However, for the most part it has just made things slightly more difficult then usual. It started around Thursday, I went to talk to Keesan about something and found out that I couldn't actually talk. At that point Mr. Kim was called and he decided to cancel my classes for the day in the hopes that I would be better on Friday, which of course is not usually the case with something liek laryngitis. So Friday I could not talk at all, much to the amusement of myself and my classes, who thought it very funny, that I couldn't talk. Alas, it's not really possible to take of work, because that requires canceling and rescheduling my classes, and that is just not really a viable option.

So, aside from the excitment at work, I have the double excitment of actually living in Korea and being percieved as much ruder than I actually am. Since I can't say hello or goodbye louder than a whisper no-one can hear me say it, and this leads to the uncomfortable situation of having the Korean's give me nasty looks and think my extraordinarly rude, which I am trying not to be. I make a big show of bowing, and in some cases I've touched my throat and tried to convey in signs that my voice is gone, which seems to have been conveyable for the most part.

I stopped by the pharmacist to get some Aleive for my rather painful and still somewhat persistent headache, and she was quite dismayed by my condition and reccomened that I take something she called (antiobotic) and some Ibprofin, which usually makes me sick, so I can't take it. Unforunately I'm not really sure about the anitbiotic she gave me. She told me to take it three times a day, but she only gave me five capsules and my general understanding of anti-biotics is that they need to be taken for several days if not a month to be really effective. I don't want to end up breeding a super-bug or make myself even sicker, so I'm not sure if I should take the anti-biotic at all. It's all very strange. However, as far as the anit-biotics go this seems to be fairly common, as almost everyone who as gone to the hosipital to get a perscription to get better as only been given pills for a few days. I'm not sure if this is horribly wise.

Aside from all the fun and excitment of being sick, I'm almost better now, acutally, I went out on Friday night to the Arianna Hotel with some people from work to celebrate Jeanie Park's birthday. Fortunately for us, or rather unfortunately, we were seated very close to the live band (from Belgium) so talking was out for everyone but most especially for me. The band was pleasant enough, but not nearly as entertaining as the group of Koreans sitting closest to the band which consisted of one gentleman who seemed to be bent on doing some kind of crazy spastic shaking which it was presumed was a dance. The band got the whole room going by playing Oh Pisan Korea, from the world cup soccer games, and everyone seemed pretty please with the performance. I ended up leaving early as being unable to talk was already making me cranky, and being unable to talk or really communicate anything without the use of charades made me just want to go and paint, which is what I did.

The last week has been fairly productive, I've finished almost 17 new paintings, and hope to finish three more sometime between tonight and tomorrow, so that I can post new pieces to my gallery. I'm looking forward to that. I may get greedy and try to sell somethings on ebay and see if I can generate some extra income for the holidays myself.

Sam came to visit this weekend, which was fun, if rather quiet as I mostly just whispered at him. We went to the Walmart with no problems to get a power converter so he can use western appliances, since in Korea the sockets are round, and the voltage is 220 not 110. We also managed to have a cab driver get horrible lost when he could not understand where we wanted to go on the way back, and eventually I had to show him my ID to get him going in the right direction.

Other than that is has been quiet. Koreans are still pretty upset about the military accident that occured in June (an American tank running over 2 teenage girls) and the military verdict that aquitted the two soldiers in question. Our brillaint commander in Cheif sent his deepest regret through and emmisary rather than in person, which has not satisfied many of the koreans here. There has been a great call for a change in the way the legal matters are being handled in Korea. Currently the Korean goverment has no jurisdiction of the American military in Korea, which is really disturbing. Anyone interested about this can read about it here http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/02/korea.us.reut/index.html as for the most part it is being generally ignored by western media.

Other than that, life goes on. The school had a visit from the Education Administration on Friday, which Mr. Kim informed us was mostly a ploy to extract bribes from Mr. Kim. Again this seems to be fairly typical as far as Korean business go, still very strange, just how out in the open all of that is.

More later,

Sara