west meets east again

EMAIL ALERT!! it seems for some strange reason which the people at earthlink can't figure out my emails are being download even though i'm not on line. what this means is that i only seem to get emails from my sprint account when i'm actually at home on the computer. after 3 various chat sessions with the techies at earthlink no know whys. so for the past couple of days i only received a handful of emails. if you sent one and i didn't respond its most likely i didn't get it. sorry. i changed my password today but not sure if thats going to solve the problem. to be safe it might be best to send me emails to my yahoo account. that address is jethanduran@yahoo.com. hopefully this problem will be fixed soon.

i had my first experience with a real eastern doctor today. there's a acupuncture hosipital near my school so sammy took me there today. i'm giving up on master shin's 101 acupuncture. the energy inside this place, which is called myclinic, was very good. it felt so peaceful and relaxing. the decor was brown and black. there were jars of various roots on displayed and i got to wear slippers that said "love". although the slippers were both for the right foot. hello. don't you have left slippers. i guess not. anyway, sammy signed me in. its a good thing she came because noone speaks english. how exciting! going to a doctor that doesn't speak english. its definitely interesting. a few minutes passed in the waiting room and then i was called into the doctors office for a consultation. sammy interpreted for both of us. i told him how my injury occurred and where it hurt. he felt around my knee and lower leg. bent it a few times and asked if it hurt. it did slightly. then he took my pulse and asked if i ran warm or cold. i have no idea. at times i feel like i run both quite equally so i said i was in the middle. not really sure what they had to do with anything so i asked sammy. she said depending on my answer is how they treat you. everyone is different so its something they like to know. after meeting with the doctor, who as sammy said was a little nervous, i went into the acupuncture room. i guess they don't see too many westerners here. inside this room was a bed and a current. i laid down with my head facing the door. the doctor came in and sammy told me he was going to start putting the pins in. she told me to let them know if it hurt. i used my "tools" that kate taught me to relax. he put about 4 pins in my left hand and arm and a couple around my left leg. then he moved onto my right leg, the one with the pain and placed some pins around my knee and down my leg. so there i was laying on this bed with my t-shirt on, pants rolled up, socks off, and various needles sticking out of him. thats when he brought in the machine. it was a shock machine. he attached what looked like mini jumper cables to two of the needles on my right leg. once they were in place he turned on the machine. my leg shook as if i was having a spasm with every shock. the shock were continuous. it felt so weird to not be able to control my leg. after a few minutes it began to feel really good. like an electronic massage. a few minutes laters he returned with a red heat lamp type thing that he turned on and pointed at my leg. i could feel the heat from the lamp on my leg. it was nice and relaxing. i remained in that position leg shaking, heat lamp on for 10 minutes. it like being a cheese burger at mcdonalds waiting under the heat for someone to order me. when the machine went off a nurse came in and said something to me. i nodded and realized that she said she was going to take out the pins. when she was done the doctor came back and motioned that i could get dress. it was such a great experience. before leaving sammy told me that they wanted me to come back for two more sessions and that i shouldn't do tae kwon do until i was done with all three sessions. i go back on saturday morning at 10am sans sammy. i'm a little nervous but she told me they will be doing the same thing. i just need to remember to bring my korean-english dictionary. i feel like i'm fully emersing myself into the culture now.

we got two new students today who will start tomorrow. guess who's class they are in. mine. the two new boys will be joining by orange a class on friday. now i'll have not 3 rambuncious boys but 5. lucky, lucky me. we also learned this week that another english school was openning up in a few months in the same building as ours. this will be interesting but at least it means more westerners in ansan.

as for more exciting news we made reservations for christmas break. it looks like vickie, horace, and i were be going to an island off of thailand to ride elephants, stay in a bungalow, and sit on the beach. i forget the name but a friend of vickies was just there and she said it was wonderful. it one of these yet to be discovered places by tourists. i'm getting very excited. i can't wait to ride an elephant. i'm going to make some dinner now. all this writing is making me hungry. until next time.