortunately I had some plans to keep me going: a date!

A guy messaged me and said he had met me on Tinder, which is weird since I do not have a Tinder. Upon me saying this, he confessed that he had met a girl named Francesca on Tinder and tried to find her on facebook, but found me instead. My profile is hella private, so you can't see much except my profile and cover photos. I must remind everyone that my profile picture at this particular moment is this:

So I find all of this hilarious. Turns out this guy is in graduate school for translating and interpreting, so his English is pretty impeccable. We went out for chicken and beer and hung out at the Han River where my profile shot was taken. It was really fun! 

I'm not looking for anything serious but it is fun to see how these things turn out! 

Saturday Lauren, Tina, and I went to Hyehwa to see Tina's co Young Ah have a drum performance!

Here with the spinny hat and the janggu, which I like playing

She's playing the gwaengari, the small metal drum that I hate.

After, we got food and drinks at the amazing Mix and Malt, and had a good time. 

On Sunday Tina and I watched a new discovery of hers: a British show called "Would I Lie to You?" where contestants read a card and the other team questions them to figure out if they are lying or telling the truth. It's amazing I love it so much. 

Sometimes there is even a prop possession.

The players don't even know until they read the card if they are telling the truth or a lie. Or sometimes they have one person come on and one team lies about how they know them and the other team has to decide who is right.

The stories are so absurd that it's really hard to tell when they're lying and telling the truth, but it's funny all the same.

After filling our heads and hearts with laughter, we headed off to dance class to learn a BTS song.

Here's Boys in Luv as it should look:

And omg us:

Um. We did our best.

Here you can see our teacher show us what's up since she's a legit dancer. 

I like this song a lot, as I like a lot of BTS songs, but the dances are not my thing. I find the moves to be too fast and more style over substance, and it all feels flashy and gimmicky to me. I can't do it so well, and I don't like getting discouraged in dance class since it's supposed to be fun. It was a fun class, but I didn't feel much of a workout since there wasn't enough time to really get the moves. It was fun, but even our teacher said the boy groups are better to do over the week and the girl groups in a two hour session because the styles suit each one better. 

Anyway, I am still dying to learn EXO's new song, Monster. At this point in time, the original MV has over 20 million views in less than 10 days since it was released, and if you don't think that's impressive well then... it is really a lot. Kind of crazy a lot. 

This week the performance video was released and I SUUUUUUUUUUPER want to learn it. I love it. 

Will not stop listening to it.


Simultaneously, EXO released another song from the album called Lucky One. The album is called EX'ACT but there is the Monster version (black) and the Lucky One version (white). At first I didn't like this song as much, but now I like it a lot. Released at the same time, this one still has an impressive 9.5 million views.

No one knows why Kai is dancing the dance to Monster, but still. The video is whack but song is catchy and when Suho looks at you at like 40 seconds you will feel things. In the video still Suho is looking at you right now. How have I not remembered him til this point? I always have to name the other members to get to him as "not anyone else in the group." Baekyhyun and Suho got me catching feelings this time around. 

Anyway, this week should be chill. We have speaking tests and such with the kids, and on Friday Tina, Grace and I are going to see a musical, Mozart!, with Kyuhyun from Super Junior!!!

Kyu~~

My throat hurts again... hopefully it will pass without medicine, as I went again to the hospital and got more pills to seemingly no avail. I cannot wait til I am in a country where the air isn't actively trying to kill me.

Hopefully I can get through til payday on Friday! First, Game of Thrones tomorrow!!!!

Love you all. Not like, Boys in Luv love, but love all the same~

Loving U Monster (creepin, creepin, creepin)

As I sit here relaxing with a foot mask on, I really feel like it was a great weekend, and I'm sad it will end but I feel better and rested for school.

Foot mask fun!

We'll see how long that holds up.

The three day week was packed with pressure, namely that I suddenly had to have a full camp plan done by Friday and was told at 4:30 on Thursday because my principal is... sigh. I don't even know. I had already started planning, but it was a bit of a rush on Friday to get everything submitted for budget purposes. 

It turned out not so bad since there were only 3 days of work, so the week went quickly enough. We have no more breaks til the end of the semester and I'm almost done, so we'll see how things go from now on. 

I was in good spirits Friday because one of my classes had a snack party for getting enough class points.

This is actually my most difficult 5th grade class but they are hella adorable and still better than my best 3rd graders to manage. 

So cute. Also the ONLY class of 5 classes to give me and So Jung snacks at the beginning of class with NO prompting - then some of the girls snuck around during the movie and gathered snacks from everyone to give us later and I'm not crying you're crying.

