3 months down

This past week I was in pretty rough shape. I had fever and chills periodically throughout the day and all through the night. Wednesday I went to the doctor where they took blood and urine, but they found nothing wrong. They gave me some pills which helped it stop and by Friday I was sleeping fine. It bothers me that I don't know how it happened, but there are multiple reasons it could be, so it's hard to pinpoint. I personally think it was due to stress. I don't want to get into it too much, but although I am enjoying the work, the work environment can be pretty toxic. I'll leave it at that.

(I just remembered my favorite parent complaint from last week. A mother complained that her son doesn't like school because he doesn't know English very well (the icing on this cake is that he was awarded best English speaker for the month). I kind of just stood there and blinked a bunch of times. You mean the 4 year old who started school a month after all the other kids who already knew how to ask for the bathroom, water, etc. and established routines by the time your child arrive? Also the 4 year old who is learning a second language without likely mastering his 1st? Yeah - did anyone expect him to know English in 2 months? This is going to be his life for the next few years.)

That being said, I wanted to have a pretty low key weekend. Saturday I had a hair cut which was fun to try and describe what I wanted. The stylist is a friend of another teacher here, so she speaks some English. I just wanted it shorter and thinned out. She asked if I had a picture. I said - just what I have now but less. We settled on a photo of Meg Ryan with a short bob. Basically, I just don't want to have a lot of hair because it is so hot here already and the summer will be deadly for me! 

The rest of Saturday I just laid in bed napping and watching Netflix. I had a lot of sleep to catch up on from the week.

On Sunday I felt pretty good and wanted to do SOMETHING. So, I went to Seoul Forest which is a large park (similar to Central Park in that it has a bunch of different areas of attraction). I walked for a while, saw some deer, went into a small insect museum (which also had turtles and rabbits), and laid on the grass and finished reading my book - The Vegetarian by Han Kang. It's pretty good - I recommend it!

Tiny temple at the top of that hill

Don't worry, I made sure to step on the disinfecting chamber of foot.

I can't believe I was tanning in April! 

Sunday evening I went out for pizza with our new teacher, Caitlin. We have a lot in common and I think we will be good friends. She taught in Korea a few years ago and has come back for a second round. So she's much more adjusted than I was in my first few days! 

This is a short week at work as Wednesday is Buddha's Birthday and Friday is Children's Day - both of which are national holidays. We have a 5 day weekend. A few of us had booked a trip to Jeju Island which we ended up having to cancel and reroute to Ulsan, which is still beachy and warm which is all we really want. Although we are planners, we didn't factor in the 4 hr ferry ride to Jeju which would turn our expected 6 hour day into 10+, and we didn't realize we had to book the ferry in advance and when we checked it was all booked for people bringing cars on. 

So, tomorrow morning we head to Ulsan for sand and lots of temple exploring! 

Kenneth is still in Nigeria, but we talk multiple times a day. We often have a bad connection so it's usually about 6 poor video chats about 20 seconds each - how are you? Miss you. Family good. Saw the baby. Work good. Can't wait for weekend. 

Sending lots of love,

Alli