Just My Luck!

So, to start up right where I left off...
I had the surgery and everything was healing up nicely.  I went out with a couple of my Korean guy friends and they told me about a trip that they wanted to take for our long weekend in August.  Korean Independence Day is August 15th, which gave us a Monday off.  They asked if I wanted to join, so I agreed that it would be fun and that we should do it.  We decided that we would go to Jeju Island after we discovered that flights out of the country would be a little too expensive on such short notice.

Meanwhile, back at the school, I was having issues with my boss and her not really wanting to cover the cost of my surgery, even though it was stated in the contract that I get 100% health insurance.  She called the insurance company and they were only willing to give about 60,000 won (roughly $60) toward the surgery which ended up costing about 450,000 (~$450).  So, all of these expenses were out of my pocket for about a 2 month time period.  This meant I was a little tight on money because I hadn't gotten a full paycheck since I had been in the US for a one month break.  Plus, it turns out that there were unpaid bills that went several months back from all of my utilities.  I had been under the impression that those had been taken care of by my boss and deducted from my paycheck each month...apparently this was not the case!  That large chunk of money was taken out of my one paycheck I had received since I had been back, as well as the medical expenses, including my pain meds.

We ended up working something out eventually and my boss paid me the cost of the surgery, even though it was like pulling teeth to get that money from her.  She urged me to not get too sick in the future (yeah, like I can prevent that) and I told her that I wouldn't have anything so expensive done if it wasn't absolutely necessary.  My birthday was also roughly around this time, which my employers forgot about, but wasn't a huge deal.  I ended up getting a puppy for myself and have had some ups and downs with the little brat!  He is super cute, but man he loves to chew on things!  He came with the name Mado (short "a" sound, long "o" sound) already, which means "beloved" in Spanish and "crazy" in Italian so I just stuck with it!  Both words accurately describe this dog so I thought he could keep the name. 

Ok, now on to the trip with the boys...I showed up to the airport on time and we all had a fairly quick and simple flight to Jeju-do or Jeju Island.  The first night we got there, I had suggested that we try to get a hotel room right away, but the boys wanted to go out to a bar.  I didn't want to leave the responsibility of trying to find a hotel up to the one who was driving and not drinking, so I suggested that we get one right away.  We ended up arguing most of the night, not having much fun, driving back and forth on the whole island trying to find a place to sleep, and finally ended up sleeping cramped up in the rental car on the side of the road.  I had to use the bathroom at one point, and me being a born and raised country girl, I decided to just go in the bushes.  I got out of the car in the pitch black, tried to jump to a big rock, missed, and scraped the hell out of my leg and arm.  When I woke up the next morning, there was dirt from my fall all over the back seat of the rental car where I had slept and my pants were covered in mud and dirt.  It had rained briefly the night before, so the ground was just wet enough for the mud to really stick to me when I had fallen on my expedition to find a place to pee.

The next day was pretty awesome.  We went to a really nice beach with huge waves where people were surfing.  We also found a waterfall and much to our delight, a hotel where we could spend the night with a wonderful SHOWER!!  The rest of the trip went pretty smoothly; we went to another beach, an old car museum (which was actually pretty cool), we saw the volcano crater, we went to a sex museum, and of course, made several trips to E-Mart (kinda like Walmart in the U.S.) to stock up on snacks.  When the trip was over, I was super happy to be back to reality.  Next time I travel, I want to be a little more prepared. 

At the school, things changed more and more, and the foreign teachers had been given so many more classes that my free time was practically nonexistent.  With our previous boss, we didn't have to worry about anyone trying to tell her what to do.  She was very commanding and firmly stood her ground.  Our current boss is the complete opposite and on top of that, has no experience in the education industry.  Lately, one of the head teachers has been planning ridiculous changes and they have been approved by the boss because she doesn't know any better.  This resulted in the foreign teachers having 14 classes each, per week, only in the mornings, and the Korean teachers having only 6 classes per week, in the mornings between two of them.  Sound a little unfair??  I think so, but every time I would say something about it, no one would be willing to listen.  I finally had my little blow up and magically the schedule changed to accommodate the foreigners a little better.

