“Catch My Disease”

It was a beautiful, cool day today. Here is a photo outside my apartment window facing south along the subway line. I love the mountains in the distance, they make me want to live in Colorado. If you click the photo it will enlarge.



Keeping with the directions of the school, I visited the Hospital today. The best part is that it is the building right next to my apartment. As I walked in, I was greeted by three hospital personnel who were bowing to everyone who entered and left saying something in Korean that I probably would translate as “Welcome, we’re going to take good care of you!”

I proceeded to the 3rd floor where a receptionist escorted me to another receptionist who took my information, and my cash (80,000 won - $64). Immediately, I was brought to a gorgeous nurse who gave me a self-administered urine test/vial, she then took my blood pressure, weight, height, gave me an eyesight and hearing test, and then…took blood. Now I’m used to giving blood, and needles don’t scare me at all – it is really painless. What I wasn’t a fan of, was that she didn’t wear gloves for anything. She didn’t touch my urine vial, which I understand – but if you’re taking someone’s blood, I think you really should wear gloves. I told her that as well, but she said you don’t need to in Korea. (I guess Koreans have no diseases in their blood and you can’t transmit it from person to person unlike the rest of the world). My friends over in Brown University’s Department of Public Health would be appalled. I finished up the exam with a chest x-ray from yet another gorgeous nurse (be still my heart) and was told to return Tuesday for the results. On the plus side, I was seen immediately, and the whole thing took about 10 minutes. (Score one for Korean health care!)

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I had never felt like a celebrity until I walked into Geumjeong Middle School yesterday. Today, that feeling was intensified, and I'm not comfortable with all the attention. Every student wants to stare at you and try to speak English. It gets overwhelming when you're walking out of the school within a herd of bobbing black hair and Korean whispers. I've said 'hello' more times that I can count. The more brave students ask where I am from, and when they hear America, they say "oooh! American, I like American!" A few students asked my name; "Nicka", they repeat (we'll have to work on that). One rather large boy said "Ooooh, Nicka - I love you Nicka" (Sorry buddy, but I'm not Michael Jackson). It's hard to tell because of the language barrier, but I think he may have had special needs.

Keeping on that topic, I know some of you teachers out there were wondering if Korean schools had special needs programs. As far as I know, they don't. I haven't seen anyone that I could stereotype as having Downs Syndrome or any other more visual handicap - maybe they go to special schools? As for the milder cases of special needs, the schools practice inclusion, and the other students apparently really help out the slower kids in a buddy system sort of way. (Let's give all those kids a round of applause!)

Later, I had the opportunity to observe Jordan's class. He does a pretty good job. The students (approx 30) learned about Extreme Sports and were pretty interested in the topic and were participating a lot. The co-teacher in the class (M.J) who speaks very decent English with only a mild accent, watches and helps out with translations as well as classroom management (she carries a rather thick baton - and I don't think it's main purpose is as a pointer). With my celebrity status not yet obtained in his class, as I was introduced, I got a round of applause, the looks of amazement, and the embarrassing yells of "hello teacher!" "so handsome!" and "I love you!" (I now know what attractive women feel like when walking by a construction site back home).

Later during lunch, I got to sit and talk with 3 music teachers, they were already hoping to get me involved in the yearly school performance in October. I'm all up for it, but I hope they don't expect my piano skills to be that great. I think they understood me when I said I play by ear -- at least I hope so.

On a random side note, I wanted to point out a cultural aspect that I think is kind of cute. It is normal in Korea for friends to hold hands. Girls constantly walk around arm in arm. The younger ones hold hands. The boys hold hands as well as if to say "this is my best friend". Something I think is pretty unique. I am surprised it is continued when they are old enough to be in middle school. I know if that were any boys in my middle school he would be taunted endlessly by other boys.

At the end of the day I took a trip to E-Mart yet again. This time in search of garbage bags. We're supposed to purchase specific bags for the downtown area in order to discard anything. After asking around, a kid who spoke a little English told me they didn't sell them (contrary to what everyone else told me). He came back later and said he misunderstood and that you had to buy them from customer service. I bought 10 small ones for about 2,400 won. When I got back to the apartment I separated out all the trash as recycling is huge in Korea. Once I found the dumpster area I wish I hadn't even bothered. It turns out that most people bring down trash by the handful to dump it in sectioned out areas without the bags. What a crock and a waste of time. Although, I did end up buying some more food and some other things I needed for the apartment, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.