Kimchi, not for me

Well, camp is over. The teaching was fine. The weather was awful. The stairs...I do not know of a strong enough word to describe just how horrid those stairs were. The only stairs I have ever climbed that were worse were the stairs on the Great Wall. And those were made in ancient times...so far as I know, the stairs at the training center in 총 주 had no such excuse. (And for all of you in the States, that was a random Korean word that I know won't show up on your computers. Easier than typing the English version.)

I don't have internet in my new apartment yet, so I'm at a PC room with my dear friend Pamela from church. We met up for dinner tonight, and I realized how absolutely necessary the time with her has been - it's been awhile since I've spoken to someone besides Korean children, or other teachers frazzled to various degrees about Korean children or about English camp. It was nice to have dinner and just talk about whatever.

I don't have the final word yet, but I'm pretty sure my plane ticket has been purchased. If I understand correctly (which is SO not a sure thing) I should be flying out (and, with the time change, also arriving) on either August 26 or 27. I am getting unbelievably excited about it. There's so many people I can't wait to see, so much food I can't wait to eat, and so much I can't wait to buy. It's going to be a very strange experience being surrounded by other Americans and hearing English everywhere. I think it's going to be quite disorientating (is that even a word???).

Okay, so I'm moved in. It started out being a rather long and torturous process, but once the movers got there, they were like super-movers. Anyway, I don't have internet at my new place yet. Not that it really matters. Even if I did, I wouldn't have time to use it. Next week is camp, which translates into four days of fun (and stress-) filled fun! And while I'm no longer puking, I now have a cold. I absolutely LOVE my new apartment, and the animals are working on getting adjusted to it. Right now I'm at Beth and Adam's for Owen's 2nd birthday party. I'm quite excited, even if I do have a slight case of medicine head.

I probably won't be able to blog again for at least another week. So miss me, okay?

I'm pretty much all better now! Still some issues you don't want to know about, but the worst seems to be over. I actually feel human again! And that is a very good thing, because I am moving on Wednesday/Thursday and am not at all packed right now. Monday is a holiday here, so I'll have to spend pretty much all day packing in the un-air-conditioned heat of my apartment. My new apartment though.....SO SO SO nice! I can't wait till I can live there.

Anyway, I need to sleep now. Going to go exchange some clothes in the morning before I start packing. Thank you all for your encouraging comments and your prayers.

Before I go, one quick funny story. NamSoo is my boss' name. During one of the doctor's visits this week he had to go with me to translate some rather embarrassing information. When I was text-messaging one of my friends about this awkward conversation on my cell phone, the buttons on my phone weren't cooperating and so I accidentally typed and almost sent "NamPoo" which is incredibly ironic and funny to me, given the topic of what he had to translate. Seriously...it was when I was getting the first IV, and I was in this room by myself, and when I read "NamPoo" I just dissolved into a fit of giggles that was nearly impossible to suppress. I tried to laugh quietly though, because if the nurses had heard me, they probably would have assumed that the foreigner was sick AND crazy - a generalization I try to avoid whenever possible.

Four days, four (different) doctors. Two bags of IV fluids. Four separate sets of prescriptions. I guess the diagnosis is some sort of bacterial infection in my intestines. I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure if they're really sure. But sick I am. And frustrated, exhausted, and at this point, to be honest, a bit concerned.

My work has been really great about it. My friends have been really great, supportive, and more helpful than I could have dreamed of. But seriously yall, I'm in bad shape right now. Pray for me please.

Monday, July 10, was, without a doubt, my worst day in Korea.

Thankfully it was only due to physical illness, and therefore involved mostly only myself. (When drama includes other people it inevitably takes much longer to be resolved.)

