Birthdays in Korea

In honor of Zach's 28th birthday tomorrow (June 21st), I thought I would write about birthdays in Korea.  Zach's international age will be 28 tomorrow, but he has been 29 in Korea since the new year (depending on who you talk to, that could be Jan 1st or the Lunar New Year).  Confusing, huh?!  Don't worry, this whole birthday thing always confuses the heck out of me!  Basically, here is how you calculate Korean birthdays, I think....haha!

When you are born, you are considered to be one year old.  When the new year rolls around, you will turn 2 years old.  So technically, a baby born on Dec. 31st could be 2 years old on January 1st.  But like I said above, which new year you use to "get older" depends on who you talk to.  Some use the Gregorian or "Western" calendar and some use the Lunar calendar to "get older", which adds to the confusion.

I guess the easiest way to to calculate your Korean age is to take the current year (2014) and subtract the year you were born (1986) = 28.  If you haven't already had your birthday, add 2 years.  If you've already had your birthday, just add 1 year.  Zach is currently 27 years old, so he should add 2 years.  After his birthday he will be 28, so he will add 1 year.

If this is still confusing, just tell someone what year you were born in when they ask you how old you are.

To help me honor Zach's birthday, I would love it if you could send him a birthday message by posting in the comments section below!  He would love to hear from you!

Election Day in Busan

Today is a local election day which means we don't have school!  Candidates trying to get their names out there is very similar to candidates in the U.S.  Banners, posters, and advertisements of all kinds are everywhere.  However, it lasts only a couple of weeks instead of months and months.

A stack of flyers that were in our mailbox last week.

A stack of flyers that were in our mailbox last week.

Posters on the bridge outside of my school.

Posters on the bridge outside of my school.

And these have been going really strong for at least the past two weeks:

Well, happy election day, Busan!

Coming Home and What That Means

This morning we booked our flights home; we'll be leaving Korea on August 26th and landing in Indiana on August 26th!  My sister gets married that weekend so I'm telling people that we won't be back until September 1st because the wedding will be the only thing on my mind.  I so cannot wait!!!!  :)

We'll be staying with my dad during the first week of September because he took the whole week off from work.  Then our plan is to head up to Terre Haute for a couple of days and then have a get-away to Chicago for a couple days.  Then we will spend the week with Zach's parents.

In September, we have to take several tests for our teaching certificate, so we will be traveling to Evansville a couple of times.  At some point, we will want to get back up to Indy to visit with people there.

In October, we were thinking of doing a trip to different places in the U.S.  The last weekend of October (and maybe a few days before or after), we will be in L.A. for a Go tournament (hopefully!).

Those are our hopeful, not yet definite, plans for the next couple of months.  We will start applying for jobs at international schools as soon as we can.  We won't actually be certified until a couple of months after we take our tests.  So, I'm going to tentatively say that we will be home until at least after the holidays.  But, we may not start jobs until August of next year.

Once we have signed contracts at a school, we want to spend a month or two in Central/South America at a language school studying Spanish before starting our contracts.  It's not out of necessity, but out of want.

Depending on how things go, we might have to get part-time jobs while we are back home.  We've even considered trying to find short-time (3-4 month) contracts teaching in Central/South America.

So basically, everything is still really up in the air.  We aren't making any promises as to how long we will be back.  However, this should give you a timeline of what we are thinking.  There are so many things we want to do while being back.  AND, there are soooooo many people we want to see.  We will try everything we can to spend some time with all of you!

Thank you all for your continued support!

Fake It 'Til You Make It

This title is a perfect description of our time abroad, but mostly of our time living in Korea.  Yes, we can read Korean.  There is actually an alphabet and there are fewer characters than the English alphabet.  But just because we can read it, doesn't mean we always know what it means.  Hence, the faking it part.

Here are some examples:

This is the controller to all things heat-related in our apartment.  It turns the floor heat on and we also have to turn it on every time we want to take a shower or have hot water for anything.

This is our washing machine.

Okay, maybe this one has nothing to do with translating.  I just have a really bad memory and I can't remember which switch turns on which light.

Breaking Down My Time At School

Today I was told that I would not have my 3rd and 4th period classes today.  I only have four classes on Fridays so that means that I would finish my day at 10:30 a.m.  Got got me thinking of how much I actually work.  You may think that I'm bragging.....

......I AM!

So, here is my schedule.  I have to be at work at 8:40 a.m. and I can leave at 4:40 p.m. Monday-Friday.

I "teach"* 17 40-minute classes, 2 50-minute classes, and 2 20-minute classes.  That equals out to me being in the classroom for 14.5 hours every week.

