I am too stupid to use Korean phones. Despite the fact that my own cell phone allows me to videochat, despite the fact that I am a college graduate, I had to have my twelve-year-old host brother call Severance Hospital today. After repeated declarations of “Hillary-homestay. Hillary-homestay!” the man at the desk apparently told us not to call back. Ever.
I’m sure all good readers of this blog are sick of Sick Posts, but the fact remains that I am still a miserable pile of bacteria. My antibiotic supply ran out today, and while I am better, I am not better – I am still sick-ish, and one can only assume that in the absence of drugs, I’ll go back to being a consumptive old woman, so. Also I apparently pulled some muscles in my back coughing, which means that it now hurts to do any lung-related activity. My host mom and dad have been after me to go back to the doctor, and finally today my co-teachers sent me home early and took me to a clinic here. At which point my host father said, “I told her to do that yesterday.”
My father gave me drugs before I left; unfortunately, they’re MIA – I can only assume that they got lost in the packing process. So I have a new supply of a different antibiotic, as well as what I think is Advil. Everyone here seems really concerned about the Advil. “Ibupropen? You have taken before?” “Ibupropen? You can buy at pharmacy?” I tried to explain that you can buy ibuprofen at the American equivalent of Family Mart, but they seem to think that it’s a variant of hydrocodone. I got some from the 약국. I’m kind of surprised.
(Note for Dad: The doctor I saw today is friends with the doctor I saw in Seoul Meanwhile, that doctor is supposed to get back to me tomorrow. Also, he’s the parent of a student at my school, so I ended up getting the medicine for $7.)
I had a really cute moment with my host fam last night though. They told me from the beginning to call them omoni and aboji, and that they wanted their kids to call me nuna and oni, “big sister.” But the kids haven’t yet, so I told them again last night that they could and should, and they got really excited. We also played an epic series of Uno games in which Host Brother told me that he was “very clever” and that he won once in a blue moon. Tomorrow I’m going to the grand opening of Lotte Mart. Maybe I shouldn’t be so excited.
PS. My female students think my brother is gorgeous. My male students think my sister is gorgeous. And my mom.
Filed under: life in Chuncheon, lists, not cool, okay seriously Korea, orientation
- spend a weekend drinking a lot and sleeping a little
- wake up on Monday with sore throat/fatigue
- use illness as excuse to skip tae kwon do
- have no one believe you, because everyone knows you are lazy
- start coughing on Thursday
- go to E-Mart pharmacy on Friday
- describe symptoms for apparently Anglophone pharmacist
- receive suspiciously small supply of medication
- keep coughing hysterically
- run out of medication
- realize that medication was not working anyway
- buy cough syrup at another pharmacy with rationale that if coughs are physically suppressed with something that is designed to suppress them, maybe throat will have chance to recover
- take cough syrup (or sip, if you will)
- cough anyway
- have everyone around you sort of edge away
- go to the DMZ on a humid and rainy day
- pet some otters*
- realize that a) you are still coughing, and b) there is still some sort of gunk in your lungs, which is why you are coughing in the first place
- go to E-Mart pharmacy AGAIN and explain situation
- try to buy expectorant, cough drops; end up with expectorant, something that is supposed to be a cough drop but resembles a Tums
- keep coughing anyway
- go to hospital to see doctor
- realize doctor is at lunch
- cross town to go to other doctor
- that doctor is also at lunch
- finally see doctor
- allow doctor to laugh at you and ask why on earth you bought all of that medicine, then prescribe fourth set of pills
I’m still not sure exactly what went wrong, but I do know that I have to pack and whatever they gave me is making me sleepy. This is good practice for not being able to communicate with people for the rest of the year. This is good practice. This is good practice. This. Is. Good. Practice.
*actually, I recommend petting the otters.
My excitement over the iPhone was tempered by the following:
iPhone Spin Goes Round and Round (New York Times, 30 June 2007)
It’s nothing surprising, I suppose, but this is what I hate about Apple – the staunch insistence on closed systems. It’s the equivalent of buying a dress at Anthropologie and finding out that it only fits when you’re frolicking in the south of France.
Intrepid Girl Reporter 
