My Experience at a Korean Hospital

Don't worry everyone! I'm fine. I'm not sick and I didn't break anything. I promise. A few months back, I applied to renew my Fulbright grant for a second year. As part of the application process, I had to get a physical done at a hospital to prove to the Korean government that I'm healthy, I guess. Well, the way the health system is set up here, I had to go to a hospital (essentially the equivalent of going to the doctors instead of a walk-in clinic). To make matters worse, I couldn't go to the hospital that is literally next to my school, but instead had to travel all the way to Chuncheon. This was because one of the required tests that I had to get done (as a foreigner getting a physical) isn't a part of the Korean physical and therefore only available at larger hospitals. Great.

Lets set the stage for the day. Since I couldn't go to the hospital in Hwacheon, I had to actually request off early one day to travel the 45 minutes on the bus to Chuncheon, to get to the hospital and have the full appointment before they closed for the day. Because I teach everyday in the mornings, I couldn't take the whole day off or come in late. My co-teacher and I decided I would leave at 12:30 on a Wednesday after finishing my final class.

Oh, yeah. I haven't told you why I wanted to go to the hospital in the morning. I had to fast. It was terrible. Anyone who knows me knows I don't skip breakfast. And because of this physical, and my class schedule, I had to skip breakfast, teach all morning, leave at what would be my lunch time, take a bus (which makes me nauseous on a good day) then go through an entire appointment before I was allowed to eat for the day.  Surprisingly it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be (I drank a lot of water) but it still sucked. Especially since I just happen to have picked teachers day to do this on. So I was given a vitamin drink from the students and there was fruit in the morning meeting that just sat there taunting me, because I couldn't eat it.

Now, just before 2pm I arrived at the hospital, which I have walked past so many times and never knew it was even a hospital. Now, for a country that is usually has enough English on signs for me to get around, this hospital had NONE! I walk in the front door and I can't figure out where to go at all. I see a woman at a desk and show her the paper I needed (I had a sample of the form with English translations that KAEC was nice enough to provide) and she holds up two fingers. No clue what she means, she eventually translates on her phone second floor. Okay. Cool.

Now you think getting to the second floor would be easy. Yeah, it wasn't. Now, the stairs were tucked away (and I found them later) but I didn't want to draw attention to myself by trying to find them, so I took the elevator. Okay, so when you see two elevators next to each other, you would assume that they go to the same places, right? Never assume anything in Korea. I pushed the up button on one elevator, but the other one was already being called and arrived first. Okay. I got on. I tried to push the 2nd floor button, but it didn't light. Apparently this elevator skipped floors 2-4. Great. That would have been nice to know earlier. So to act inconspicuous, I get off with a few people that are getting off at 5 and the elevator continues to 8 for the rest of the people. I call it again to go back down. Back to the first floor. I get off then get on the first elevator I meant to get on in the first place. The correct one, I found out.

Wow. So much happened before I even got to the doctor. I get to the second floor and there are multiple desks, all with signs in Korean above them. I freeze. No idea where to go. One person notices me, and waves me over. I show her my paper and she sends me over to a godsend of a woman. This woman (not really knowing English beyond a few words) literally sat me down, took care of my paperwork and walked me from station to station for each part of the exam.

The physical itself wasn't too exciting. There were a few interesting tidbits, like how I had to give them a passport size photo for my paper (I did know this before hand and came prepared). Another was that for the urinalysis, they gave me a paper (not plastic) cup with a line drawn on with sharpie, and forgot to show me where the bathroom was. The last thing, and most bizarre, was that the last test on the exam was to go over to the dentist next to the hospital and they had to check my teeth. I have never had to go to the dentist for a physical.

All in all, the exam from start to finish only took about a half-hour. So by about 2:30, I was free and could finally eat lunch. I thought it was worth it to walk 20 minutes to the McDonald's to treat myself. It was delicious.

I went back on Saturday and picked up my results to submit them, and it only cost me about 54,000 won (like 50 dollars ish).

Science Day!

This is going to be short and sweet. Today was science day at my school. Every semester, my school hosts a science day where students go to different classrooms and do different activities. Last semester, our classroom was in charge of making little homes for cockroaches. I was praying that we weren't doing the same this year. We weren't. This time it was snails instead of cockroaches. You know what? Snails are significantly better. I think they are really cute.

Students are assigned to the classrooms and activities they are supposed to attend. We got 2nd grade, which is really interesting considering we don't even teach 2nd grade, but maybe that was the idea. Assign the classes to places where they don't go.

