Pap Smears and Italians!

Today I had a wonderful visit to a Korean OBGYN; it was quite an interesting experience. I knew I needed a pap smear done and so I finally broke down, accepted defeat, and asked our school’s nurse for a good doctor. She gave me the phone number to Hyosung Hospital, a number which I grudgingly called. When I called I was greeted by a cheerful woman who instead of making an appointment for me the following week, said I could come in the following afternoon! What joy flew into my heart….NOT!!!! I needed time to work up to this, days to mope around, hours to sigh in defeat, and many minutes to once again damn man for not having to suffer this injustice.
I do have to say though that the hospital was in tip-top shape; the receptionist understood the seriousness of my mission and was not overly chipper like some can be. You know the ones that find perverse pleasure in you paying to be raped by a doctor who overly excited to describe your body to you. I gave some basic information and before I knew it I was in the room with the doctor. A couple of minutes later I was in stirrups again cursing God for being a man; if he was a woman we would not have to suffer through cramps, childbirth, pap smears, and menopause. I had a pretty standard pap done; the only difference was I also was given an ultrasound. The doctor explained to me how she knew that in the states an ultrasound is fairly expensive, but it is not in Korea, so we are lucky enough to have one once a year. LUCKY ENOUGH? Having a long metal camera shoved into me is not a privilege! I demand a refund; can I file a complaint with my local senator? I should mention that the pap, ultrasound, and testing cost me a whopping $84. There are certain aspects of Korean medicine that I love; today it was my low bill.
After the pap, Jason and I walked around and explored Suseong-gu, which is a very quiet area with a lake and amusement park. We found the lake, but couldn’t find the entrance, and the amusement park, that I was planning on visiting to recapture my youth, was closed. We ended up in a very high scale coffee shop which was SO nice! We spent close to two hours there before the demands of my empty stomach begin to wake the dead. Since I didn’t want to see zombies walking down the street, we left the shop in search of some dinner. We had planned to eat at an Italian place called, Napoli, but it appeared to be closed. Me being me though refused to accept defeat, and I walked up the stairs and into the restaurant where we appeared to interrupt the staff’s dinner. Regardless of our intrusion, they quickly escorted us to a table with a view of the street. When the waiter returned with menus, and we opened the first page we realized that we were seriously out of our depth; this place doesn’t serve a plate of pasta like the Olive Garden. Oh no, this place does courses starting at 45 dollars and going up to 150 dollars. After some serious contemplation, aka number crunching, we both settled on Course D which was about 70 dollars per person. Over the next two hours, our taste buds were stimulated with the scrumptious plates of foods delivered to us; some of the foods served were things I don’t normally eat, but I decided to branch out and be adventurous. I ate the stuffed mushroom instead of saying, “Ewww.” At 23 I have finally matured to about an eight year old.
The next best thing about this restaurant was the chef; he was a seventy-three year old man from Italy and he seemed as interested in us as we were in him. He continually stopped by to chat with us and even took a picture with us when we left. Overall, I would give this place a ten out of ten, but I may not go back unless I start feeling richer:)
Once we left the restaurant we hailed a cab so we could head home. Did I mention we were in Suseong-gu? This is the same place we had our nightmare McDonald’s experience (see “Our McDonalds Saga” post). When we got into the cab I told the cabbie where to go and he was lost; he recognized all the places I named, but he still wasn’t sure where to go. He begins shouting at me in Korean, as I keep saying in Korean, “I DON’T SPEAK KOREAN.” Regardless, he wanted to express his annoyance with me, and I just wished the entire ride over. In desperation I ended up grabbing his phone and dialing one of our Korean staff members number; Jason happened to have his card in his wallet. I would like to say that I had given the card to the cabbie first, but he couldn’t get ahold of anyone when he tried the number, and ended up just throwing the card back at me. When he was looking at his phone I realized he had dialed the number wrong, because he was half BLIND and was peering at the number, with glasses on, from an inch away! Honestly!!! So I dialed the number for him, he contacted the staff member, and we finally got home.
I would just like to say, I will NOT miss this aspect of Korea when we return to the states.

