I was at Myeong-dong shopping on Easter Sunday when a man handed me a yellow plastic baggie. "Here is a gift from us to you," he said in English. With a perplexed look on my face, I thanked him and took the bag. It had a small bottle of spring water and a couple of little things in plastic wrappers. My hands were already full of shopping bags so I couldn't look too closely. I took it home along with the Korean boy-band loot I'd collected for my gay friend back home. Upon further inspection, I found that the bag also contained a single hard-boiled egg, which had crushed somewhere on its journey with me back to Ssangmun station. The plastic wrapped items were a couple of instant coffees. What a random assortment!
"Why in the WORLD would someone give me a hardboiled egg loose in a bag?" I wondered. I wasn't even sure how to dispose of the thing...I never cook eggs. Could I put it in the compost bag with the broccoli stems and apple cores?
OH!!! Today is EASTER! I had completely forgotten. I had a crushed chicken fetus in a bag to celebrate the rising of Christ from the dead. Seemed a little odd...I guess I hadn't really thought about it before. I laughed at the hilarity of mankind. I love this life!
It was shortly after my egg discovery that I also discovered I had a fever. The day before, I had been in Nowon with Kim when I suddenly got a sore throat. It was crazy, like, I was fine, and then BOOM! I had a sore throat. Just like that. I knew I was getting sick again. I snuggled under my covers and Skype-called my friend to show him his Easter boy-band merchandise presents.
After we hung up, I cuddled down, feeling quite cold, and reflected on how it was I came to be sick already again. We had gone on a field trip last Thursday...I had held hands with one of the Nemo boys...he had a cold and had used my hand to wipe his snot with....several times. I had wiped it right back onto him. "Don't wipe your snot on me!" I told him. It had been hours before I was able to wash my hands. I didn't really think too much of it at the time...I mean, it was more funny than anything, a three year old wiping his snot on me! I've never been a germ-a-phobe. Then again, I've never gotten sick this much in my life. Not since I was 10, anyways.
I mean, how can I afford to get upset about things like that? I try hard to see everything not as being upsetting, but as being interesting or funny. Some people give to charity. Some people feed the homeless. Some people chop up little dogs and eat them for dinner. In the same neighborhood, you might see people with their little dogs in designer sweaters and rhinestone collars with their little ears died pink. Is it my job to judge them? Nope! I feel a sense of freedom knowing that. I'm operating on an "observe and document" platform. I have too much of my own inner turmoil to keep me preoccupied.
Besides, I like to keep laughing. On my way to school in Korea I often see people mopping the sidewalks outside. I've even seen them buffing the outdoor sidewalks with a machine just like the one they wax the floors at Walmart with. Sometimes I have to step around where the lady is mopping the outdoor patio by my school. Meanwhile, my classroom experiences perpetual twilight due to the fact the windows have never seen a wash rag before. Ever. But heaven forbid I should step one foot on the floor with my "outdoor shoes" on!
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| Outdoor Mopping |
Then I got home and burst into tears. I had done such an amazing job at ignoring how awful I was feeling that I didn't even realize. I cried for what must have been like 2 hours...I couldn't stop! I was completely exhausted. In that moment, I had nothing left; I was spent. I lied in bed and thought of all the things I'd experienced here in Seoul but hadn't written about yet...like the crazy photo shoots they have during the big birthday parties they throw for every kindergarten student, or going to Norebang (Korean private karaoke room) with friends, or walking through the hills of Itaewon last weekend...seeing the cherry blossoms at Gyeongbokgung Palace...and the man selling baby ducks and bunnies in cages out of the back of his pickup truck...the gritty weekend market in Sindang where you can buy used shoes and actual Walkmans with dirt on them...oh, I know all too well this year will be over within the blink of an eye--I'm just always on the move! I don't want to forget anything. But I couldn't even write that day, which made me cry even more.
The next morning I woke up with no voice and a tight chest. I called in sick to school and went straight to the doctor. It's amazing how quick and easy going to the doctor here is! I took a quick cab ride to school, got out, walked one block, went upstairs to the clinic, and told the lady at the front desk "I'm sick." She asked me in English, "What's the problem?"
I said "Cough and cold," in my raspy, practically nonexistent voice. She asked for my insurance booklet; I gave it to her and she filled out a tiny form for me. I sat down to wait for exactly 10 seconds before she took my temperature, right there in the waiting room. Less than 30 seconds later they called me in to see the doctor. He looked in my throat and listened to my chest. He spoke excellent English and had a fish tank full of baby guppies and underwater plant life. He told me, "You require antibiotics," and sent me back out again with a prescription. I went to the front desk to ask for a doctor's note for work and to pay. It cost $6.
I took the prescription to the pharmacy downstairs and they had it filled in under 5 minutes. It was a huge bottle of brown cough syrup in a plain plastic bottle, and 5 days worth of various pills divided into little dosages in perforated bags. Pills were halved and everything. It was $8.
I walked back to school, handed them the note, and picked up stuff to write my lesson plans and grade papers. Then I took a cab back home. The whole trip took me about an hour.
As soon as I stepped foot inside my apartment I heard my cell phone ring. It rings so rarely that when I hear it I always wonder, "What's that strange noise?" I answered it and it was my Korean supervisor. She told me she had an important doctor appointment that afternoon she couldn't reschedule and that I needed to come in to teach at 4:30. I sounded like I'd just smoked 17 packs of cigarettes in a row when I said, "Yeah, I'll come in." I did, too. We played UNO cards and watched School House Rock the entire time.
At 12:15 I had heard a rustling outside my apartment door. I opened it before anyone could knock...it was my new MacBook I had ordered! After working in Korea for only a few short months, I could afford a new MacBook. I even juiced it up with extra memory and RAM, or whatever that stuff is that makes it go faster. Yes, living rent-free is really paying off! My new Mac is so cute...it has little Korean letters on the keyboard above the regular ones! I tried to order an American one but they wouldn't deliver outside of the US, so I just ordered a Korean one. There's no difference except for the letters anyways, and you have to hit like a shift key to access them.
But now I have to save my money. My next job might not pay so well. I'd really like to learn Spanish and live somewhere in South/Central America for my next adventure...after all, nothing happens until something moves! (I read it on a T-shirt.)
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| One of the Nemo kids with his face painted at the field trip last week |
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| Cherry Blossoms at Gyeongbokgung Palace |
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Baby bunnies and baby ducks for sale by the subway station
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Annie, I spent Easter Sunday looking out the hospital window in the yard for the rabbit. He never appeared, so I went to the Hopkins entrance and visited with a 23 ft statue of Christ which is a wonderful piece of sculpture. Lots of stuff will happen if you mone to So. America. I love the place, own property on the Amazon River in Peru, and have visited most of the country. I was so impressed with Machu Piccu during my first visit in May, I returned with my son in June. I've probably been to So. America a dozen times. You will love it also. It' cheap. Rfe
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