Kiss Me! I Have Swine Flu!

Dont' worry, I don't actually HAVE swine flu; it's just one of the many jokes going around as the ghost of this virus rattles its chains ever louder. The title of this post was a caption one of my classmates invented for a picture of a pig wearing lipstick. Someone sneezed this morning and the whole class went, "ooooohhhhh." One presenter asked for nouns, and--after razzing the Canadian with "Wayne Gretzky", "Calgary", and "maple syrup"--we gave him swine flu (so to speak). Our city tour was cancelled for today due to the frenzy, but so far we’re still on for meeting our new lives on Saturday. I was worried that that was tenuous, but, as my roommate pointed out, if they keep us here longer, they’ll have to continue paying to house and feed 400 people. Fingers are crossed.

I'm also optimistic about it being 10 pm and I’m still functioning. One of my friends slept through the night last night, which was cause for celebration. I haven’t reached that point yet. 4 am seems to be the magic hour for everyone—we can sleep until then; after that we just doze. I just returned from a perimeter walk of the SKK campus (the farthest my chain extends) and realized it’s the latest I’ve been out since arriving here. The place was hopping. Cyclists, several basketball games, lovers strolling, grannies power walking, a young girl & dad playing badminton in the street. Koreans are night owls. Or maybe they just don’t sleep at all. I’ve been warned by pretty much everyone that kids sleeping in class is a common problem. They go from school to extra classes, from there to the library, and routinely get home in the wee hours only to get up at dawn and start again. I don’t know how they manage.

I hope I can manage to get & keep all my ducks in a row for the next week or two. Everything hinges on something else, and everything costs money. (They told us today that the cost of our medical exams, plus a 500-won housing deposit, was going to come out of our first month’s paycheck. Fab. I was wondering how I was going to make it work with the whole thing) I can’t get internet in my apartment until I get an Alien Registration Card, and I can’t get an ARC until I get my medical clearance in the mail. I can’t buy anything until I get my settlement allowance, and I need a bank account to make that happen. (fortunately, I did sign up for one, although I have no idea what the terms are…they provided reps from Hana Bank for us, then in the Q&A today, said that Korean Exchange Bank has better rates on international transfers) I need money to get a phone, too, and possibly the ARC…I lose track. I need a checklist for everything I’ve got to attend to. I have to get my visa changed to multiple-entry if I want to go to Japan or China at all—I figured I’d do that when I actually wanted to go, since they’re not at all cheap, but it sounds like it has to be done when getting the ARC. Somewhere in all that, I’d like to eat and buy stamps, too.

Tomorrow, we’re doing teaching practice all day. Each of us, in groups of 3, has to do a mini-lesson, with the rest of the group as students. I wish I could post pictures—my group made nifty devil and angel crowns to go with our activity on vocabulary for making an argument. Today was a bit of a waste, as they had to come up with some way to fill the hours of time left by the absence of the Seoul tour. A couple groups actually have “Reflection Hours”. Tell me that’s not desperation BS. Virtually all our sessions turn into Q&As. If the speaker opens himself up to it, we never stop asking. I guess everyone’s a little insecure; we are pretty underinformed too.

I should probably be collecting email addresses. Unfortunately, it’s the old thing where I don’t know people well enough to ask for contact info, but I would know them well enough eventually if I had a way to contact them. We’re supposed to find out tomorrow which district we’ll be in…slowly, we stalk useful information. I did learn something rather useful today, and totally unexpected. Every speaker has us doing ask-your-neighbor activities, and everyone I sit near is very aware that I have cats and love Newfoundland. Today, one instructor gave us time to go farther afield, and I actually found someone else who’s cat mad, and who isn’t new to Korea. She told me about cat cafes, like coffee shops with cats hanging about that will sit on your lap and you can play with and feed. I was a bit apprehensive; I asked her if it would depress me and she said no, her own cats in Busan are at one while she’s here—you can pay the place to keep them for you and it’s cheaper than boarding. I need to locate these in Seoul. If I ever get there.