Long Story not So Short

Again, I have to apologize for not updating our blog, but I was too busy being stuck in a time loop with me dying….repeatedly having the same experience over and over again. Are you getting the picture? I will begin by saying how on February 3rd, another teacher’s birthday, I went out with the entire female staff and had dinner and drinks. I showed my true age by heading home at 10 pm and enjoyed just hanging out with the hubby. In the middle of the night I woke up feeling like death and thinking, “I had two drinks, there’s no reason for me to be sick”… and turned over and went back to sleep. By seven am the next day I thought I was in a circle of hell, my body hurt something fierce, my head had an elephant planted firmly on it, and said elephant was trying to climb its way up my throat. My first thought, was “mercy please” and then “strep throat?” and finally, “these little brats have gotten me sick again!!!!” That day Jason had a basketball game (as he always does when I’m sick) so he wasn’t there to take care of me as I mopped around and just generally hated my life. I had another teacher (the resident mom) look in my throat and she said how it wasn’t red, which alleviated my fears of strep throat. When Jason returned he quickly realized that there was no way I was moving from the bed and that he needed to quickly turn into my caretaker. Thankfully he was up for the job. That night, due to my raging fever, I lay on top of our blankets; before long I noticed a rash on the side of my leg. At first I thought it was from the fever, Jason kept saying, “don’t worry about it, it’s just a heat rash.” I continued staring at it in fright, if there’s one thing I can’t handle its rashes and blisters; I don’t mind puking my guts up, having a fever of 104, but give me a rash and I turn into a fruit loop. So this rash slowly began to cause an itch under my skin and in my panicked mind I thought, “A shower will fix this,” to be honest I reeked something awful at that point so the shower was completely necessary. When I came out of the shower I realized that if anything the rash had spread more instead of disappearing. Finally I just went to sleep and accepted the rash as my due.
When I got up the next morning I still didn’t worry too much, but then began to notice as the day went on that the rash had spread all over my legs and onto my arms and hands as well. See the pictures to understand why I freaked. We decided to go to the emergency room, since the hospitals are closed since its Sunday. That in itself is mind boggling right? Have you ever heard of that before? A hospital closing since it’s the weekend, back home that’s when all the crazies do stupid stuff. We got to the emergency room, which is hidden behind the actual hospital, went to the window that said registration where I gave my patient number, and was told to go to the nurses’ station. We went through the glass door and entered pandemonium; there were beds everywhere! In Maine Med or Mercy, we have curtained off areas for each bed, here that does not exist; it’s just one giant room with bed after bed after bed. We walked up to the nurses’ station where I was given a bracelet and told to wait. Wait for what? Jesus to return? Did these people not realize that Hades was trying to exit hell by climbing up my leg? Finally I got put into a room, where a “doctor” came and asked about my symptoms. I should say how his English was only slightly better than my Korean, which isn’t saying much.
I asked him what he thought was wrong and he said, “I need to ask my boss.” Ask his boss? This isn’t Wall Street…shouldn’t you know? He came back and told me they wanted to take blood and do an x-ray. What the x-ray was supposed to show is beyond me, but at that point I was down for anything. So a random male nurse comes, grabs me, and brings me to have an x-ray which takes all of 30 seconds. That’s one thing I have to give Koreans props for, prompt service. In the US you wait FOREVER for an x-ray and then AT LEAST a week to get the results. In Korea it takes about ten minutes for the entire process. After the x-ray we were brought back to the emergency room, but this time we didn’t get our cozy room, we were put on a bed, which I may add had bloodied sheets that the nurse had to change. My bed or home away from home was right in front of the doors to the outside of the ER. After about twenty minutes I thought I had left Korea and entered Siberia. I looked around, waiting for someone to tell me anything, and noticed a doctor walking by….in flip flops….without socks. Welcome to Korea! Also, on the floor below my bed was used bloody towelettes and a couple of syringes…sanitation police anyone?