* I put teach in quotes because my co-teacher wants me to plan a game or activity that lasts 10-15 minutes each class and that is all I am required to do.  Except for kindergarten where I am in charge for the whole 20 minutes.

That leaves me 25.5 hours each week to plan my activities and do whatever else I want with my time.  I've never really broken it down like this before.  I have it pretty cushy here in Korea!

Tubal Ligation in Busan, South Korea

If you are reading this and are family or friends, yes, I recently had a tubal ligation.  (I haven't told everyone I know.  Sorry if you are finding out this way.)  However, this post isn't about my decision to have the procedure.  This is to help others who are interested in getting this done while in Korea, specifically Busan.  While I was doing research prior to getting the procedure done, I couldn't find anything.  I hope this helps if you are wanting one but don't know how to go about doing it.

I went to a gynecologist, Dr. Shin's Women's Clinic located near Lotte Department Store in Seomyeon.  She was a great doctor and spoke pretty decent English.  Her phone number is 051-803-5551 if you want to make an appointment.  However, she tried to talk me out of having the procedure.  Thinking that I'm too young is a common reason people didn't want me to have it done.

So, I contacted Suyoung Lee (이수영) at Smart Hospital in Bujeon, Busan.  Suyoung Lee works in the International Department at the hospital and has been so much help to me.  Her e-mail is seinsy@naver.com.  If you have any problems, you can just send her an e-mail and she will get back to you as soon as she can.  The hospital website is www.smarthos.com.  However, she said that Smart Hospital does not perform tubal ligations so she referred me to Ellium Women's Hospital.

To contact Ellium Women's Hospital in Jangsan, Busan, you can call 82-51-933-0239-0230.  You will probably speak to Olga.  Or, you can do what I did and fill out the information on their website, http://www.elliumintl.com/en/kontakty/, and someone will call you back fairly quickly.  I made an appointment for a Saturday morning to talk with the doctor.  To get there, take the Green Line, Line 2 to Jangsan (the last stop) and you can take either Exit 11 or 13.  Go up to the 10th floor.

My husband went with me to talk to the doctor.  The doctor spoke pretty good English.  We were put to ease talking to him.  We scheduled my tubal for May 3rd.  That was a long weekend as Monday and Tuesday were national holidays.  I wanted to have a longer time to recover before going back to work.  He was kind enough to agree to do the surgery on a Saturday.  I was surprised to find that I would have to spend one night in the hospital.

I highly recommend that you bring your partner or a really good friend with you on the day of your surgery.  For some reason, they had my husband sign all of my paperwork.  I was completely knocked out and they performed a laparoscopy.  Everything went well.

When the anesthesia wore off, they took me to my hospital room.  I was not given a call button in my room.  That is why it is a good idea to have someone there with you.  You will need to tell the nurses when the IV bag is empty.  I wasn't checked on as much as I would have been if I were in the States.  Also, bring your own water bottle or cup.  You can't drink for probably 8 hours after the surgery, but once you can, they will not provide it for you.  Once you are allowed to eat, they will bring you food, however, they will not give you eating utensils.  Also bring along slippers to walk around in.  My husband left in the evening so that he could sleep at home.  He could have slept in my room, but it would have been fairly uncomfortable for him.  He came back in the morning before I was discharged.

I had my surgery on a Saturday and I have to go back to the hospital on Wednesday for the doctor to be able to change my bandages.  However, my "bandages" are band aids.  So, I'm not really sure why I have to go back.  I also have to go back this coming Saturday to get my stitches out.  I was told that I cannot shower until my stitches are not.  That just will not work for me, so I put gauze over my stitches and use tape to make it "waterproof".

My total bill was 750,000 Won.  I even got a private room.  Oh, I did pay almost 75,000 Won when went to talk to the doctor the first time because they did blood work and an EKG.

I was given three days worth of pain medication and antibiotics.  I've taken extra Acetaminophen only a couple of times.

I hope this has been helpful for anyone in Busan who is interested in getting a tubal ligation but doesn't know how to go about doing it.  If you have any specific questions, you can always leave a comment and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

School Picnic

Today, my school had a school picnic.  Actually, the term 'picnic' is a little misleading.  Basically, the students went on a field trip.  Each grade or group of grades went somewhere different.  One of the grades went to an art museum.

For school trips, the Native English Teacher (NET) is usually required to sit at their desk and desk warm.  The only other people in the school are the maintenance/cleaning people.  Usually it's pretty boring to desk warm, but today I had plenty of things to keep me busy.  I have one more month of homework to do before the end of the course and I can always plan my lessons for the upcoming weeks.  However, today, I spent most of my time cross stitching.  (I am working on a secret project so I can't so you the whole picture.)  I can listen to good music and not have anyone bother me.  I definitely don't mind getting paid to do this!!  :)