Ok, last story...
Last, week on Friday as I was getting ready to go home, I noticed some of my receipts from my wallet were on the floor.  If any of you truly know me, you know that I am too much of a neat freak to simply allow anything like that to happen.  When I checked my wallet, it was minus 500,000 (~$500)!!!  At first I thought it was my foreign coworker playing a trick on me, but when I called him, he promised that he hadn't done it.  We did a little investigation and concluded that it happened the last class of the day, but there were no kids roaming around at that time.  We remembered that a former student and his family had come back that day to say hello to his former teachers.  The mother was with her kid and a teacher the whole time, but the father was roaming around the school.  We think the father took it, but with no fingerprints (we took the wallet to the CSI here and it came back with nothing), and no evidence, there was no more we could do.  I have only ever had my things stolen twice and both times happened in Korea! 

Until next time...

And what kind of dressing would you like on your salad?

I am not sure why, but I have really been noticing the differences that Korea has to offer, lately.  Because of all of these differences (and that a lot has happened since the last post), I have decided to turn this into a 2-part post; this being the first part.

A couple of months ago I decided to have a mole on my body checked out, you know seeing as how I have full coverage health insurance (or so I thought, but I will get to that later).  I went to the doctor and got it examined.  She told me that it would need to be tested for cancer and then removed.  She also quoted me a price because she thought I was going to do it right there on the spot.  After I got all of my affairs in order, I decided to go in and have it done.  There were a few things that the receptionist told me would need to be done first.  Her English was not so great, but she got the main point across.  I was supposed to go have a couple pieces of paperwork signed, then make a payment, then head over to the blood testing station.  I will stop right there, because this is where I started to freak out. 

If you know me well or have read a couple of my previous postings, you will know that I don't handle needles very well.  I get tunnel vision and go through cold sweats if I even think there may be a chance that I will have my blood drawn.  When I walked up to the blood station with my paperwork in my very shaky hand, I told the man behind the desk that I was going to need a back room so that I could sit or lie down in case I fainted.  He looked at my papers and then looked at me like I was crazy.  He stamped the papers and handed me my medicine prescription.  I looked at him and asked if that was all.  He then told me that I didn't look so good and that he was glad that I wasn't getting my blood drawn today.  Whew!  What a relief!

I took the prescriptions back into the dermatology area and was taken into a back room.  Now, when I say "back room," this is what I actually mean...I was taken down a hall where people were lined up sitting on benches against the walls and around the corner, into a very tiny room with two other rooms branching off of this one room.  I could tell that this was intern alley (as I like to call it) because there were textbooks open everywhere and everything was super unorganized.  This was also funny and a little scary to me because the textbooks were primarily in English yet only one intern in the whole place (there were probably about 15) could speak decent English.  Now, I don't know if these kids knew what they were doing or not, but it scares me when they are practicing/learning medicine in a language that they don't even speak!! 

Back to the room, there were a few desks and a few of those beds that you would see in a school nurses office.  There were people lying in the beds with no curtains and the doors were all wide open so everyone out in the hall could see right into this room.  They asked me to lie on a bed and remove my shirt because my mole was on my stomach and they needed to be able to get to it.  They offered me no garment to put on for the removal and no privacy to change.  When I was finished with my peep show, they draped a couple of surgical cloths over me and began to go to work.  I had watched a couple of the other minor surgeries while I was waiting and there was always only one doctor/intern/nurse, sometimes two around the patient.  For my surgery, which was very near my breasts (and in case you don't know, Korean woman area generally VERY tiny and this includes their bust size...my bra size doesn't exist in Korea), there were not one, not two, not even four, but five interns standing around my table as they proceeded to remove this mole for testing. 

The guy doing all of the work gave me several shots to numb the pain and began to remove it.  A woman, who was an actual doctor, would walk by every once in a while, I guess to make sure that they weren't killing me.  The intern would always talk to her as she walked by.  Ok, so technically I don't speak Korean, but working at a school with children has helped me to learn some words and a few simple phrases.  One phrase that has really stuck was, "Teacher, is this ok/correct?"  At school, this phrase is acceptable and even encouraged, but in the hospital, while someone has a knife and is cutting on your stomach, those are not the words that you want to hear said over and over again. 

I was especially nervous and it got worse when the guy started doing my stitches.  For a 3-4 mm gash, I counted that he gave me 9 stitches.  When I got home, there were only 5, which means that he had to have messed up at least 4 of them and had to redo them.  Honestly, the stitches were the most painful part of the whole procedure.  AWESOME!!  They suggested that I come back every day for the next week so that they could, "...change my dressing."  I thought this was kind of funny because it sounded like I was a salad.  I know the terminology is correct, but the word "bandage" seemed a little more appropriate to me since it was so small.  On all of those days that I came in to get my "dressing changed," I had an audience of at least 3 interns. 

