Reason Korea is great #96

I have pink eye. Okay, it's not a usual reason to celebrate a country, but bear with me. I went to the eye doctor yesterday (no appointment, I just dropped in.) I waited nearly five minutes before I was examined. It was hard to wait so long, but I'm a patient patient. Hehe.

Anyway, I had pink eye. Which I figured. Which was why I hauled myself to the doctor on a Saturday. As I was paying the receptionist, she apologized to me. Why, you may ask? Because my insurance wouldn't cover the visit, prescription, or follow-up. The cost of the visit and prescription together was right at $20. I'm guessing the follow-up will be in the $10 range. I think I'll live. ;-)

Now I'm wondering if I should take tomorrow off. There was a pink-eye epidemic in Seoul a couple of years ago-- I wouldn't want to become known as Pink-Eye Jennifer Teacher...Hmmm... the big struggle for workers in Korea: work even if dead vs. public health concerns. If my eye is still pink tomorrow, I'll call in. The crust is already gone, though, so I'm pretty sure I'll be fine. (Dammit!)

May the third time be the charm

Well, after a mighty push of two consecutive weeks of working, Mr. Please-Be-My-X showed up at my door at 1AM Monday morning. He rang the bell for two hours before I clued in that I could disable it by taking if off the hook. (Hey, I've only lived here nine years, how could I be expected to know that.) It was a testament to a) his bull-headedness and b) Koreans' unwillingness to complain about noise. We used to have a wife beater next door that would have been in prime fight mode at that time. For the first time, I wished they hadn't moved. HE would have complained.

Anyway, he showed up at my school the next day looking like he'd spent the last year doing meth. My co-workers didn't even recognize him. He's lost about 75 pounds or more-- he's pretty scrawny now and shakes like Muhammad Ali. He gave me his usual story about things "not working out." I gave him some money and, what else, bought him another plane ticket home. (Yep, that's three.)

I heard from my sister-in-law that he actually made the flight. So, I will be sleeping easier tonight. To be honest, it was worth the cost of a plane ticket to know he's out of the country and won't be showing up in the middle of the night. I had been waiting for that visit since he arrived in country three weeks ago.
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Other than that, things are rolling along as usual. I'm studying for my class, but not as much as I should be. It's interesting, but not as practical as I would have liked.

We recorded the fourth episode of the podcast last night. Five hours. The guest host was the Metropolitician aka FeetmanSeoul, co-host of Bomb English . He does a couple of other podcasts, too, as well as being a columnist for Ex-Pat Living in the Korea Herald, etc etc, you get the idea. He and Joe can conversate in a big way. Fortunately for me, he's a very knowledgable and interesting guy. We recorded from 10PM to 3AM. I'm glad that Joe is all into the editing and tech side. Actually, I've been slacking on that, too. He does the website, the editing, the posting, and I...show up to record. I can live with it if he can. ;-)

That's about it. My life these days is pretty much work, study, sleep. And yet, I'm not studying enough. I've got some long chapter books for school that have been taking my time (for the next two weeks, I'll be covering The Hobbit-- in four lessons). That, and I watched every episode of Firefly last weekend.

Why do Koreans love Nazis?

Those of us that have been on the peninsula a while remember the Hitler bars in Seoul. We also remember how surprised everyone was by the German and Israeli embassies stepping in and basically demanding that they be closed down.

We also remember the much more recent racist comic books (the anti-Semitic ones mostly follow the anti-Black and anti-immigrant ones) which caused an uproar that seemed to catch (Korean) people by surprise.

Now we have a skin whitener (no the irony is NOT lost on me) claiming that their product is revolutionary, like Hitler. Seriously. I could not make up idiocy this extreme.

Yes, these are the same people who can work themselves into a lather over the Evil Empire of Japan. I guess it's only bad behavior when Koreans are on the losing end...