I'm Sick.

Well... not so much anymore but I've been pretty sick for the past few days. On Saturday I had a fever of about 38.5 C for most of the day (that like 101 F) and I felt like complete crap. Anyone that has known me when I've been sick knows that I get absolutely misereable. Poor Jure came down and had to deal with me all weekend. I thought it was very nice of him to take care of me when i was sick, although now probably he'll get sick which sucks. And the truth is that i have no idea where I could have gotten so horribly sick from. On Thursday morning I woke up feeling a little bit icky, but not too bad, and I went to work. After an hour I started feeling really bad. After two it was awful. By the third hour of the day I was really out of it. During the kindie's lunchtime I laid down in their playroom and tried to sleep for a few minutes but it didn't help so Hannah (my academic director) took me to a nearby clinic. Now to the good news of the bit... I went to the doctor and: was seen, examined, had x-ray's taken and analyzed, was given a shot, got my prescription and all this within a 40 minute time-frame. On top of that this whole thing cost me W6600. That's roughly less than $7 people. Then we went down to the pharmacy and I got my medications (4 of them for a 3 day period, also within 10 minutes) and they cost me a whopping W2400 (about $2.50). How ridiculous is that? After that Kate was nice enough to come and pick us up and take me home because I really don't think that I could have walked all the way home. I spent most of Thursday sleeping
On Friday I went in to work (though I still wasn't feeling altogether better) because I really didn't want to miss the Kinder kid's graduation. They were sooo cute. They did their little plays and songs. We had to socialize with their parents (and since I had two classes I kept feeling like I was the rope in a tug-of-war) but I got to hold Julie's little brother who was super cute and gave me a kiss and told me he loved me. Then I had lunch with all the Korean teachers, but I didn't eat very much since I still felt crappy. After teaching my 5 afternoon classes I went straight home. I feel guilty that I missed 3 Hapkido classes this week but with how bad I've been feeling I definitely could not have gone to class. Now luckily my days of teaching 10 classes per day are finally over. This week there are not kinder classes (since they graduated...Duh) and so I actually get to sleep in for a change. I spoke to Hannah and I told her, "No more 5 kindie classes in one day." I mean, don't get me wrong, they're adorable, but after 5 hours with them you're completely drained, to then have to do 5 more afternoon classes. No way. But now that the new teachers are coming it should be ok.
Overall, February's been really draining, since my life has been nothing but work and Hapkido. Still, Hapkido is going really well. I'm learning so much. It's all pretty neat defensive stuff and I can actually see myself improving. I just need to remember all the different combinations, but right now it's mostly stuff to do when someone grabs your arm, so you end up like twisting their wrist in a specific way and making them feel like you're going to break their arm. It's pretty cool. I can't wait to get to the part when you flip people ;-p.
Now with a (hopefully) less draining month coming up I will (again, hopefully) be able to do a better job of posting. And pics of the kindie graduation are to come.

MUA

PS: When I was sick one of my favorite kids, Amy (who is seriously one of the coolest kids on the planet) wrote me a note saying "To Susi Amy Susi are you ok? I'm sad Susi cold." How effing cute is that??? I'm gonna miss my kindie kids so much!

Procrastination is like masturbation...

I am of course quoting the brillant young woman that I lucky enough to call my sister. Ms. Susana Sanchez once told me (and I've never forgotten): Procrastination is like masturbation. It feels good, but in the end you're just fucking yourself. Lovely, I know. Lol! But that is totally how I feel right now. I put off doing my end of the month evaluations until the absolute last minute and now the stupid website is not working and I have no idea how the hell I am going to be able to get it all done by tomorrow. Luckily this week is a super short week since Wednesday is the Lunar New Year or as they like to say "Korean Happy New Year" so I only teach tomorrow and Tuesday and then on Wednesday I go to Seoul for 5 days with Jure. :-) That should be fun.
I was supposed to get a ton of stuff done this weekend but I was so tired from this week and so sore from Hapkido that I just ended up bumming around. Whatever... I know I'm whining and no I do not want any cheese with my whine. I just needed to let it out a little. I am, however, really glad that I did not procrastinate my Hapkido. I feel like I'm finally doing something that I've wanted to do for so long. Its like every ache and pain is wonderful. Because I know it is the result of hard work. Now I just really need to put the learning Korean into high gear. I know that if I put my mind to it I will. Just not more procrastination... maybe. Lol!
To talk about something else. Tonight I went out to dinner to have Samgyupsal with the ladies from the hair salon. Yunji was still working so she came after but dinner was really good. They're really nice and I like hanging out with Korean people. Especially older people, but they don't really speak any English so today Yunji's cousin, Hemin came with us so she could translate. I really like Samgyupsal. Its not so much the actual meat, which is closer to really fat bacon than anything else, but I like the way that you eat it. You cook the meat on a grill that is in the middle of the table and you wrap it in lettuce or grape leaves with onions and garlic and salad and other things and eat each piece of meat like a wrap. It's yummy and it feels like a really organic way to eat. It's funny that here, in most restaurants, you cook it yourself at the table and its pretty cheap (Samgyupsal is about $7 per person) whereas in the US you go to Melting Pot and pay out the ass to cook stuff yourself. Whatever.

Lastly, I wanted to make an observation that kind of hit as I was writing all the evaluations. Almost all of my kids, particularly my Intensives kids leveled up a lot. Some of them were in Carnival 2 and went all the way up to Odyssey 2. That means nothing to most of you, but it is substantial. Each level: Wake-up (Level 1), Playground (Level 2), Carnival (Level 3), and Odyssey (Level 4), has 6 sublevels. Several of my kids went up an entire 6 sublevels. Most of them went up at least 3-4 sublevels. That's what happens when you have Suji teecher. Yay!! It makes me very proud but at the same time I am sad that I am no longer teaching most of them. Oh well...

Return from the land where two-by-fours are pillows...

Lol! It's 3AM and I'm pretty delirious. I worked a really long day. I taught 10 classes. I mostly let the kindie kids mess around. And my afternoon classes went ok except I'm currently having one of two extremes in my classes; either the kids are talkative (but not really in a good/interactive/participate-in-class kind of way), or they are so quiet that all they do is sit there and look at me. After I was done teaching I was supposed to do my evaluations but I was so not in the mood. So I made some flashcards for my Wake-up 6A class. Then after work I had an hour of Hapkido. Only, at about 4PM I started to really feel sore. My legs were hurting and my ass felt like it was on fire. I went in and tried to stretch a little before class and I was able to do the class ok. BTW we learned this awesome wrist twisting thing where doing the most minimal thing you can totally overpower someone and make them cry for their mommy. But I need to increase my grip strength and overall arm, wrist, upper body strength in order to make it really effective. It's pretty freaking cool though. After Hapkido I felt like I could barely move. Every inch of my body hurt (still hurts) like crazy. I met up with Jenny, Liz and Katie--the new teacher--to go to the Jimjilbang (the sauna house). We figured it would be Katie's initiation like it was mine. We showered and took in a wet and a dry sauna. And then I laid down in one of the hot rooms and had a nice little nap............ on a two-by-four. Whatever, I'm in Korea. When in Rome... Then afterwards we showered again and headed out. I feel so clean. Like I cleansed all the toxins out of my body. It was really nice and relaxing. Although I am still in an absurd amount of pain because of Hapkido. It's just been two months of no real physically taxing exercise, and now all of a sudden my body is just thrown into the deep end. Well now I'm home. And its cold (-3 C). And I need some sleep.