On the last day of the bandages being changes, one of the interns who spoke very little English, told me that I need to go and get some "povidone at the pharm."  The problem was that he was saying, "...pobidon at the farm."  After a 5 minute explanation, where he simply repeated the words over and over, I finally figured out that he meant iodine (also known as povidone) at the pharmacy.  I thought he wanted me to go and check something out on an actual FARM!  Crazy times!  Luckily, everything has healed up nicely and there is only a tiny mark to show where the surgery took place.

To be continued...

Bittersweet

As you may have noticed, my site has been given a facelift.  This was not a simple task and I easily put in 20-30 hours of work on it.  If you have something to say about how you don't like it, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!  Haha!  Just kidding!  I would love to hear your feedback!  It makes things easier for me because I don't actually read my blog, I just write it. ;)  


As I look back at a few of my previous posts, I realize that the newness of all of this Korea stuff has worn off and I am a veteran now...well sort of.  The little things that I thought were so weird when I got here are second nature to me now.  Recently, many things have happened, but I am not going to give too many details about all of them.  I just want to mention a few.  First, I was moved into a new apartment where my old coworker had lived and moved out.  It is quite a bit smaller than my original place but at least it has hot water, no mold, and no cockroaches unlike my old place!  Yuck!  Although I have found a few spiders and even a centipede crawling across the wall.  Still, soooooo much better than cockroaches!


I had to make the hard decision of whether or not I was going to stay another year in Korea, and as you can see, I chose to stick it out a little while longer.  The process of looking for a new school to work at is such a stressful one.  Sure, you have recruiters, but they are interested in fast turnovers.  The faster they set you up at a school, the faster they get their cut in the finder's fee.   They could set you up at a place a million miles away or at a terrible school.  I went to an interview with a Canadian guy who owned a hagwon (private academy) and was married to a Korean woman.  He was absolutely crazy!  He wanted 8 references that he could call!  8!!!  I don't even know if I have 8 friends...haha just kidding!  He made me do an on-the-spot demo class in front of him with no kids.  Most awkward thing EVER!  Lol!  Can you imagine me up there with pretend children?  "Now Billy, please sit down.  Susan, what is the answer to #6?"  Luckily, I did not choose to work for that guy.  I eventually decided to stay at the same hagwon that I worked at my first year.  They treated me well enough and I knew the routine.  Plus, I wouldn't have to move any of my stuff and I would be guaranteed a raise and a few other perks.  Although my boss was a little crazy herself, I thought it would be best.  Later I found out that our newest Korean teacher would become our new boss and owner of the school; definitely an upgrade in the boss department!


A new contract meant negotiations.  I asked for a one month vacation between contracts and I was granted this request.  I was also given a raise, full covered health care, 2 mornings a week off, and fewer classes.  Did I mention that they really like me at this hagwon?  For my one month between contracts, I made a trip back to the States where I had an absolute blast!  It was great having a one month vacation with a decent amount of money and no work!  Oh! By the way, while I was back in the States, I was trying to tell my brothers and uncle about this funny Korean commercial with a super catchy jingle.  I was trying to sing it for them but wasn't doing so well!  You will see why!  I found the video and am posting here!    



When I got back to Korea from my vacation, I started school back up like I had never left.  I think the kids were really excited to have me back because they didn't really like the girl that was subbing for me.  I found out later that my co-workers didn't really like her all that much either.  

I also jumped right back into my social life.  My best Korean guy friend / "brother from another mother" invited me to go out to a language exchange party.  If you don't know what this is, don't worry, I had no idea when he first told me.  It is a social get-together where people (Koreans and foreigners) can go to speak English to each other for practice.  Of course, many people use it for the wrong reasons, including theft!  I left that night without my wallet, bank cards,  hospital card and appointment id information, about $60 in cash and most importantly, my ID card that is required to be able to work in this country.  Needless to say, I was not happy!  I was even less happy when I found out all of the complications that come with trying to get all of that stuff replaced.  The ID card required a morning trip to Seoul with lots of paperwork.  I am actually still waiting for that to be replaced and my wallet was stolen almost a month ago.  It should only take a week to get an ID but apparently the card company is backed up and they said I could come back in a month to pick mine up.  BLAH!!  The bank cards weren't any easier to replace.  I have 3 different bank accounts here (don't ask) and had to get three different cards.  The first 2 were fairly easy, but the third was awful.  It actually took the girl 2 days to get me my card.  From what I understood, when I first signed up for that account, I used my passport number.  Later, it was changed to my ID card number but was entered incorrectly by the bank teller.  She had to move my money through 3 different accounts in order for it to finally work.  Whew!  Glad all of that is over!  

