Larger Than Life
One of my classes got their work done early and asked to rewatch Backstreet Boys "All I Have to Give" which I'd used as a listening exercise. We had some time so I put on "Larger Than Life", my personal favorite BSB song. Why? Because it talks about fame as a mixed blessing, in a way that seems honest. "We don't mean to be rude when we run from screaming fans, we're just human."
Yong Yong is enjoying the view out the patio tonight, and I'm enjoying the mild weather.
But I thought of that song in a different way today. Being an expat--and a plus-sized blonde--means you're always being spotted around town. They told the new kids in orientation, mind your behavior, because people see what you do, and remember it, and judge all expats by it. This is not a place of anonymity.
I thought of that today at the doctor's office. On the advice of a coteacher I went to the orthopedist for foot pain--in my right foot--that doesn't seem to go away. Skippy is absent, perhaps being a brave soul for the right foot that was more severely injured last fall and has not totally healed apparently. The doctor sees me, I explain the situation and point to where it hurts, just forward of the heel. He takes my foot in one hand and pokes me hard with the other, right where I'd indicated. I screamed it hurt so bad...yeah Doc, that is where it hurts! So he sends me off to x-rays and brings me back into his office. Now here's where things get fishy.
There's this large bone spur on my right heel. Right heel. I was aware of a small one on my left, along with all the other peculiarities of that foot, but this thing on the x-ray was huge by comparison, and smackdab in the center of the heel. He said that it was the result of low circulation in that foot and that it probably had been growing there for years. Plantar fascitis, and a long course of physical therapy and something with four letters with a W in it. I'll get back to that part. I'd go back to Asan, where they didn't-treat the sprains, and ask to look at those x-rays again, or maybe just get the physical in downtown Seoul like I'm supposed to. But a little swelling and stiffness in the arch just forward of the heel =/= a massive bone spur, do correct me if I'm wrong.
So he points to a machine that is this *W** thing, and apparently it's some sort of electro-stim. No biggie I thought, dealt with those in Geumchon (and years earlier, when I'd pulled my Achilles tendon). It's very painful, he says. I'm beginning to think this doctor likes me in pain. Okay, so I braced myself, put my fingers against the wall and thought meditative thoughts. Oh it made a noise like a plastic jackhammer, but pain? Nothing like pain. At two spots I got a sting-y muscle cramp, once in my knee and the other time in my foot, but that was it. Acupuncture hurt worse than this, by triple. The doctor kept watching my face for signs of pain, nada. Not impressed.
I must say though, the foot felt better and seemed less swollen.
So I get sent to the back for a heating pad (meh), some kind of light (UV? At least it wasn't a warmer so I didn't feel like a cheap diner meal), and this absurd laser thing I've had before (imagine a laser show on your ankle. What it's supposed to do I may never know). But the bill for all of this was about 15 times what I'd normally pay a doctor, and he wants me to come around every day for the long term. Homey don't think so. I talked to the guy who sells me my newspaper and not only did he tell the pharmacist what might help me--some weird little menthol sticker, no harm done even if it does nothing) but he also pointed me at the lovely lunar eclipse in the sky tonight.
So guys like him are really cool, but folks like the doctor, or the butcher way back in September who sold me the spoiled meat, or the doctor who saw two injured ankles and refused to recommend crutches, or the coworker who said it was normal to boil bathwater on the stove...it's a pity I'm the type to hold grudges. I'm feeling a wee bit unwelcome in this town, more to the point feeling like a mark for a ripoff.
I didn't complain to the doctor, but I'm not always so quiescent. A Home Plus (kind of like a Target, and including foreign goods) opened up nearby. Western-sized bath towels, hurrah! But I tried to cross an aisle with my cart and got stuck in cross-traffic, so I parked it behind an island to wait out the commotion. Apparently my cart stuck into the aisle a little too much for some woman's taste because she went on a rant in Korean. Hun, I know a rant no matter what language it's in, and it was obviously directed at me. So I looked her in the eye and, confident she understood English and gestures, said "I'm just trying to go that way, okay??" I got no more dirty looks from that part of the store.
Home Plus also has an Ashley's, which is roughly like a Marie Callendar's without the pies. So some things are going right. But I'm wondering...I got very little of this ripoff stuff in Geumchon. Is it because I'm in the nice part of town now? Is this town a little hostile towards foreigners, a little less honest, a little less kind? There was a U.S. base here until a few years ago, and soldiers sometimes bring out the worst in the local populace. --shrug--
There's a mental checklist already forming about whether I'll stay here next year. This will rely heavily on the incoming principal, as the one who hired me is AWESOME but retiring in a couple months.
