I will finally be getting a little raise for next year-- an extra 100K won/month. Wish I could say it'll all go toward bills, when I still need as much as I can for food throughout the month. But you know what else I want some freaking money for? Traveling. It's Buddha's birthday today, so we have the day off. Obviously a Tuesday off doesn't help, but for example Dylan pointed out Japan is close enough for a weekend trip. I've always wanted to see the lanterns set off over the water, but why do it in Korea when I like Thailand more & that's a much more observing Buddhist country than Korea? I still want to go to Cambodia, & recently was thinking it'd be better to do it from here, not just because it's much closer, but also because I can hopefully recover a little faster from the inevitable return to eating rice.
Which brings me to my future plans in Europe. It seems that the best, plus freest, & most programs offered in English, are in Germany. I've never been there, never wanted to go. Jason hated it, & for some reasons I could see bothering me. I'm still friends with a great who couchsurfed with me from there, but I've also matched with a few on tinder & they have the conversational skills of styrofoam. They're about as humorous as it too, from what I can tell. I'm tired of being in countries I don't like. I'm tired of those being the only option. I'm tired of the idea that I can't travel more because it'd mean having a fuck of a time eating or breaking out massively again. As I've said too, I've found that each successive breakout is more & more difficult for me to recover from, especially when the air's shitty.
Ozgur, the guy I couchsurfed with in Turkey, I still think about him. & how retardedly easy dating would be there if I was ready & wanted to date again. Plus I still have to get certified to teach in the US, which is a massive gamble due to healthcare which I'm less & less comfortable with taking.
I've got a friend I can go see in Sri Lanka. I could plan in advance & try to pay for airfare during a holiday here to somewhere in Asia. I'm always thinking of Thailand, even though living there wouldn't work out for so many reasons. I have to get my resume straightened out so I can start applying for remote jobs, but doing what? I can't really find anything part time, am wary of doing freelance taxes in the US while here, & how to transition that to full time when I'm in the US, especially when remote jobs don't really offer benefits (though some people claim some do)? Do I just keep paying the same toward my loans & try to travel more, though I don't see being able to afford that with only an extra 100k/month? Do I stay another TWO years so that my pension is about $10,000, instead of just $7500? Could I mentally handle another 2 years? Is it worth it?
God, & joining a gym IF I could find one open when I'd ideally use it, & could get a trainer to help me get good & progress with squats, for example? That'd be great.
Thoughts? Should I just deal with shitty skin & whatever unseen damage the food is doing to my system & travel? Plus the mad expense I probably couldn't really handle anyway? Go to a European country that I might prefer, even if their MA programs don't have the same reputation as Germany's? How do I navigate the practicum back in the US without healthcare & income, or not enough? Stay here for more money once I leave?
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Being careful what I wish for & other irritations
Today truly sucked because I had to get up early (for me), rush out the door & do the 1.3 hour trip to immigration & pay a fine because I faxed over my new passport info ONE DAY LATE. They called Sue, my boss, & she told me to go, no need for an appointment, go to the 2nd floor (everything else I've done there is always the first floor). So, I get there @ 11:30, not realizing lunch is @ 12 (my doctors have theirs at one, so one can't always predict these things, & it's not like it's info posted easily to see online, if at all). I get there, not sure if I need visa or nationality, since those & permanent residence are my options (fuck that shit I am NOT staying here forever!). While I'm waiting for my number, probably a good 10 minutes go by, & this Korean woman asks what I'm there for. I show her in my translator, & she points me around the corner. When I go in, the guy at a counter tells me downstairs.
Pissed, down I go, where I'm told to go make a copy & get it to this guy, fast. I do, as it's 5 to 12 & I find out that 12 is lunch time. He gives me a number & tells me to look for the number after 1 PM. WRONG, I have to get back to work, I planned on leaving at 12:30 to do so. Naturally, I can't just pay the $100 there & then, no, it must be done after lunch, or before by time travel. So I have the unmitigated pleasure of going back this week. Given that I also have to go to the doctor, go to the bank, AND get in to see the orthopedic now that I've been paid again, I was rather pissed off. & exhausted from the early trip that I wasted & must do again.
I decide to buy coffee for coworkers so that maybe brightening their day will brighten & improve mine. Work goes fine-- I even got forced into finishing signing up for & ordering stuff on coupang, a grocery/amazon type site that is ALL in Korean. I order my new air purifier filter from gmarket too, & head home to the nearby ATM where I can transfer the money to coupang & gmarket for the orders, respectively.