In fact, it was such a unbelievably awful day, it's almost hard to pick out the lowest point. Almost. No...wait, it's not hard at all. The lowest point was when I had to yell at the taxi driver to pull over so I could throw up on the side of the road, losing the only food I'd eaten in about 36 hours, and basically humiliating myself. All drama aside folks (which is rare for me, I know) it was one of the loneliest moments of my life - holding on to the handle on the back of the passenger seat for dear life, while praying nothing else gross happened in/from my body, puking on the side of this busy road in Seoul, all alone (companion-wise, there was, of course the taxi driver), and crying my poor eyes out.

Long story short I did not get better Sunday night as hoped. I visited two doctors yesterday, one in the morning and one towards the evening. I got an injection the first time, and IV fluids the second. Between the doctors and the taxis (necessary as opposed to a bus, for the obvious reason being I could yell at them to pull over when needed), I spent way too much money yesterday.

The kicker? I'm still sick. Though I can now keep food down, it's only just barely. I get super nauseous after I eat, I mean, to the point of hovering over the toilet bowl. But then there are other bad things going on in my body I won't even begin to discuss. I'm exhausted, running on very little energy, and sick to death of being on/over the toilet.

I do have to say that there are so many people who have been so kind and helpful while I've been so sick. I appreciate them all so much. And I hope they'll forgive me for not mentioning all the specific wonderful things they did and going straight to talking about how great my dog is. I figure it's different though...if any of my wonderful friends were following me around the apartment and kissing me while I was laying on the bathroom floor sick, I'd think they were extremely weird. But when the dog does it, it's quite endearing. She's such a good dog. My friends are good too, of course.

There's currently all kinds of stuff swimming around in my head - Lord only knows what's going to come out and whether or not it will make any sense. So consider yourself warned.

It's Sunday night, and I have to say I have had a bad weekend. I got up Saturday, was going to lounge about a bit, take a bath, then head out to do some shopping and meet up with some friends. I got as far as the "take a bath" part, and realized something was definitely not right. I thought perhaps a nap would make me all better. I lay down and sleep for a bit, only to wake up and realize that I am freezing cold. I glance at my clock (with a fancy built in thermometer) and see that it is 29 degrees Celsius and my room, and therefore I should not be cold. Nonetheless, I snuggle up under my quilt, and lay there for a bit. It is sometime around here that reality for me got a bit fuzzy. At some point I realized I had a fever, and probably a pretty good one. I also realized that it was quite important for me to take some medicine for said fever as soon as possible. This realization was immediately followed by an even more disturbing realization that I could neither walk or talk with any real success. I had texted my friend Christine to let her know I wouldn't be meeting her. Being the good friend that she is, she called to check on me. I could only barely talk. She offered to come to my apt. to take care of me if I needed it, and I promised that I would call her if I needed her. After hanging up, I decided to get up, get the medicine (which I thought was near my bedroom door) and go to the restroom. Long story short, the box of medicine near my door was actually empty, and once in the bathroom, I was pretty much stuck. The actual medicine was maybe five or six feet away. I tried to get to it about seven times. I once made it two steps out of the bathroom before my stomach convinced me how absolutely urgent it was that I return to the bathroom. I even tried crawling...but that was a no-go as well. Finally I accepted that I could not get the medicine on my own, and would be happy to settle for getting back to my bed and calling Christine. That took about 20 minutes, with me eventually crawling there.

Christine, being the epitome of all that is "good friend," left her meeting with some other friends, went and bought a thermometer for me, got me a few straws (those were the two things I requested) and came to my aid. I ended up having a fever of 102, that broke shortly after I was finally able to take some tylenol. All I can say is, thank God for friends like Christine. She then proceeded to spend the rest of the evening with me...filling up my water bottle, getting a cool towel to put on my forehead, eventually helping me move to the living room so we could watch a movie together (or really so she could watch and I could continue to be in a state of semi-consciousness), and ordered food that my body could hopefully handle. Honestly, I don't remember the last time I've been that sick. And honestly, if it weren't for her, I'd have been in a bad spot.

Fast forward to today - having spent pretty much 24 hours in bed (but not resting or sleeping well) my body is stiff and sore, but not yet well. I'm all creaky and sore, and still actually not feeling well. Thankfully, I've been able to walk and talk, and therefore consider myself to be doing 200% better than yesterday.

