New Chapter

It's now June 28th. Tuesday. And I haven't worked since Friday the 17th.

The pills I got from the doctors are gone. I am feeling great! The vascular doctor has cleared up my nose so I have had a few double nostril sleeps lately! What a difference that makes! I was a bit of a bad boy and I went for some hikes. The same trail as usual. Tiger Rock. I absolutely FLEW around that circuit! Sweat was flowing, heart was pumping, I was passing people! It was like I had tried on a new body! Legs weren't complaining, head wasn't aching, I was breathing hard but not out of breath. It felt AWESOME! I am convinced that I've been all clogged up due to an allergy to this stupid black mould. That's what the vascular doc gave me the pills for and MAN are they succeeding! She said they were for an allergy. To what, she didn't say, but it stands to reason. I'm telling you, if not for this mould, I might be slim and trim by now! It saps my energy, and I'm not getting enough oxygen. That's what I reckon anyway, but what do I know? I'm not a doctor. I just live with this body of mine 24/7.

I went back to the doctor on Wednesday, the morning of my first camp interview. She said if the meds worked, then it was probably an allergy. So I asked what I am allergic to and she said it could be the mould. Well, logic would dictate we test for allergies. But there I go expecting logic in Korea again. I have never had any allergies to this point in my life. I get conned into living in a mould infested apartment and suddenly I have an allergy that is restricting my breathing, costing me sleep, sapping my energy and may be causing the worst headaches of my life. Maybe, um, test for a mould allergy? Or black mould exposure?

Maybe this in combination with the most restrictive teaching environment of my career, and in turn the worst behaviour from any students I've ever had, added to the longest teaching workweek and the most prep time at any teaching job I've ever worked, throw in the neighbourhood noise, lack of social life, and all of the requisite stressors life throws at us all and maybe, just maybe this equals headaches that are so bad I sweat all over and even throw up. This would be a pretty safe assumption.

But I go to these doctors, tell them all the details, and I see what I have so often seen in my classrooms: "I know 9 of the 10 words in this sentence. The speaker's body language clearly indicates his meaning. The one word I don't understand doesn't seem to have any importance in the sentence. All the words preceding and following this sentence seem to indicate that it means what I think it means. NAH, I probably don't understand it." "Teacher, don't understand!"

I think the doctors are scared to take a chance. But meanwhile, I was sent to a specialist. He didn't seem all that special to me. He told me that cerebral aneurysms have no symptoms. It is only the rupture and the resulting blood in the subarachnoid space, (between your skill and brain), that can lead to headaches. So basically he was saying, "We've found some minor problems indicated by the one thing we have 100% trust in: technology. We have a picture that was generated using a magnetic field and radio waves to give us a map of the veins in your head and we've found a minor inconsistency on it. Although it could be a blip on the radar, a wart, a brain zit, who the hell knows?, and many people with incidentally discovered, small aneurysms do nothing at all and live full lives as normal, we are going to book you for another more expensive test that will leave you with less money and no closer to the cause or treatment of your problem, which, we have established, is unrelated to these proposed tests."

He wanted to do the thing right away! A transfemoral artery angiogram, he assured me, is needed to assess and confirm the causes, evaluate the risk and decide the treatment. It's another example of doctors with their toys methinks. Sounds expensive and is. It also comes with a one or two day stay in the hospital. As far as I can tell from my online research NObody knows the causes of aneurysms, so this will not confirm the causes. Again, I'm no doctor, but I have read that the only indication of risk of rupture is if the aneurysm grows. This TFCA test won't establish that. And treatment may be as simple as not changing anything. So basically, I think this guy is wasting my time. I wonder if he gets a cut of every TFCA performed.

We have to be careful of things like this. Doctors are not immune to the money sickness and, as yet, they haven't found ITS cure. Like these docs that have been prescribing chemotherapy over the years. HUGELY ineffective, but expensive and doctor's share in huge profits from it.

I arranged to have to appointment booked for July 15th but I think I'm going to cancel it. Why? Because, that interview I mentioned has lead to two offers of employment. First from the Sang Myung University kids camp. Secondly from the Seoul Club "Rumble in the Jungle" kids summer camp. The latter is the one I think I'll be accepting. It's three weeks of swimming with some kids for a couple hours a day. No weekends. I get 100,000 won a day. That's about 50 bucks an hour. I told the interviewer that I had Bronze Cross lifeguard training and CPR and he was sold. I just need permission from my employer to do the work while still under contract with them. And they're in Spain now so can't get that letter. That'll be July 18th to August 5th. I still haven't confirmed but I have been told that they want to hire me.

