A Message from Seth

I really didn't want to write a post right now, but Anna said I have to :)

She thought I should post the story about my longest day in Korea, but I feel like I'm always posting negative stories, so I'll bullet point it and write about some happier things.

- Half day of school starting at 7:30a

- Lunch with co-teacher 1 hour away from home

- Dog Meat

- Buddhist Temple 45 min. away from lunch

- A Korean English Teacher, a Buddhist Monk, and an American walk into a Saum Gyaup Saul Restaurant...

- Drive with Co-Teacher

- Drive with Co-Teacher

- Drive with Co-Teacher

- Pick up Co-Teacher's girlfriend

- Get Home at 9:00p

At the time, I was pretty upset, but looking back, if we could have skipped the dog lunch it would have been pretty fun. If nothing else it was definitely an interesting day of firsts. I only choked down one bite of the dog meat, though, and only after explaining to my co-teacher and his friends that asking an American to eat dog was similar to asking a Muslim to eat pig or a Hindu to eat cow.

On a happier note, I've been able to get out and be a little more active recently. Soccer is my main outdoor activity now, and I've discovered that I'm actually not that bad at it. First I went and played with a bunch of British English Teachers (including one American who graduated from Bethel, small world). Then I was able to go play with a big group of Koreans from our church. We played for almost 3 hours on one of the hottest days of the summer! It was a lot of fun, I even scored a goal :)

Maurice and I have a little deal going now: he teaches me soccer and I teach him basketball. It's been a lot of fun. No more football though, I'm too afraid of breaking Korean fingers.

Earlier this summer, I taught our Korean friend Shihwan how to catch and throw a football. He caught on fairly quickly, especially for a Korean. I've tried teaching some of my students, and about 1 in 10 shows any aptitude for it. Anyway, I decided to Shihwan was ready for some "advanced" catch, so I taught him how to run routes. After doing this for a little while, he started telling me that his hand was hurting. I thought maybe it was just from learning a fairly new motion, but when I told him we could take a break, he wanted to keep going. Later, when we were eating dinner, he was still complaining about his hand, and when he showed it to us it was obvious that he had some swelling. I joked with him that he better not have broken anything, because it would be the second time I've broken someone's finger playing catch.

The next day, we got a call from Shihwan. He told us that his pinky finger was broken and the Doctor said he needed surgery! Later we found out that this surgery involved 3 pins and a 6 week recovery period followed by physical therapy!!!

There are many awful parts of this story, including: the theory we have made that the Doctor over-diagnosed the injury to get more money; the fact that Shihwan was unable to continue studying for his many tests (which significantly affect his ability to get a job); and a slight case of melancholy that he seems to have come down with. The scariest part of the story, to me anyway, is that the performed the surgery with partial anesthesia, meaning that, although he felt no pain, he was awake during the procedure and could feel pressure in his finger! To make it worse, the Doctor's SET UP A MIRROR FOR HIM TO WATCH!!!!!!! He described as "feeling like a horror movie."

So that's why I don't play football in Korea.

Anyway, hopefully I won't take as long between posts. The summer schedule is a little different, and there is significantly less bored free time for which blogging is perfect.