Yong Yong is enjoying the view out the patio tonight, and I'm enjoying the mild weather.
But I thought of that song in a different way today. Being an expat--and a plus-sized blonde--means you're always being spotted around town. They told the new kids in orientation, mind your behavior, because people see what you do, and remember it, and judge all expats by it. This is not a place of anonymity.
I thought of that today at the doctor's office. On the advice of a coteacher I went to the orthopedist for foot pain--in my right foot--that doesn't seem to go away. Skippy is absent, perhaps being a brave soul for the right foot that was more severely injured last fall and has not totally healed apparently. The doctor sees me, I explain the situation and point to where it hurts, just forward of the heel. He takes my foot in one hand and pokes me hard with the other, right where I'd indicated. I screamed it hurt so bad...yeah Doc, that is where it hurts! So he sends me off to x-rays and brings me back into his office. Now here's where things get fishy.
There's this large bone spur on my right heel. Right heel. I was aware of a small one on my left, along with all the other peculiarities of that foot, but this thing on the x-ray was huge by comparison, and smackdab in the center of the heel. He said that it was the result of low circulation in that foot and that it probably had been growing there for years. Plantar fascitis, and a long course of physical therapy and something with four letters with a W in it. I'll get back to that part. I'd go back to Asan, where they didn't-treat the sprains, and ask to look at those x-rays again, or maybe just get the physical in downtown Seoul like I'm supposed to. But a little swelling and stiffness in the arch just forward of the heel =/= a massive bone spur, do correct me if I'm wrong.
So he points to a machine that is this *W** thing, and apparently it's some sort of electro-stim. No biggie I thought, dealt with those in Geumchon (and years earlier, when I'd pulled my Achilles tendon). It's very painful, he says. I'm beginning to think this doctor likes me in pain. Okay, so I braced myself, put my fingers against the wall and thought meditative thoughts. Oh it made a noise like a plastic jackhammer, but pain? Nothing like pain. At two spots I got a sting-y muscle cramp, once in my knee and the other time in my foot, but that was it. Acupuncture hurt worse than this, by triple. The doctor kept watching my face for signs of pain, nada. Not impressed.
I must say though, the foot felt better and seemed less swollen.
So I get sent to the back for a heating pad (meh), some kind of light (UV? At least it wasn't a warmer so I didn't feel like a cheap diner meal), and this absurd laser thing I've had before (imagine a laser show on your ankle. What it's supposed to do I may never know). But the bill for all of this was about 15 times what I'd normally pay a doctor, and he wants me to come around every day for the long term. Homey don't think so. I talked to the guy who sells me my newspaper and not only did he tell the pharmacist what might help me--some weird little menthol sticker, no harm done even if it does nothing) but he also pointed me at the lovely lunar eclipse in the sky tonight.
So guys like him are really cool, but folks like the doctor, or the butcher way back in September who sold me the spoiled meat, or the doctor who saw two injured ankles and refused to recommend crutches, or the coworker who said it was normal to boil bathwater on the stove...it's a pity I'm the type to hold grudges. I'm feeling a wee bit unwelcome in this town, more to the point feeling like a mark for a ripoff.
I didn't complain to the doctor, but I'm not always so quiescent. A Home Plus (kind of like a Target, and including foreign goods) opened up nearby. Western-sized bath towels, hurrah! But I tried to cross an aisle with my cart and got stuck in cross-traffic, so I parked it behind an island to wait out the commotion. Apparently my cart stuck into the aisle a little too much for some woman's taste because she went on a rant in Korean. Hun, I know a rant no matter what language it's in, and it was obviously directed at me. So I looked her in the eye and, confident she understood English and gestures, said "I'm just trying to go that way, okay??" I got no more dirty looks from that part of the store.
Home Plus also has an Ashley's, which is roughly like a Marie Callendar's without the pies. So some things are going right. But I'm wondering...I got very little of this ripoff stuff in Geumchon. Is it because I'm in the nice part of town now? Is this town a little hostile towards foreigners, a little less honest, a little less kind? There was a U.S. base here until a few years ago, and soldiers sometimes bring out the worst in the local populace. --shrug--
There's a mental checklist already forming about whether I'll stay here next year. This will rely heavily on the incoming principal, as the one who hired me is AWESOME but retiring in a couple months.