Before I knew it the doctor was back and told me the rash was an allergic reaction. To what you may ask, but alas the doctor didn’t know that either. So a pretty young nurse shyly came over with a couple of syringes and told me that she needed to give me the shots for my rash. In a low voice and reddened cheeks she whispers, “I need to do this one in your muscle” and I’m like “sure shoot me up” and she responds, “no, your other muscle” and points to my lower region. The light dawns! She wants me to drop my drawers, so I grab the band of my pants and she quickly says, “Not here! Follow me” and leads me to an empty room. I immediately drop my pants as she blushes and says, “Hurt little bit”. Of course I could care less if she can cure my rash she could put the needle in my eye. She brings me back to the bed after and I sit there for another hour, we have been here a total of two hours now. The doctor returns and says, “We want to keep you overnight” to which I’m like “why?” This question always stumps Korean doctors; all I can figure is that no one asks why they are receiving treatment since I always get the same look and response when I ask. He tries saying that the doctor who can tell me what is wrong won’t be in until the hospital re-opens in the morning. I tell him thanks but no thanks to staying in the ER, but I’ll just see the doctor later. He reluctantly lets me leave with a sworn promise that I will return tomorrow and see the doctor. I happily agree; a nurse comes over to take out my IV which I don’t think dripped once and tells me to wait five minutes before moving. Do you think I listen? Of course not…I proceed to stand up and head out to pay; I get to the counter and go to put my coat on, but am unable to, since me holding pressure on the spot where the IV was, made it impossible to get both arms in my coat. What do I do? Take my hand and the cotton ball off the hole. What happens? I get the coat on just to have blood pour down my arm…snickers bars I then quickly put pressure back on and go to pay my bill which had a grand total of $68. As I stand there, a rock lands on my chest and the room begins to go black, having had this happen before I know what will happen if I don’t sit down. So I plop myself on the closest chair and leave Jason to take care of the bill. At that point the doctor has come out to help with translation (why is beyond me) and he starts staring at me. He asks Jason if I was going to pass out and so Jason finally notices me, and comes over to make sure I’m okay. My response, “Go back over there, I’ll be fine, but that doctor definitely won’t let me leave if he thinks I’m going to pass out.” I’m a smart cookie alright.
We finally head home where over the next couple of days I begin to feel better. On Friday afternoon of that week, I had math club from 2:45 to 4:15, we had international night (a school wide celebration of different cultures where I would serve my homemade chop seuy) and a meeting for our contracts. To say the least, it was going to be a busy day; I had to run from my classroom at 2:30 to the dorm to set up a movie for my math club students, run from the dorm to my contract meeting with Jason, and then from there run back to the dorms, check on the students (who are with my co-clubber and fellow math teacher) and then begin cooking for International Night.
We get to our contract meeting, a meeting that we have been stressing about and worrying with plenty of anticipation, some good and some bad. Our headmaster starts in by saying, “Next year we are adding a fourth grade and an eleventh grade without adding any new students”, he then turns to Jason and says, “Because of that we do not have a position available for you.” I’m in shock, Jason hasn’t said anything, and our headmaster turns to me and pushes a paper towards me saying, “We do have a position for you” and stuff about pension numbers and insurance, but I don’t really hear any of it. I see our future and our dreams crashing in such a short time. We went in there thinking we are going to be agreeing to two more years, we talked about it amongst ourselves and with our families and before we knew it, our entire plan just burned in flames. I was so confused as to what the headmaster was saying so I asked, “What is the point of this meeting?” I’m like what do you want me to say? Thanks, bring on the next year? I’m looking at my husband, the person I love more than life and I feel helpless to do anything. I left him once for this school and it was one of the hardest decisions of my life and I swore that if that ever came up again I wouldn’t do it. I told him when we made our vows that we were in this together; we were partners and whatever came up we would be there beside each other. I then said to the headmaster that I appreciated his offer but I didn’t want to leave my husband again and that unless he had a job we could not afford to pay our student loans.
