phlegm-buoyant

Since Busan, I've been overwhelmed with phlegm. I cough constantly and I've even lost my voice. The first day back to school was hell. I barely had any sleep since my incessant hacking cough starts in the middle of the night. The worse part of it is that usually when I cough, it at least provides temporary relief from the itch in the back of my throat. This time however, I could die coughing and that itch would still itch. This week I'm teaching grades 6 and 3. I find it much easier to teach grade 3s because they are still eager to learn. They will try to understand me and would ask me if they don't understand me, rather than sit there and stare like some of the grade 6s. As a teacher, I'm noticing that the kids that peeve me the most aren't the ones that taught out of turn, or are loud-mouths because I can actually use their energy, but rather the ones that are shy or refuse to speak. They ruin my plans all the time! It is SOOO frustrating especially when you are trying to play a game and it requires that you speak at the very least ONE SENTENCE... omg.. ONE WORD pleeaassee.. and yet.. he refuses to say ne thing.. I almost want to just pull him from the game. The entire class is urging him to speak just one word and he refuses. It makes me wanna pull hair. Mostly HIS.. and technically I could hahah .. but no no I'm not into the corporal punishment.

hehe... actually I find that the kids that are usually considered bad in other classes are actually good in mine. This is because I'm just as if not more playful than they are. I'm also very very persistant. It's the kid inside me. I like to play just as many tricks on them as they would on me. One incident that sticks out in my mind is when a few of the kids wanted to hide behind the door to scare me. Unfortunately I happen to see them from the corner of my eye. So as I approached the door I made sure they knew I was coming by pretending to talk on the phone very loudly, but as I open the door I bent down so i was coming from beneath and as they "boo"ed me from above I grabbed their feet from below which ended up scaring them.. hehe .. that made me laugh so hard.. the kids that were watching also laughed.

I don't like to discipline but that being said, I'm not afraid to be strict with the kids. It's funny because I really have to pretend to be mad. More often than not I usually talk with the individual kids after I've distributed the class activity and diverted their attention on the task at hand. I pull the whole, you respect me, and I will respect you. You act like a kid and I will treat you like one.

Enough about that, I've discovered that when Koreans say hospital, they usually mean doctor's office. Initially when they kept asking me that I replied no I don't think its that serious. Finally when they told me the wait time is only half hour I agreed to go only to find out that it's really just a medical clinic. It's a bit scary for me to go to the clinic, because I'm used to my doctor that tells me step by step what I'm taking and why. Now I have to trust them on their word. I've gotten two needle shots to my butt by the nurse and all I know about them is that it's for spittal cough.. NO IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS and NO IDEA WHAT MY BUTT HAS TO DO WITH MY COUGH.. but if i get this enough times i'm gonna have some big ass J-Lo butt.. haha I wish.

I'm craving chicken noodle soup like no tomorrow. All the soup I've seen so far is cream based. I suppose I could make my own chicken noodle soup but that would mean require work.

On the bright side, Anne and I have discovered this gym where the Korean Air Professional team plays. We've been going to watch them practice and the plan is to slowly infiltrate the coach's good side and then first ask if we can shag some balls and hopefully we can move on to actually peppering with the ball on the side. I had to explain to him that we are going thru volleyball withdrawal with the analogy of smoking addiction and then trying to quit smoking. It was a real breakthrough they totally understood me. Also another coincident that I hope will work to my benefit is that the coach found out I teach english at Hagik Elementary school and it just so happens that his son goes there.. and is in 3rd grade hahah I teach 3rd grade. So maybe his kid will tell him about how all the kids love me.. at least I hope they do and I hope its not all just an act.
Any who time to cook and then take my meds.