teenager?

ON A POSITIVE NOTE... I have one student (American 6 year old) that is visiting from the U.S. (New Jersey) and is in the school for a month or so to learn Korean (my kids get one hour of Korean class a day - writing, reading etc. and the younger kids get mostly Korean). She seems to have taken a liking to me and enjoys following me around talking to me (which can get a tad annoying at times, but isn't really so bad). Almost every day so far, she has mentioned quite matter of factly that I look like a teenager. lol.

X-rays etc

I'm getting so tired of this. I changed hospitals to be closer to where I work (and so that I could actually make appointments without having mess around with the school schedule, which doesnt' really work anyway). The new doctor seems very nice, and a bit more concerned about things than the other one. But it meant more X-rays. He said a few, only to help make a diagnosis. 20 X-rays is a bit more than a few. And I go in on Saturday for a full body bone scan. This is getting so expensive. I mentioned how much I was paying (since this whole problem started) and he is trying to help me as much as he can. He is a specialist, which means to see him it costs about about twice as much (or more) than a regular doctor. Well, he made it so that I am only paying the fees for a regular doctor. Nice. I also asked if he could suggest a good multivitamin. He reached into his own bag and pulled out a new box of vitamins and gave them to me, saying that his pharmacist had just dropped them for HIM. Many of the things that I mentioned that the other doctor had just shrugged his shoulders at, this one shook his head and said it was not good.
So, in the last year, I've had, I think, around 45 X-rays. YIKES!!! That includes the ones at the previous hospital and the X-rays at the dentists' offices that I've been to. I had one X-ray taken yesterday at the dentist, and then again today, as the machine malfunctioned and squished the picture up a bit so that you couldn't clearly see what was what (computer image xray). They had to readjust the machine and retake the X-ray.
It is getting quite expensive. The dentist is quite cheap here compared to back home. At least, some things are. To get a wisdom tooth pulled, it cost me less than $10, including the X-ray and medicine; about $25 when it was a bit more intensive and I had to have a couple of stitches. The problem I have now, is a bit more extensive. The dentist says it is probably due to the medication I've been taking, that my immune system is down and so I am more susceptible to things (which is what I had already thought of). Anyway, it is some sort of gingivitis or such. I needed a teeth cleaning anyway, so he is doing that at the same time. He is also doing a bit extra for me because he feels bad, he is charging me for the regular type of scaling, but using the laser scaling. It will cost me a total of $400, being done in 4 sessions - one quarter of my mouth at a time. Each takes about 30 minutes. He used the laser to clean my teeth and I think he was cauterizing my gums a bit, as I have been having a bit of problems with them bleeding. With my mouth numbed and my face covered, all I could do was smell the burning what ever. not nice. 3 more times I have to deal with that.
So anyway, this hasn't been the best day. 2 hours at the hospital and almost an hour at the dentist's office.

my birthday

I guess I could tell you that my birthday was also this month (June 8th). I hasn't really been a big deal these past few years. Being in Korea, especially with most of my friends in another city, all working different hours, makes it difficult to really do anything. And there are so many birthdays here in June. On my actual birthday, I rented a movie, came home and just relaxed. I did go out for a drink on Saturday with Revo to BricX in Itaewon. I love BricX. It has such a great atmosphere.Very cozy. We were going to get a sheesha but there was a 2 hour wait, they said.My gift - a beautiful gold necklace.

June's birthday party at Starters

Yes, once again it's a little late. I show my kids their pics on my blog sometimes (I use the net for teaching) and they absolutely love it. Since I had pics of the others so far, to be fair, I sort of have to keep it up. ;)This month's birthday was HyunSang. His mother sent in fried chicken, pizza, juice, and a HUGE cake. Yummy!!!

so sick of being sick.