We left the room in shock, complete and utter shock; in the hallway we ran into a fellow teacher and close friend who didn’t need to ask what had happened in our meeting…our faces said it all. We returned to the dorms, where I checked on my kids, and ran into the kitchen to begin cooking. As I cooked I had a couple of my second and third graders asking, “Can I do that?” “What is that?” “That looks bad” and randomly some of my eighth and ninth graders who thought my food smelled good and promised to try it. All I can say about international night, which is still a blur, is that it was fun and great to see all the different classes try to put their spin on different ethnic foods. Let it be said that my chop seuy sold out!!!! It was a hit
The next day we had a dinner date with a fellow teacher and his wife; I also had a date with my dentist to get my crown put on my root canal (long story, I can’t even begin). After my final visit with the dentist (this has been going on since November) I get my crown!!! I was so happy and as a reward we were going out to lunch at the Holy Grill; a Canadian owned restaurant that we had trouble finding and when we had found it previously it was closed for renovations. This time we knew it would be opened, so we head there and guess what? It was CLOSED!!!! SOB!!! In despair we eat elsewhere and walk around the downtown area since that’s where we are meeting our friends. I suddenly decide over lunch to get my hair chemically straightened; this begins the search for an English speaking hair salon. I finally get into one who will take me; mind you they don’t speak English. I put at my curly hair and then to the stylist’s straight hair; they understood and we proceed to spend the next FOUR HOURS there. As we are there I start to have body aches, I just figured they were caused by sitting in that awful chair for a lifetime. We finally get out of there with minutes to spare and arrive at our destination on time; we head to dinner with friends and arrive at this beautiful French restaurant. At this point, I am now feeling nauseous, and in pain. All I want is to lie down and eat saltines, but I can’t since our friends are being so awesome.
When we leave I am sad to leave our friends, but at the same time so relieved cause I feel awful. We get home and I take my temperature, it’s a nice 102… it is joined by its friend, headache, body aches, and sore throat. I spend the next three days going to school and teaching, aka having students do a lot of self-work. Finally on Wednesday afternoon I give up when the room starts to spin… I knew I needed to leave or I would pass out in front of my students. I go back to my room and lie down and try to get some sleep. Before I know it, its six o’clock and Jason is playing video games while I sleep. I grab the thermometer since I feel very warm and dazed. My temperature is 103.6 which obviously is cause for concern; Jason forces me out of the covers and has me wait fifteen minutes before taking my temperature again, instead of going down it has just gone down. Where do you think we’re headed now? If you guessed the ER then you guessed right!!!!
We get back to our friendly ER and are again sent to the nurses’ station; this time it’s so full the nurse tells us to go and sit in a chair and wait. I’d like to point out that the ER was so full there wasn’t a single seat!!! We stood in the middle of the room with my head on Jason’s chest: first because my head hurt and felt good, but most importantly because I couldn’t actually stand by myself. Finally a Korean couple feels bad enough for me that they give up their seat for us. I just sit there with my head on Jason’s back; after about a half hour a doctor comes over and proceeds to talk to me and ask about my symptoms. Have you ever had an out of body experience? This is what it felt like; I could see the doctors mouth moving but could not for the life of me hear what he was saying. He finally just took my temperature and ended up putting me in a private room meant for the military. I got the nicest sweetest nurse who I wanted to take home with me; she babied me and kept thinking I spoke Korean. I know just enough random Korean that they think I speak the language; I should just learn to shut my mouth, I know a lot of people totally agree with that statement for many reasons:)
Long story short we spent the entire night there and only ended up leaving because I diagnosed myself. I had a sinus infection and ear infection; I had to discharge myself again because the same doctor was working and wanted to keep me longer. I’d also like to point out that I didn’t sleep at all while we were there, but Jason just put a blanket on the floor at nine pm and went to sleep. I thought about murdering him, but felt like it wasn’t worth it in the hospital as they may be able to fix him up. So we went home where I finally had to accept that I was too sick for work and spent the next four days in bed (two of which were the weekend). I’m just now getting back on my feet, though I still can’t hear out of one ear. Sorry for the long story, but I wanted to get you caught up on the last monthish of our lives.
Short story: I’ve been in bed and Jason has played A LOT of video games:) Miss you all and so excited to see you all soon!!!!