I also had an interview for a camp at Konkuk University. I also applied for a full time teaching job there. I think they will keep a close eye on me while I work at the camp, (if selected), to see if they want to hire me full time. So if I get that gig, I might do that in stead of the Seoul Club camp even though it's more work for less pay.

Then I went for a visit with the Peet/Spiwak clan. I went to Itaewon after the interview at Konkuk. Nobody was home at the house on the hill so I had a late lunch at Sam Ryan's Sports Pub. I was the first one there at 3 PM. I got a Kozel beer, (with cinnamon around the edge of the glass), and some REALLY great mac and cheese. I watched some UFC and some Rugby League while having lunch. Just as I finished, two Korean ladies and a foreign gal sat at the bar close by. They ordered Kozels and mac and cheese. I gave them the cinnamon around the edge tip and I guess the non-Korean gal heard my accent. She asked where I'm from. Her name was Sabrina, Selena, Sophia or something like that and she was from Nova Scotia. So we started talking about Kraft Dinner and Canadian stuff. She told me she was just visiting Korea on holiday. She introduced me to the two Korean ladies, friends she had met the day before who were taking her rafting in the northeast. I said, "Hey, wait a minute, that's where I live!" So we started talking about Gangneung and Sokcho and mountains, hiking, food. THIS is the kind of stuff I don't get here in Gangneung. For half a year I have met nobody. Well, I guess you could say I know some people who were introduced to me by Anne, the former teacher where I work. But other than them I suppose the only person I've met was the drunken Korean lady who sort of crashed our outing to the "Talk Show" bar one night. Kelly, Dave and I went there for a beer or two and she came over and started speaking to us in slurred Korean. Her friends were apologetically trying to drag her back but she was determined to get her point across. She said the same things several times. Kelly recorded her and asked a Korean what she was saying. I forget what it was but it was pretty funny. We all got a kick out of her. My only OTHER acquaintance here in Gangneung.

So I'm hoping to find some work in or near Seoul so that I can do things like this more often. And so I can visit my friends in Seoul more often. I watched the Tigers game at Sam Ryans and met a Korean fella named Mr. Jo. He is a retired optometrist and he kept buying me beer. He was impressed at my Korean baseball knowledge. Being from Mokpo, he was also a Kia Tiger supporter. And one of the bartenders was too! So we all enjoyed watching Kia beat the 2nd place team that night. NC Dinos are dangerous this year and I wasn't expecting a win but we got one! By the end of the game, Heather and Mike had made their way to Kraft Hans. We stood outside at the usual table and had beer with the usual folks. Cigars were smoked and a good time was had by all. I'm told. heh heh.

THEN we went to Min's. Min is a great dude and he always plays our old time music requests. We were dancing and talking and meeting other people. I was wearing a shirt my brother Rob had given me a long time ago. It was from Monarch Roofing where he works. They were 20 years old at the time so on the back of the shirt it says, "Thanks for 20 years!" A young, attractive, Korean girl, in English, asked me what my shirt meant so I said to her, "Oh, they gave me this when I got out of prison." She said nothing and just disappeared into the crowd like Homer Simpson into the hedges. It was quite funny. Then I walked home a la John Cleese as the Minister of Silly Walks. It made Heather laugh a lot.

We spent the weekend together. Not doing anything really special, just hanging out. I miss that. It's time for me to get a social life. We DID watch the Big Lebowski for the umpteenth time, but this time Reilly and Roman watched with us. It was their initiation into Dudism. The next day was filled with fledgling Dudist quotes from the movie and smiles of pride from veteran Dudist parents.

Now I'm back home. I have paid the rent, I think, for July. I say, "I think," because I paid it to my boss by depositing it into his account. But we talked about this and I said I wanted to pay rent for July so as to give the landlords time to find a new tenant. And it would give me time to find a new job. So that's what I'm up to now. Throwing around resumes and hoping for the best. Like before, if I have to I'll take a job at a hagwon but I would just expect exactly what happened here. Hagwons are the same all over. It's not easy to find a good one. But that goes for university and college jobs too. Those are the ones I'm trying for and with my experience, I should be able to land one. Till then it'll be swimming with kids and going to interviews. I prefer that to fighting with employers and yelling at students.

As for the headaches, I haven't had one for weeks even though I've done all the things that triggered them. The biggest change has been not working so I'm pretty sure the headaches had something to do with the job. Everybody thought so. Even my employers.

So it's on to a new chapter. I'll give it a title when it happens.