My hospital card is still an issue.  I didn't think that could hurt me by not replacing it right away so I still haven't done it yet.  I have an appointment on the 12th for a biopsy to see if I have cancer anywhere and I will get a new card that day.  When I first went to schedule an appointment for this procedure, they told me the price and I freaked out a little.  They told me it would cost almost $300!  Now that may not seem like a lot to many of you and really it isn't that much for a medical procedure,  but it seemed like a big number to me at the time.  I instantly called my mother and asked her if she would do some checking in the States to see what it would cost to have it done there.  Then I remembered that I have full coverage on my health plan and almost slapped myself in the face.  What was I thinking? 


I recently went to my first Korean wedding which wasn't as different as I though it was going to be other than it was Catholic.  Catholic weddings are a little long and there is a lot of chanting...very weird!  The food afterward was fantastic though.  

Right now is rainy season, so it is really depressing because everyone has to stay indoors a lot.  The other day I was outside just for about 5 minutes total on my way to work and I showed up with drenched clothes.  It was awful!  I am definitely looking forward to the nicer weather that is hopefully to come!  


Until next time...

Roses Are Red...

Since it is almost Valentine's Day and I find myself single (no worries, it is by choice), I somehow have lots of extra time on my hands, therefore I decided it was a good time to take back up some writing. I know that there has been a huge gap between my last posting and this one, and I am not even going to try to justify it with an excuse. I am simply going to begin this posting where the last left off. Last time I mentioned that I was sick at the time and ended up being sick for almost a month and a half right before Christmas. It was terrible! I got 3 or 4 shots in the butt, so many prescriptions from the doctor that I was taking about 7 pills for each meal, and I went through lots and lots of tissues! It finally cleared up in time for me to head back to the States for Christmas.

Christmas was very expensive but well worth the trip. I ended up getting several Korean gifts for all members of the family. On the way to the U.S., I actually had 2 suitcases full of gifts and very little room to take any clothes. It was so good to see my family after not seeing any of them for almost 8 whole months. I picked up several things that I noticed I would be needing for when I headed back to Korea as well. I made sure to take medication with me so that I wouldn't be sick for a long amount of time like that again, a few new clothes/shoes because they don't have a shoe size bigger than a woman's size 7 here, and some of my warm winter clothes that I had put away in storage. My flight back to Korea was on New Year's Day at 6:30 in the morning. Mom and I stayed at a hotel near the airport the night before so we wouldn't have to drive the 1.5 hour drive to the airport that early in the morning. What we didn't realize, or what I had forgotten, was that on New Year's Eve, people like to rent out hotel rooms and throw parties in them. Needless to say, we were kept awake until the wee hours of the morning and even encountered a few stragglers headed in on our way out that morning at 4:00.

While I was back, I realized there were so many things that I missed. These are things that I didn't do for almost a whole year! I have compiled a list.

• Eat at Taco Bell
• See an English television commercial
• Buy a pair of shoes
• Sleep in a soft bed
• Eat good home cooked American food
• See my cat (who is now very fat btw)
• Take a shower in an actual shower
• Take a bath
• Drive a car
• Order something from a drive-through window
• Actually be able to read and understand everything at the grocery store, restaurant, doctor's office, shopping mall, etc.
• Hear and be able to speak the English language to anyone and everyone around me
• Walk around and not need an interpreter anywhere that I went
• And of course...See my family!

 

My delicious Christmas dinner!

The flights were very long, but I did catch up on some much needed movie time. I honestly think that I watched a total of 12-15 movies on the whole flight both ways. I am not a good sleeper when it comes to places other than my bed, so I got almost no sleep on the 13-15 hour flight to the States and even less on the way back to Korea! When I got back, I had to work immediately the next day. That week was not so fun! The jet lag really kicked in heavily.

Don't get me wrong, even though this place is totally different and there are things about the U.S. that I miss, I do like it here very much! Since Christmas, I have done many new things in Korea. I went to the 6th largest museum in the world, shopped at Asia's largest underground shopping mall, and I went to a snow theme park. All of these were very fun and very exciting. There are many new pictures on facebook to check out.

Me learning how to use the traditional Korean sled.

The main attraction at the Korean National Museum.

Until next time...