Now that that's settled...allow me to share this with you: I'm really stressed out. I'm moving, possibly two times, in the next 3-4 weeks. We have this three day summer camp (that is a lot less frightening now than before, but still quite daunting), possibly another 6 day camp after that, Peter might be coming to visit Korea for 3-4 days during that second camp, and my animals don't handle change well. Daive freaks out when she sees suitcases and boxes - for good reason, I confess. But moving twice, having to stay with Christine and/or a pet-sitter a lot over the next month and a half is going to be rough on her, me, and my wallet. Add in that I'm not at all packed, I'm currently feeling quite icky, the articles I write for the devotional magazine are due this week (and of course I haven't started), the material for the summer camp workbook is due tomorrow (and is not at all ready, though I know all I want to put in it), I'm probably moving for the first time (and to an as-of-yet undetermined place) this coming weekend, and it's getting far too hot in Seoul to be living without air-conditioning. There you have it. That's how I'm doing. I know it'll all work out and it'll all pass, but right now I'm stressed.

And - and this is for free - I'm hungry. I've eaten pathetically little over the past 36-ish hours, and my body is well enough to be hungry, but not well enough to eat much of anything. AND last night I had a dream that I was walking through a Wal-Mart in the States. My list of foods I miss is quite long, let me tell you, and that dream just fueled the fire. You can imagine my disappointment when I woke up in an extremely hot bedroom in Seoul, with a body that very nearly rejected a Nutragrain bar for breakfast (and that's pretty bland).

So anyway, now - for a change of plans - I'm going to sleep. Back to sleep. Again. I pray tomorrow will be better.

From my IM conversation with my sister, about the North Korea missile thing...

me: North Korea is like a big bug
me again: the rest of the world just wants it to go away so they don't have to dirty their shoes squashing it

My dog and I both have digestion difficulties while the cat is fine. This means one of two things: either Daive and I should switch to Science Diet Hairball Control, or we're both too high strung.

I'm in a strange mood tonight. Though there are at least a handful of things I could have been doing (writing for the devotional, packing, or doing way-overdue student evaluations) I chose instead to take a bath, study for the written driver's test, give Daive a bath, and then do my homework for counseling. Now that I have written it down, I've been quite productive. I don't feel like I've been productive though, because I think the other things are a bit more pressing.

So I'm in counseling. I'm pretty sure most of you that read this know that, and if you didn't know I was getting it, you know I need it! My counselor is amazing. I've been seeing her for nine or ten months now. She's about to go to the States for a month (where she grew up and her parents still live) and I'll be leaving for the States just as she gets back. With that, and a few other things in the middle, I won't be seeing her for about two months. So she gave me some homework: I have to write down what I have learned/realized in the time we've been meeting. Needless to say, that's a lot. I think this is really a sort of realization time - I am naturally introspective (no, really?!) and always get that way before any kind of change (in this case, a move). Between that, and then this homework, I have realized that, by God's grace, I have come a L-O-N-G way over the past year. I won't get into the icky details, but take my word for it. I'm just so thankful I got to a low enough point to not care about the stigma of counseling. You know honestly, as I sit here and think about it, I think my counseling with her is very much like intensive discipleship or mentoring. The whole "nothing new under the sun" thing kicks in here. We have taken something that has existed probably since shortly after the fall of man and stuck a new label on it (and given it a new stigma). There's definitely more attention paid to thinking patterns and underlying assumptions/foundations, but I think that's cultural. And you know, I have the distinct impression that I'm not making any sense right now. So...moving on...

