Goodbyes, Gangnam Style: The beginning of year two

Phew! It's been a minute I guess. I've been incredibly busy lately- well, to a point. It's the season of goodbyes, so most of my time (vacation included) has been dedicated to doing those properly: laying in the sun, jellyfish stings, eating as much ice cream as we can, riding the scooter all over the place, and partying all night. The goodbyes aren't mine, though- I signed my contract today (!!!) for another year in good old Korea! Today is the official start of the second semester- and this weekend marks one year since I left Buffalo. I miss it every day still!! I can't wait until Christmas when I can go home and see my family and feast on the wonderful things my awesome city has to offer!!!

one of our last shows

saying goodbye to eve.... my best bud

Reflections as of late:
1. The goodbyes have been hard and probably aren't going to get easier. I know more people are going to come and fill those holes as best as they can, but so far it's kind of been like experiencing a death. Dramatic, I know. But when you're used to seeing these people almost every day- they've been the constants in my life- it's been more than a little depressing to try to move on from that, especially knowing you'll never see the majority of them ever again. Change is a constant here in Korea, and it comes in two massive waves- September and March. This is a big time for people to leave the country (semester change). Things will level off very soon, but even my Vice Principal, who has been driving me to and from school every day for nearly a year, is retiring this weekend. We can't communicate with each other very well but it still breaks my heart that he's leaving. One day at a time!

The Jisan Valley Rock Festival- we saw Radiohead, M. Ward and Elvis Costello among others. It was almost unbearably hot but a super awesome time!!!

2. Things would be really different if I had a different co-teacher I think. She is simultaneously impossible to like and impossible to hate. I mostly can't believe the things that come out of her mouth, and get stressed when she expects me to behave like the Korean teacher while she behaves like.... a child. She just traveled out of the city of Jinju for the first time in her 46 years of life (!) to a neighboring city. She makes my job and interactions with my other co-workers far more difficult than if I were just to be teaching alone; she actually never informs me of schedule changes, planned events, or really anything. However, I'm convinced she has an actual mental/emotional problem, or is going through something really terrible. Anyway, working together has grown more and more difficult recently, and I'm praying something changes soon.

3. My health! .... I recently had a tapeworm infection and successfully got rid of it. I took a whole bunch of different pills (over the course of MONTHS!) that didn't really work, and it was really difficult to communicate with the Korean doctors. My system is so depleted, I've been dealing with it over the course of the past six months. I'm still infected with some kind of parasite, but, again it's been kind of hard to find a good doctor here who knows about the gastrointestinal stuff. I've just been feeling really tired all the time, stomach cramps and diarrhea constantly since pretty much June, brain fogs etc. Apparently parasites are REALLY common here (I had no idea really!) and the anti-parasitic drugs don't require a prescription and only cost a DOLLAR! It's craziness. Mostly if you go to the hospital here and describe the symptoms, they'll immediately try to give me antibiotics and shoo me away (not effective for me, kind of why I'm in this situation to begin with I think!), OR, go the opposite route and get really invasive, and go for and endoscopy, which is really expensive and probably not even all that effective in finding microscopic organisms in my digestive tract. Great. This week I had to start an anti-parasitic no sugar/no yeast diet. No beer! No bread! No ice cream :( I don't know who I miss more.... Sean, or sugar. If you know me at all, you'll know I've been deprived of my favorite things to ingest. I've already lost a moderate amount of weight. Again.... one day at a time!

I usually get through the weekdays by plotting events for the future, and though I have none that are particularly exciting as of yet, I do know that autumn is the best time of the year to live in Korea- it's the height of festival season, and this year I have a tent. I'm super excited to have excursions into the corners of this country and explore all that I can while I'm here and while the weather is nice.

More soonish,
<3M