General Updates and Such...

So it has been a while since I updated and here I sit with an hour left of work and no classes to teach so I figured now is the best time to keep everyone updated with what has been happening. Some of you who talk to me on a regular e-mail basis or facebook stalking status know Joseph and I have been under the weather again thanks to a wonderful huge supply of foreign Korean Germs! many thanks for this latest cold can be giving to my students... I am fairly sure.

I just had one student in my 7:30 class come into the teacher room and try to force feed me some kind of spicy korean snack that looked like a flat piece of white beef... Uhhh no thanks Helia, and did you even wash your hands.... yeah... ( At least they like me enough to share a snack, but I am overly cautious about eating anything that is not packaged... mostly because they like to kill me with spicy things.)

This week at school has been crazy too, Our manager Daniel is out sick all week with H1N1, which is not good for buisness!( or for Joseph and I because we have to sub his classes.)

I actually missed work on monday, but today I am feeling much better, though from the sound of my voice that would not seem to be the case. All my students keep saying "ahhh teacher your sound like monster"At least the constant river that has been my nose has dried up! Yeah!

Our Co-workers have been so worried about us they take every opportunity to ask us how we feel, or if we are getting enough sleep and exercise... they also love to try out the Korean medicine on us. Korea has a plethora of different medical facilities from clinics to offices, pharmacys, to Herb stores... the supply is endless, the worst of all was the Red Ginsing Tonic that Sen gave us. Ginsing is widely used here for medicinal purposes and is thought to cure almost anything. They take the ginsing root and make a special tonic out of it... however the one Sen gave us she refered to as a "potion"...which pointed towards an herb sort of medicine.

The directions were simple enough, Put in a glass, heat up in the microwave for a few seconds and drink..... which is easier said than done...

After taking the red/brown liquid out of the microwave joseph and I were overcome with a very powerful smell, and this was the bad power, not the good kind.... it smelled like hot dirt... really, there is no way to describe it other than Hot dirt. Not wanting to shun something that might make my cold vanish because of something silly like a bad smell, I ventured to taste it.... BAD IDEA.... note to self if it smells like dirt and looks like dirt... it is probably gonna taste that way too... it tasted like they forgot to shake the dirt off the ginsing root before making this potion... who knows... after that my stomach started feeling awful and I had to drink pepsi for the rest of the night to settle it down... Even worse was the next day we found two more "potions" on our desk at work. I feel bad because the stuff is expensive, but ewwww not again... it doesn't really help much. We said thank you and made sure to tell how much better we felt that day and luckily on thursday there was no more potion to be had!

Grace has been really helpful too she took us out for the Korean equivalent of Chicken noodle soup here in Korea. Guk Bab is a white Broth with pieces of meat and seaweed, and though when she took us out tuesday, I could not taste much, it was warm and helped clear my sinuses some.I thought the meat looked wierd but I was not sure why.... and I almost liked it but I could not put my finger on what was wrong, and then at work the next day when Jenny teacher told us that it was basically tripe soup... yeah to cure upset stomach and colds, Koreans eat pig stomach and intestine soup.... wow... can someone pass me some hot dirt potion please?

The next meal she took us out for was much better. Nalboo soup is lots of Ham ( regular kind) spam and noodles in a pork broth... it was really filling and somewhat spicy, but it was alot better than some of the other medicinal cures. It is what they used to serve the men in the military during the Korean war, because it is so easy to make and is very filling. I would acutally eat that again. So we have been back at school for the end part of this week, not too many problems.

Now in Teacher Daniels absence, we hired a sub for the rest of the week, her name is Paula, and she is very kind. She has been great to take over some of the classes so by wednesday Joseph and I had our breaks back. Thankfully Jenny teacher who was on the brink of sickness was able to pull herself back to the light and not succumb to disease because with two Korean teachers out things would be a mess.

So things are calmed down, Joseph is feeling better as am I. So no worries here.

All I know is that it is friday night, and Joseph and I are going to meet our friends from South Africa for dinner after work, and have a nice fun weekend. Maybe even have a reason to take some pictures.

And last but not least, we went to the bank today and opened up accounts, which was exciting. Our Bank is part of some Big Company that sells fish on all the Islands so our banks slogan is "Fresh bank, Fresh fish" and there are fish pictures all over the place... we were kinda concerned and confused when grace took us to the "bank" we thought it was a fish market, but thankfully it was just a bank.

Anyway, that is all the updates for now... it is 8pm and I am ready for my weekend to begin!