I'm buying a car. It's a used car - belonged to my roommate's old roommate. She left Korea for what she thought was a short time, but now it ends up that she isn't coming back. The nice thing is that when a foreigner leaves Korea, they usually just want to get rid of the stuff they can't take with them, and don't care a whole heap about money. In fact, with the meager amount of money I'm paying her, I don't even think it's right to say that I'm buying it. It's more like she's giving it to me and I'm giving her a small thank-you gift. Anyway, it's a 1994 Hyundai Elantra. It's not all settled yet - have to get my license, figure out registration (if I have to wait to register it in my name till she comes back in September), and insurance. All I know is that no matter how much all of the previous things cost, it will save me money, because I take taxis WAY too much.

Then there's moving...I don't know where or when yet, but I'm praying that it's extremely close to Beth & Adam and very soon. I'll keep you updated. In the meanwhile, I'm off for now. Night all.

I am currently uploading a Gaither CD to my iTunes right now, so I can put it on my iPod. I know this will make me the object of merciless teasing from my coworker who has a beef with the Gaithers. The thing is, it's just part of my childhood. The hymn-singing, the cheesy down-home twangy thing...my mom loved them, and I remember countless Saturday nights watching the Statler brothers show at my Grandma's house (different from the Gaithers but same kind of genre I believe). AND...my sister (second sister - the Konglish phrase for the second born, in this case my middle sister) who is WAY cooler than I could ever aspire to be, even has admitted to liking hymns, and *maybe* being a closet Gaither fan (I can't remember specifically which she liked. Guess I just outed her if I'm right, though.). I admit that some of the down-home hymn favorites may have less-than-perfect theology, but really...nobody and nothing is perfect.

Go easy on me.

I have been wanting this Bible since it came out however long ago. I ordered it a few weeks ago, and today it arrived! I got the leather-bound one, even had my name put on it! I am, obviously, extremely excited about this Bible. This is actually the only study Bible I've ever had before. I ordered this and a few other books from monergismbooks.com. They were shipped out in three small packages in order to save on shipping. The first one, the above Bible, came today. It's like Christmas or something! I love getting packages, and I love books...so when the package is a book...it's nearly too much for me to handle! So I am still looking forward to receiving trwo more packages. That's good stuff right there. Anyway, just wanted to share. And for those of you thinking it, yes I know I'm a nerd. I'm completely okay with that.

and I had two drinks. It's funny to me, because going to a bar wasn't something I would have ever even *considered* when I lived in the States. Living in the South, in the Bible Belt, going to a Baptist Bible college, smoking and drinking are major issues. It was when I got to Israel that I realized it wasn't like that everywhere. It was there that I first met Christians who seriously loved God and also would drink on occasion. They weren't even backsliden!

So anyway, today was just a day. The A/C drama goes on. I turned it on for an hour this morning, from 11 AM to noon. They called and said it was too loud - like a construction zone, those were their exact words. In the same conversation they said it was too loud at night (though it was only on one night, and hasn't been on since I spoke with them last week), and that it was okay to have it on during the day. That statement was followed by the statement, "But it's too loud right now." I finally said, through tears of frustration, "Fine, I'll turn it off." And then I hung up the phone, which was probably really awful to do culturally, but at that point I honestly didn't care. The day was frustrating for other reasons as well. The point is that, when thinking about what to do tonight, I decided I wanted to go to a bar in the foreigner-frequented part of town, and have at least one drink. And so I did.

This part of town (where I go to the doctor, buy phone cards, go shopping for clothes) is almost like stepping out of Korea and into North America. The bar (also a restaurant, I'll add for good measure) is totally like stepping into North America. All the songs were in English and popular (I knew most of them). They had cocktails I was familiar with, and the place was full of white people. I actually found it to be a bit overwhelming, but definitely a good experience. It was a much-needed time of relaxation.

And the whole issue of alcohol...I've mostly only heard it explained that one should abstain in order to keep a brother or sister in Christ from stumbling. I haven't found that to be a problem outside of the southern US. While I do know of some great Christians who drink too much on occasion, I have found it to be liberating. Alcohol is a dangerous thing, and should be handled with caution. I have never been drunk, and plan to avoid it. Yet at the same time, when drank in moderation, I think it's really not that big of a deal.