Are you ok? (part 2)

Long story short, the answer is still yes!

I found out about Kim Jong-Il's death over Facebook, when a concerned and curious friend wanted to know how people were reacting in South Korea. Surprisingly, that's still not a question I can answer.

There was talk about the news at work on Monday--some of the kids had heard things. Something about "leader," something about "dead."

In the middle of one of my lessons, my kids got really hyped up. They apparently had a distressing "realization" about the subject of this news.

"Teacher! Obama! Obama!"

Thankfully another teacher was able to explain things, but that got me wondering: what will that day look like from a few years in the future? How will those kids remember it, if at all? What about the other teachers, other average Korean adults? How will we remember it? I suppose I have to wait to find out. Until then, I'll be paying more attention to how people in this country are thinking, feeling, behaving. Right now, everything seems normal on this college campus.

I'll let you know if anything changes, but for now rest assured that things are continuing as usual over here. Now  back to studying for finals!

Are you ok?

"God, please keep me safe," I prayed, rather desperately, on Thursday. I felt alone, out of control, like I would fall at any moment. I didn't know who else I could turn to.

Ok, I was ice skating. Trying to, anyway. We went as a class, which was awesome. I've been a few times, never really getting the hang of it, but many of our classmates had never been at all. As fun as our class is, ice skating sounded like a much better idea than studying Korean, at least for one day. We left campus at 10, and were told we could stay however late we felt like staying.

I had started to get the hang of things (again) and was stumping around the ice on my own... until one classmate came whipping around the bend and we both ended up rather flat rather fast. The next few minutes are a little blurry, but my wrist felt like OW.

But that's not really worth a whole blog post. What I really want to talk about now is what happened next.

I'm pretty sure our entire class came to where I sat down to rest, wanting to see if I was ok. I don't think I was particularly gracious to them, (being convinced that a crowd of people was making my wrist hurt more,) but once things calmed down everyone was ridiculously patient and understanding.

Thomas and Anna got me comfortable, as classmates and teachers brought gifts of pain-relief spray, sustenance, and a bandage for my rapidly swelling wrist. Eventually it was determined that I should get to a hospital, so Man Teacher drove me and poor, guilt-ridden Classmate (who insisted on coming) to find a place that would take us during the lunch hour.

Lots of waiting, medical-picture taking, and translating later, I have a crunchy sort of wrist-hurt and an enormous cast-bandage thing. Classmate got no fewer than four phone calls from other students asking how I was doing. They wanted to come to the hospital, but (thankfully) that was deemed unnecessary. I was out by 3:00 with my cast-thingy and some medicine, and a whole lot of warm fuzzies.

I'll have this thing for about six weeks, and it's kind of frustrating sometimes. (For example, I look really funny trying to type right now.) But there are all kinds of things for which I am grateful through this experience, and I don't want to forget them. My dominant hand is ok; I can still walk; I didn't hit my head. I'm fortunate enough not to worry about paying for necessary care. My fellow YAVs were there to help, and will continue to be if I need them (right, guys?). Man Teacher speaks enough English to keep me informed, and all of my classmates are the kindest people. I may be kind of uncomfortable, but God really did keep me safe that day.

People see this thing and ask me, "Are you ok?"

Yes. Yes, I am.

See? Really!