Interesting Coffee Shop Experience

Tonight we decided that we would go to the Muffin Tree coffee shop around the corner following dinner. We went with Conrad and Samantha and had a very nice time, until we were about to go. We were finishing up our drinks when this older Korean man and his wife came in. The man was very friendly, but it was quite evident that he had been drinking... luckily, he was a very friendly drunk. He walked through the door and stopped, stared at us, and suddenly said "hello". We responded thinking that would be the end of it all, but it was by far not over yet. The man sat down and began to talk to us. He looked at me and said, "you are very handsome"; he turned to Amber and said "you are beautiful"; while looking at Conrad, he said "you are good looking" and then he turned to Samantha and said "you are gorgeous".

This prompted a couple of laughs, yet it continued. He began asking us our names, where we were from, and was asking for our email addresses. He told us how he was a PH.D, which he said stood for "poor, hungry dog". The gentleman's name was Warren, and he was a phd of finance. He explained to us things such as how he retired early, how his wife was an economics teacher who also retired early and how both are collecting government pensions. Warren also told us about how he spent 5 years living in Ohio to work on his PhD.

All in all, he was a very funny guy and was great to talk to, even though he had had too much booze.

Everyday Blah

Sorry we haven’t updated our blog in so long, but we’ve found our everyday lives so boring we didn’t want to share it with others. Our everyday lives consist of the following: rolling over due to the heat on my butt (due to the floor heat warming my body), thinking, “it’s really hot in here”, and then just turning over again to go back to sleep. Normally at this point, I also look at the clock and think, “ugh, I don’t want to get up”. Then I kick Jason’s legs back to his side (I should say his 10 inches) and go back to sleeping diagonally. At six o’clock, the alarm goes off, I groan and think, “this is inhumane, humans should not be awake before the sun” and roll out of bed to the bathroom, where I turn on the shower, and then proceed to brush my teeth. While brushing my teeth I stare in the mirror and say, “is that a pimple?” Koreans are very aware of acne and such, so I always worry that my students will notice and say something to me. You might think, “Nah, they wouldn’t say that to you.” Well, I can tell you that they have asked me if I am on a diet. I came back from vacation and they all (and I mean all) said, “Wow, you look so thin and pretty, are you on a diet?” What do you say to that? In my head, I keep saying, well you little jerk, I was until you asked me and now I want to drown my sorrows in a bowl of ice cream and Oreos. I mean, I didn’t think I lost that much weight, but maybe I did, but was I ugly before vacation? If so, why didn’t anyone ever tell me?

Before I get lost in translation I will continue with my day. After showering, I get dressed; this is always hard work since I need to impress my students (and peers) with my awesome styling abilities. Then I put on the war paint (aka covering my zits) and try to control the fro on my head. You know, there are days when I think my curly hair actually looks acceptable. Well, my students have ruined those days for me by saying when my hair is straight that it looks so much better then when it’s curly since it makes me look like a poodle. I’ve tried explaining to them what tact means, but to no avail. I hope that someday they will learn this all important skill.

After dressing and all that jazz, Jason and I will Skype home to his parents. Normally, while he talks I sit on my bed and stare off, wishing that I was still sleeping. Before I know it the voice of god (our residential director) comes from my ceiling telling me its 7 o’clock and time for school. We head to down to breakfast and talk about things that by the time I leave the cafeteria, I cannot remember. Then I head to my classroom to check my emails and start working on something. Contrary to popular belief, teacher’s work 24/7; so many people think we have made since we get vacations and summers off. I wish!!!!! My time is always filled with grading, writing lessons, writing handouts, and thinking about my students, that the time we have off is nowhere near relaxing. I love the nights when my students even invade my dreams I’m lying, it’s not fun. Anyhow, moving on to the next post which is coming soon!!!!