Only to get there, check my email messages, & there's nothing about the amount & bank account to transfer money to coupang. I also don't have the app on my phone. I install it, & the total now listed is less than it was, & there's a 1 on my cart. There's a bunch of Korean gobbledy-gook, followed by the number 0. I'm guessing that it decided AFTER telling me the original total & bank info (you need a minimum for half the shit on coupang, honestly while it may be cheaper it's massively more inconvenient) that they were actually out of one of the items, so I can't get or pay for that order yet, since it's yet again incomplete. I go in to pay for my gmarket order, only to find that YET AGAIN, our ATM is out of order. SOOO I can't pay for that yet, either. Guess I'll have to do it from the ATM @ the bank tomorrow when I do my monthly money transfer for school loans & debt repayment.
The other irritant is from getting what I wanted, namely, a more active paleo facebook group. It's international but of course pretty much all people in Western, English-speaking countries, but I can get recipes & stuff. But I also get REMARKABLY STUPID fuckers posting.
People have posted pride in being BRAVE by buying bok choy-- but what do you do with it? REALLY? You've never used or seen or eaten bok choy? Seriously? & this is another actual post: how do you pronounce paleo? Because THIS fucking miracle of a person always pronounced it pay-lay-oh. WHO THE FUCK SAYS IT THAT WAY? Who is taking a risk by purchasing fucking BOK CHOY??? Flaunting their stupidity & not getting called out for being asshats really hurts my head.
Could have saved my money today too: it's Teacher's Day in Korea, & one of the moms bought all of us teachers coffee! So I had 2 servings, & then didn't want to eat dinner, lol.
My knee was bothering me yesterday while I was doing a chattaranga hold, & has remained swollen & hurts when I go to bed, etc., so back to not working out my legs, & hopefully will get an answer next week without having to pay too much, which is any amount thanks to my super special diet. Always such good things to report!
Pissed, down I go, where I'm told to go make a copy & get it to this guy, fast. I do, as it's 5 to 12 & I find out that 12 is lunch time. He gives me a number & tells me to look for the number after 1 PM. WRONG, I have to get back to work, I planned on leaving at 12:30 to do so. Naturally, I can't just pay the $100 there & then, no, it must be done after lunch, or before by time travel. So I have the unmitigated pleasure of going back this week. Given that I also have to go to the doctor, go to the bank, AND get in to see the orthopedic now that I've been paid again, I was rather pissed off. & exhausted from the early trip that I wasted & must do again.
I decide to buy coffee for coworkers so that maybe brightening their day will brighten & improve mine. Work goes fine-- I even got forced into finishing signing up for & ordering stuff on coupang, a grocery/amazon type site that is ALL in Korean. I order my new air purifier filter from gmarket too, & head home to the nearby ATM where I can transfer the money to coupang & gmarket for the orders, respectively.
Only to get there, check my email messages, & there's nothing about the amount & bank account to transfer money to coupang. I also don't have the app on my phone. I install it, & the total now listed is less than it was, & there's a 1 on my cart. There's a bunch of Korean gobbledy-gook, followed by the number 0. I'm guessing that it decided AFTER telling me the original total & bank info (you need a minimum for half the shit on coupang, honestly while it may be cheaper it's massively more inconvenient) that they were actually out of one of the items, so I can't get or pay for that order yet, since it's yet again incomplete. I go in to pay for my gmarket order, only to find that YET AGAIN, our ATM is out of order. SOOO I can't pay for that yet, either. Guess I'll have to do it from the ATM @ the bank tomorrow when I do my monthly money transfer for school loans & debt repayment.
The other irritant is from getting what I wanted, namely, a more active paleo facebook group. It's international but of course pretty much all people in Western, English-speaking countries, but I can get recipes & stuff. But I also get REMARKABLY STUPID fuckers posting.
People have posted pride in being BRAVE by buying bok choy-- but what do you do with it? REALLY? You've never used or seen or eaten bok choy? Seriously? & this is another actual post: how do you pronounce paleo? Because THIS fucking miracle of a person always pronounced it pay-lay-oh. WHO THE FUCK SAYS IT THAT WAY? Who is taking a risk by purchasing fucking BOK CHOY??? Flaunting their stupidity & not getting called out for being asshats really hurts my head.
Could have saved my money today too: it's Teacher's Day in Korea, & one of the moms bought all of us teachers coffee! So I had 2 servings, & then didn't want to eat dinner, lol.
My knee was bothering me yesterday while I was doing a chattaranga hold, & has remained swollen & hurts when I go to bed, etc., so back to not working out my legs, & hopefully will get an answer next week without having to pay too much, which is any amount thanks to my super special diet. Always such good things to report!