Well, my tonsillitis is all of a sudden back. I started to feel feverish Monday night. The gums around my last wisdom started to bother me again, so I began to wonder (last time I had it, it really affected my gums there). Then yesterday, my throat was killing me, as were my gums. My tonsils are inflamed again, with the white guck on them. Yuck. I went to the doctor and got medicine for 3 days. I'm crossing my fingers. Recurring tonsillitis is definitely not a good thing. He was already starting to talk about surgery the last time I had it, as it was taking so long to go away (I had it for over 2 weeks!). Today all of my gums are a bit swollen. My throat hurts, and is irritating (it feels like there is something stuck in my throat) and my gums are killing me. My whole mouth feels strange. This sucks.

bbq

Last Saturday the Lokomotiv Goyang football (soccer) team had a barbecue to celebrate their win and for their awards ceremony. They are the league champions. That group is always great fun! After things wound down on the roof, a bunch of us headed to a local bar, Torros.[eating, mingling, etc. - this pic borrowed from Dairin][food - the salad table][mingling][Watching the awards ceremony][some of the award winners - Sophie and Dairin won the Best Supporters Award][the team after the awards ceremony][Dairin and I][Kieran and Eamon][at Torros - this pic borrowed from Dairin]

Parents' Participation Day

Today was Parents' Participation Day for the Milky Way classes. We had it set up as a cooking class. We made little heart shaped pizzas. The kids and their parent(s) made 2 little pizzas each. Stephanie and I each made a bigger one to show how it's done.[my second pizza]It was basically a performance by Stephanie and I, including a couple of songs sung by the kids - Baby Bumblebee and Today Is Monday. The kids and Stephanie and I all had aprons and hats to wear.[Lisa and Sarah]We had to to the whole thing twice. Milky Way B class and then Milky Way A class. Other than a few pauses trying to remember lines, it went quite well. The boss was happy, and so sent us (Stephanie and I, our 2 Korean teachers - Jinah and Jessie, and Miss Han, who is sort of the boss' assistant). We didn't eat our pizzas that we made, or the spaghetti that the cook made for lunch. Instead, we went out to a nice little Italian restaurant around the corner from work. It was soooo good.

my class

Jinah and our kids during play time. They really do get a lot of play time.Sarah, ChaeYeon and Lisa pretending to eat (they are pretending the sticks are chopsticks, of course).Sleepy-head. Jin usually arrives at the start of lunch time, after attending a larger, international kindy for the morning. He is often sleeping when he arrives, or very tired.Steve eating his lunch. Unlike kids back home, many of the kids here PREFER their food all mixed together. There is always soup and rice and then meat/fish or tofu, and some side dishes of vegetables and, of course, kimchi.HyunSang finishing up his lunch. We have them completely clean their dishes. They usually don't need any prompting and scrap up every last bit of rice and drink the last drops of soup. This one, though, is usually the last to finish, as he prefers to talk while everyone else is eating, and then gets upset and angry at me because he doesn't get playtime when he finishes, like the others do.Some of the kids' artwork. Jinah is an art teacher for the after school classes and always comes up with such cute little projects for our kids to do.

Lantern Parade

May 24th was Buddha's birthday. In Korea, on the Sunday before, there is always a huge Lantern Parade. It lasts for 3 hours. I only saw the last hour or so of it. There were huge lit up floats (some pushed by hand, some by motors or attached to vehicles), hundreds (maybe thousands?) of people all dressed up and carrrying candle lit (most) or battery operated lanterns, dancers, drummers and other musicians, etc.one of the Guardianswomen in traditional Korean Hanboks with one of the many kinds of lanternsBuddhist monks came from all over the world to participate in the week long Lantern Festival.more ladies in the parade - carrying lit up flower pinwheelskids carrying lanternsone of the bigger floats in the paradethe women from the big floata series of smaller floatsKorean Turtle Ship floatKorean Turtle Ship float in actionfirst dragon float - with moving partssecond dragon float - also with moving parts.
After the parade, there was a concert with a few very famous Korean singers. KLON was one of them. I'll post a little video of that next time. There were also traditional Korean songs and dancing. During the concert, little bits of pink paper were blown into the air. SO MUCH that the ground was completely covered by the end.

blowing bubbles

A few weeks ago, we had some very nice weather so Jinah took our kids outside to play with bubbles. After I finished teaching the 5 year old classes, I went out to join them and take some pictures.Jinah and most of our kidsAnnieSarahLisa

I think the animals out there were a bit confuzzled by the bubbles. :PMr. TigerMr. ZebraMr. Monkey