space pod from planet korea

deery-lou.
last night after watching two episodes of the hardy boys/nancy drew mysteries i was so tired that i thought i was actually going to sleep through the night. no such luck. i awoke at 2am wheezing and coughing. i spent the next 3 hours reading blogs about foreigners living in korea. one girl's experience sounded absolutely awful. around 5:30am i decided to try to get a few more hours of sleep. i managed to sleep until 10am. needless to say i got nothing accomplished this morning. didn't quite have the energy to study korean. jeff,who's one of my students, his mom is a pharmacist. jk called her so that she could recommend a doctor in the area. the next thing i knew she was picking me up at 2pm and taking me to the doctors. on the way there i explained to her my symptoms. thankfully she spoke fairly good english and could understand it too. granted we are probably around the same age but as soon as i walked in the doctor's office with her i felt ten years old. i had to write my name, phone number, and birth date on a piece of paper for the nurse. well, actually jeff's mom wrote them for me. hence the feeling of a ten year old. then i had to get my blood pressure taken. it was almost as if i had no idea what was happening. we returned to our seats and a couple minutes later i was called to the doctor's office. i explained to her my symptoms and jeff's mom helped translate. my doctor could speak a little english but not good enough for us to have a conversation. plus i think i was talking a bit too fast for her. there was a lot of korean happening in that office. i basically sat there staring at them doe-eyed. the doc asked me several questions about my health and then said she was going to give me a chest x-ray and a lung test. oh joy. back to the waiting room we wait. a few minutes later then i'm called into the x-ray room. i had to stand against a metal plate on the wall. she told me to take a deep breathe [in korean of course] and before i knew it…viola it was done. back to the waiting room. it was starting to feel like a game. sit down, stand up, walk into this room, sit down, stand up, etc. now it was time for the lung test. before starting they had to measure my height. after taking off my big shoes to which the nurse was simply staring, i stood on some machine where the top part moves down until it hits your head. then its done. the nurse started talking to me in korean about breathing. i stared. did alot of uh-huhs too. then i had to practice taking deep breathes. she started pointing to my stomach and for a minute i thought she was saying i was too fat. i'm thinking what the hell does that have to do with anything. then i realized she was telling me to breathe from my stomach muscles not from my nose. ha ha. more practice time. at one point i looked up and both the nurse and jeff's mom are showing me how to do it. i am ten. finally it was time to put the machine in my mouth and blow. right before the nurse put a metal clothes pin thing on my nose so i could breathe threw it. i had to take two different tests like this. breathing six times for each one. very deep breathes the nurse said to me. when it was done i headed back to the waiting room. then i was called into the doctor's office. my chest x-ray was on a screen. i took my place on the little, black stool with wheels by the doc's desk. she told me that my x-ray was fine. as were the results of my lung test. everything is normal. that was a relief. but due to my symptoms she believes i have a mild case of bronchitis. very mild she said. she prescribed some antihistamines for me to take for 7 days plus an inhaler that i had to take for a month. the inhaler looked like an alien ship. how fun! the inhaler must be done twice a day and the pills at night. she wants me to come back in 7 days. in the meantime she said i need to rest, no smoke, no drink, and no teach english. i had to laugh at the last one. if only i could get out of teaching. not likely. she asked me where i was from. it appears that she has been to sf, la, and vegas. we chatted for a bit then she said bye-bye. it was very sudden. back to the waiting room to await the bill. for not having insurance the visit came to 20,000 won [$20]. not bad considering i had x-rays and several tests done. i use to pay more than that in the states. my meds on the other were very expensive. we went to jeff's mom's pharmacy to get them. it appears the inhaler is quite the costly item. alien technology ain't cheap i quess. even with the discount she gave me it was 60,000 won. yikes. this shit best be good. if it works then its totally worth it. jeff's mom then took me back to school. we talked a little in the car. she had been to sf too. she also told me that she's planning of going to seattle next year. then we were talking about taekwondo. jeff takes it too but not with me. she then told me have jeff keeps telling her that he wants me to come to their house or something like that. i couldn't quite understand. she asked if it was true. not really knowing what was said i answered yes. hopefully i didn't get myself into anyting too serious. when she dropped me off she told me that she'd pick me up next tuesday at the same time. how sweet is that. its so funny to think that my student's mom, who i really don't know, is doing all this stuff for me. the kindness of koreans. i'm definitely going to get her a thankyou gift this weekend. the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. it took all of my energy to make it through taekwondo. i was sweatin so much it was gross.

my million dollar space pod

be well…