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Week 6- Y4(Apr 20th to Apr 26th) |
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Monday:
I witnessed an awful bout of domestic violence from our living room
window this afternoon. I heard yelling from the street, so I went to
look, and a wife and husband were screaming at eachother, and he kept on
coming closer to her, and she kept on pushing him away. Eventually he
started coming at her with an object in his hand that looked like a piece
of metal. This is when I started wondering how a foreigner could call
the police. At the same time, the ajumma who runs the little corner
store came out and started trying to pull the man back, at which point
he started hitting HER too! A man who was passing by with his young
children ended up having to restrain the man. The cops eventually came
way after the altercation. Apparently spousal abuse is horrifyingly
common in Korea. In fact, it's apparently legal as long as you don't use a
weapon of any kind . . . I suppose it comes from a lingering
Confucianist belief that women are inferior to men.
When is this country going to let go of the traditions and beliefs
that are hurting the nation, not improving it? I truly hope that that
woman isn't going to be receiving the repercussions of a public argument
later tonight.
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Tuesday:
Today, in Iksan, I had a very random and as of yet unexplained allergic
reaction. I was in my office starting to swell up, and debating what
to do, when it occured to me that a)I'm in the middle of nowhere, about
45minutes away from the nearest doctor, and I can guarantee that he's
never seen an allergic reaction before and b) I still have 3 hours of
teaching to do! (seriously, this was my primary concern! I'm such a
geek) So I took out my epipen as my condition worsened and realized that
it expired almost a year ago. I figured it was better than nothing, so
I took the safety cap off. Then began the whole trying to stab myself
with a needle routine-- "I have to do it . . . no I can't . . . I have
to . . . no I can't" etc etc etc. This continued for about 10 minutes
until I realized that I was actually turning purple from lack of
oxygen. Then I stabbed myself. Damn, do those things sure hurt-- my leg
was sore for days after! And then I went to
teach my class, and slowly recovered over the course of the day.
Still don't know what caused it-- I didn't eat anything that I've never had
before.
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Thursday:
Another weird allergy thing today-- in the afternoon, my lips and face
just randomly started breaking out into hives. I took some Benadryll
and they went away, but I have no idea why in the first place. Again, I
didn't eat anything unusual.
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Friday:
Tonight, Allison, Nic and their friends Ava and Alan came up from
Gyeongju. Allison and Nic are the couple that I met in the Philippines! I
had offered them my place for crashing, and they turned out to be
really great houseguests.
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Saturday:
An early day for everyone. Allison, Nic, Ava and Alan got up super
early to go on the DMZ tour, and I had to prepare to go to Cheongju to
teach a masterclass. Jae booked me for this job-- I go to a hagwon in
Cheongju 3 times over the course of 3 months to teach a masterclass about
jazz singing and scatting. For this, I make 1 million won! Yeah!
Easy money!
When I got there, they had provided a translator for me, which was
fabulous, and I taught 23 high school students with no jazz experience how
to scat on the blues. They were actually really fun and receptive, so
I had a good time. But then I had to rush the hell out of Cheongju to
try to make it to the dance studio on time to teach my beginner class!
Cheongju is about an hour and a half away. I made it with 10 minutes
to spare, thank god. After salsa, I met up with Nic, Allison, Ava and
Alan in Itaewon, where I took them to some pubs, and showed them some
cool places to hang out. It was a nice night, but definitely not a
super late one, as all of us were exhausted!
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