It was actually really fun to make these little houses for the snails and I also became the resident snail wrangler. I was the person that would get the snails out of the little cups that they came in and put them in the new homes if the students weren't able to get them out or were too scared. I had one girl who wouldn't even hold the cup. I had to carry it to her desk, take it out, put it in the container and close the lid before she got close to it.

Each of the kids got to put everything in the container and name it. Ping Ping was a frequent choice (Gary from Spongebob's Korean
name). It was actually really cute to see the different reactions each of the kids had, and how the snails adjusted to their new environments. By the time class was over, there were some that were climbing all over the walls and even investigating their food source. I am very happy I got to experience this with the students.

Easter in Korea

Easter is another one of those holidays that make me miss family more than ever as well as a holiday that most Koreans don't celebrate. Now I have mentioned before that most Koreans aren't religious, therefore there is no purpose to celebrate Easter. But in the US, where the Christian religion is so ingrained in our foundation, I found myself feeling odd walking into school on Easter Monday. Much the same feeling I had walking into school on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve.

I had mentioned previously that Easter was coming and that I wanted to do something to celebrate it. I originally wanted to make the family my mom's flapjacks (that never happened) but instead we enjoyed the nice weather. In the US, there might be storm after storm, but in Korea the weather has been beautiful. It has been warm and sunny and nice. I really wasn't expecting them to do all they did that day. Just to reiterate, my host family isn't religious. Especially not christian, so they don't celebrate christian holidays. First, we went on a walk back on some property through fields and up a mountainside that I didn't realize we owned. We even walked past the house that my host mom was born in and she pointed out her mountain and the graves of her mother and grandfather.

After the walk, we all piled into the car (My host parents plus their three kids plus the three cousins plus me) and went to 'flower road.' This was just a paved driveway with cherry blossoms on either side. But it was still beautiful. My host mom got out her camera and took lots of pictures. I didn't know there were going to be pictures or I would have dressed better, but it was a nice experience nonetheless. When we got back, my host dad told me there was going to be a BBQ. I don't know if they did all this for my sake because of the holiday, or they just wanted to enjoy the beautiful weather (it was one of the first really nice weekends) but I appreciated them and what they did for me regardless. It was a nice day and a nice evening.

If only we didn't have so much fun. I had to wake up at 4 am to Skype home and then get up for work the next day. But you know what? I wouldn't trade the whole experience for anything.

Newspaper Review Project

Since I am now teaching in the homeroom classrooms for my 5th grade, I have discovered that I now have a lot more control over the class and what we do. Now this lesson was in no way my idea. For 5th grade, as well as all the grades, we have a textbook to follow, but this year we have a new book to use. Just like with the old one, they have fun review like activities every few chapters. In the old books, this review would be in the form of a story time (which I did a post on last October).
But in this new book, it is a bunch of new activities. Now these reviews are supposed to take three days, but because of my trip to Jeju for the conference, I actually missed both the test for the previous unit and the first day of this review. The star of the review was a newspaper project that I made into much more than it needed to be. I just love creative activities like this and I will try and get my students to make things any time I get the opportunity. I hope the textbook allows for more days like this one in the coming reviews.

The final day of the three review days was a 'newspaper' of sorts. Since the first two chapters were on where you are from and what you like to do on the weekends, it was perfect for personal stories and interviews for a newspaper. Now in the book, it says we were supposed to spend more time on the actual reading of the example newspaper, but I was way too excited. I just wanted them to make their own news bulletin as it ended up being. Each class is made of about 22 or 23 students if everyone is there. I decided I wanted to put them in five groups. Each group was assigned one part of the project. They were so excited when I told them that they were going to get to choose their own groups. That rarely happens for them, just like in any elementary school, I suppose. Once they were in the groups I gave them their choices and each group picked one. If two groups wanted to do the same thing, they would rock, paper, scissors for who would get to do it. In Korea, rock, paper, scissors can solve world problems. Literally. I've seen grown men use it.

The project was split into five parts:
1) Welcome Friends- Students would write a profile of sorts introducing themselves. (two per class).
2) My Weekend Pictures- Students would draw a picture about what they do on the weekends and 'caption' it (two to three per class).
3) Teacher interview- Students would interview the teachers and write up the dialogue. (Two per class).
4) Comic Strip- Write and illustrate an amusing comic using the vocabulary. (One per class)
5)Designer- This group designed the poster and would layout all of the pieces the others created.

Now this wasn't the same for every class. Depending on what students ended up in each group determined where I spent most of my time and helped, but it was so fun and the students were so proud of what they created in English. It was also really nice to see all the really cute pictures. Korean kids are so artistic. I couldn't and still can't draw that well. Each class came out with something just a little bit different and it really was a testament to the different dynamics and personalities of each class.