Hot time, summer in the city
I'm no doctor, but I think I have heat exhaustion due to work. Buildings in Korea generally do not have central air, which is a bit silly given how freaking hot it is here, but generally most places have the little individual air conditioner units. At work, each of the classrooms has its own unit, yet the teacher's room does NOT. As a result, the classrooms are relatively comfortable, but the teacher's room is a hellish, boiling oven. To make matters worse, it gets direct sunlight during the hottest part of the day. It can't be good for one's health to be in a cool room for 50 minutes, then in a 95+ stuffy room for 10 minutes, then back to the cool classroom, and so on for 8 hours of the day. Also, even though there are 10 minute breaks between each class, we have to turn off the AC units and/or fans between classes, which is stupid if there's going to be another class coming in, because it takes at least 10 minutes for the AC to cool the room down.
That's bad enough by itself, but during my first class today (at 2:30), the room's AC went out before the class even began. The poor kids could barely function in the heat, it was such a struggle to get them to do anything, and it was just as much of a struggle to make myself do anything. They were draped all over the desks, in big puddles of sweat. And kids sweat a lot. They were messes. It was some of the worst heat I've ever experienced. And it was worse because there was absolutely no air circulation whatsoever, even with the windows open. It was hotter than a jockstrap. I wanted to move to a different classroom, but the repairman was coming, so we had to stay. (Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either.) So the AC guy came into the middle of class to fix the unit. So I have to somehow keep the attention of a bunch of heat stricken kids who are also paying more attention to the repairman than me. Finally he got it fixed, but not until there were only 10 minutes left in class, which was barely enough time for the AC to cool the room down. (But all of my students told the guy "Thank you very much" in English without me telling them to, which I thought was kind of cute.)
For the rest of the day, I felt like total crap, even when I was in the air conditioned classrooms. I drank a ton of water, which didn't help much, it just made me thirstier. After work I went to Baskin Robbins and got a milkshake and then bought some Gatorade. Well, the Korean version of Gatorade, which is called "Never Stop X-ing." I don't know what X-ing entails, but I guess I am not supposed to stop doing it. I downed the milkshake in about 5 minutes, and felt like I needed to drink 50 more. The faux Gatorade didn't help things either. I'm still thirsty. Just out of curiosity I looked up the symptoms of heat exhaustion on WebMd, and I have every one of them, except for the fainting: heavy sweating, paleness, muscle cramps, tiredness, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea or vomiting, fainting. Luckily no vomiting, but I definitely feel nauseous. I'm sitting in my room right now with the fan pointed directly at me. I've been home for almost 2 hours now, and I'm still all clammy and disgusting. Ugh. If I die at work, I'm going to be really pissed. I want to get back to the US and have a Chipotle burrito and a Dr. Pepper and take an archery class and go parasailing and hook up with one of my exes before I die.
That's bad enough by itself, but during my first class today (at 2:30), the room's AC went out before the class even began. The poor kids could barely function in the heat, it was such a struggle to get them to do anything, and it was just as much of a struggle to make myself do anything. They were draped all over the desks, in big puddles of sweat. And kids sweat a lot. They were messes. It was some of the worst heat I've ever experienced. And it was worse because there was absolutely no air circulation whatsoever, even with the windows open. It was hotter than a jockstrap. I wanted to move to a different classroom, but the repairman was coming, so we had to stay. (Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either.) So the AC guy came into the middle of class to fix the unit. So I have to somehow keep the attention of a bunch of heat stricken kids who are also paying more attention to the repairman than me. Finally he got it fixed, but not until there were only 10 minutes left in class, which was barely enough time for the AC to cool the room down. (But all of my students told the guy "Thank you very much" in English without me telling them to, which I thought was kind of cute.)
For the rest of the day, I felt like total crap, even when I was in the air conditioned classrooms. I drank a ton of water, which didn't help much, it just made me thirstier. After work I went to Baskin Robbins and got a milkshake and then bought some Gatorade. Well, the Korean version of Gatorade, which is called "Never Stop X-ing." I don't know what X-ing entails, but I guess I am not supposed to stop doing it. I downed the milkshake in about 5 minutes, and felt like I needed to drink 50 more. The faux Gatorade didn't help things either. I'm still thirsty. Just out of curiosity I looked up the symptoms of heat exhaustion on WebMd, and I have every one of them, except for the fainting: heavy sweating, paleness, muscle cramps, tiredness, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea or vomiting, fainting. Luckily no vomiting, but I definitely feel nauseous. I'm sitting in my room right now with the fan pointed directly at me. I've been home for almost 2 hours now, and I'm still all clammy and disgusting. Ugh. If I die at work, I'm going to be really pissed. I want to get back to the US and have a Chipotle burrito and a Dr. Pepper and take an archery class and go parasailing and hook up with one of my exes before I die.