 I teared up because they were so cute. They were like "LET'S WORK HARD TO GET 50 MORE STAMPS SO WE CAN WATCH MORE OF THE MOVIE." They're so innocent and easy to please, man. Moments like these make it hard to leave.

Also my ego is crazy big here since I get a lot of attention. For instance, on Friday my outfit was on point and I got so many compliments:

I am the purplest princess.

One of the other highlights of this week was music related. EXO released a new album, and I am in love with one of the title songs: Monster.

Seriously, give it a listen. It's so addictive. It also managed to break the record for getting 5m views - the video managed it in about 25 hours since the MV's release. Since June 8 when it was uploaded, it has achieved a staggering 11,500,000 views. 

I'm obsessed and have been listening to little else. 

One of the most astounding feels: one member, Baekhyun, has never been on my radar. I think he looks like a child.

look at this smol bean

Then the teaser images came out for the album and his hair was black, so I was like okay what's-his-name (I literally had to remember all the other members to get to who the missing ones were) looks better with dark hair:

A-like so

But then the MV came out and OH DAYUM

Um. Excuse me. Where do you get off being so hot????

The internet in Korea is literally feeling some kind of way like I am:

http://www.koreaboo.com/netizens/fans-cant-stop-talking-about-baekhyuns-lip-piercing-in-monster-comeback-mv/

There is literally an article about it on one of those trashy Korean entertainment websites that I def never check ever in my life.

Look at you, smol bean, being the center of the song and having a look to compliment your awesome voice. You got me goin' crazy.

In conclusion:

This song will be creepin in your heart, yo. 

So Jung and a couple coworkers and I talked about it at all of our breaks, and it was really fun to be so excited about it and have people to share it with. I'm sad that I know when I go home I'll have things I'm so excited about that no one will understand, but that's a concern for another time. 

Anyway, lunch was weird this week. Some good, some bad.

God bless the homeroom teachers who had to deal with kids making chicken wraps.
Also seen here: tomatoes are my dessert/fruit item, which I hate. 

Thursday we had some peanut sauce thing that was good for about half of my meal then my mouth was like no these flavors do not combine when I ate other things. 

Friday we all had shitty lunches and wanted some good food, so I met up with Tina and Lauren and we headed out to get some smoked chicken and boy were we impressed. 

We were too excited and dug in before remembering to snap a pic.
Anyway, we also got a truffle burger, amazing onion rings, awesome cheese sticks, and incredible fries

Seriously everything was so good.

We three small females absolutely destroyed the meal. It was SO good. The one chef had had a bbq joint in my hood of Mokdong, but a fallout with the Korean business partner meant he moved on to other things. And it seems like he found a great place! I will definitely be going back before I leave!

On the way home Tina needed blush. so we stopped at Skinfood to get some. While browsing, we found some interesting masks:

Me: Bird's Nest
Tina: Horse Fat

Mine had extract from a bird's nest. Tina's just had fat.

They felt as weird as they sounded. 0/10 would not recommend even for the instagrams.

Actually my face has been breaking out like crazy since Friday night, so I have a sneaking suspicion that my face does not like having a fucking bird's nest on it. This is the first mask I HATED and it hated me back. Try things that you want on your face, like strawberries and roses. Not horse fat and bird's nests. Lesson learned.

Saturday we chilled until the evening when we went to see the Warcraft movie.

For those who don't know, I was a big Warcraft junkie for most of middle and high school and even into college. I used to play all the games, read all the books, played World of Warcraft for hours on the weekends and in the evenings instead of meeting friends, etc... I love the lore and storylines. 

I loved the movie and stayed up til like 1:30 reading up on all the expansions and info on my favorite characters since I quit. Every once and a while I download the game and start again, but it was a dangerous addiction to have and I try not to get too involved in it again. I will always love it though!

Sunday finally brought us back to dance class. I was really sick and missed class then there was the holiday weekend, so it took a bit to get back into it. 

This week, SISTAR again! I loved "Shake It" and this week we did "Loving U"

Their videos are always so much fun!

Dance version!

My group!

Tina's group, including our teacher and her impossibly long legs I am so jealous of and Pau's awesome shirt and SISTAR look. Tina killed those hip rolls, yo

Our whole class looks so cute together doing it too! Watch the video here!

We also got our prize for winning the MV contest! Our Bang Bang video got the most views!

Love all these lovely ladies so much!!

Now back to a full week of school! Somehow I already have all of Monday and Tuesday planned and we have a market day on Friday, which means I have even less to plan for towards the end of the week. Better start a new drama or find something else to do! 

I'm allllllllllmost better. I promise I'll be healthy again soon!

Love you all. Stay well~