Friday, May 4, 2018
Will it EVER get easier?
You know, I just continually have all these reasons to be eternally grateful for the excellent healthcare I have here in Korea. As I said, the doctor tested my blood & urine, & brought me these charts & results & discussed everything with me, which she does whenever she does tests. She suggests supplements I should get, & tells me it's best to order them from the US because they're better quality. But it's also that she really is attuned to what people who have Hashimoto's deal with. I'm INSANELY lucky-- except for the midpoint of getting my initial dosage right after my diagnosis, I've never suffered from the symptoms, constant symptoms, that ALL these other people (mainly women), deal with. My anxiety & depression are definitely stronger because those are both symptoms of it. But apart from that, I really haven't experienced them, even when I've been hypothyroid, whether a little or a lot. & many people have these symptoms when their T3& T4 levels are normal.
Many people with Hashimoto's, as well as people in the paleo community, but especially within the autoimmune, will go on & on about adrenal fatigue. They'll talk about their sensitivity to wheat or milk or whatever. & the doctors will tell them there's no connection to food, they're not celiac (I was tested within a year or two of my diagnosis since I'd been reading up, & the doctor told me I'm definitely not allergic to wheat). I asked about being tested for adrenal fatigue... the doctor was a little irritated, but there IS a test & she ran it & I was fine (but you know, a good 6-7 years ago).
When I see my doctor here, she'll say, "Oh yes, people with Hashimoto's tend to have problems with dairy or wheat," or she'll ask how my symptoms are when I'm a little hypo. At my latest appointment, she was curious about my cellular metabolism (I THINK?), & ran some test where they put these clamps on both wrists & 1 ankle. It measured my pulse, the cellular metabolism I guess... & showed I have adrenal fatigue, which means I need some enzyme. But thanks to the extra tests & of course grocery shopping, I have to make $100 last through 2 dinners out & food this long weekend plus for next week, then around $30 for the week after that. Ohhhh, and it was my bank's turn to do "an update" on a holiday weekend, so I had to take out all the cash I'll need on Friday because Saturday through Monday, my atm & debit card won't work. We foreigners (mainly) must use cash. Every bank in Korea pulls shit like this. Of course, everything here is STILL run on internet explorer, if you can EVEN believe it, THAT is what they use here. It's a whole thing. But anyway, I went to the pharmacy, where I got 2 weeks' worth of: antiobiotic pills (2/day for a week) for my rosacea breakout; 6 primrose oil pills/day (which is usually more than enough to keep my skin clear); my thyroid pills; this pill for stress due to high cortisol & adrenal fatigue (twice/day); & iron pills. Interestingly the pharmacist speaks more & more English with me when I see her, & she told me the primrose pills she gives to her husband & son, 10/day (!!!) & their seasonal allergy symptoms are pretty much gone. She suggested asking my doctor about that. As I always do during & after my visits, I marvel at how the clamp test plus seeing the doc to discuss all these tests in-depth, plus looking at iHerb for supplements I should look for & order, all cost $22. That list of meds cost me $8, because after the government negotiates the prices with all drug makers so people outside the US pay far less for most meds anyway, it was $28, but the pharmacist pointed out that the government covered an additional $20 of the price, hence the $8 for 2 weeks of lots of pills.
When I think about leaving Korea in just over a year, my anxiety kicks into high gear: I have to figure out how to get a job, preferably online/remote, which means freelance & no insurance; how to get MORE LOANS to get certified to teach & live for a year or so in the US. It's nearly impossible to find a remote job with insurance. But EVEN IF I DID get a job with insurance? I can't stomach the idea of going back to that nightmare system. Doctors doubting everything, that deductible bullshit-- what they pull out of my paycheck for the national system here is about $16/MONTH. There's no fucking DEDUCTIBLE-- that $16 is all I pay, then another $3 just to see my GP or ear, nose & throat guy, or an orthopedic (who still seem to be mostly clueless) each visit. & then hoping you also have a prescription discount card to still pay 2-3 times what I pay for the same shit here! Spending 30 minutes with the doctor, who doesn't rush through & talks over everything. Offers me NATURAL ALTERNATIVES to antidepressants if I want to try that before resorting to the drugs (& I will ALWAYS take the natural alternative first), but will write me a prescription for the drugs if I want. That $88 blood work? She checked my liver & kidney function, my cholesterol, my blood sugar (I may be allergic to histamines, AND am getting close to glucose intolerance, common AGAIN with Hashi's, which means much bigger chance of being diabetic. I'd had a bit to drink the night before my blood work, so I'm hoping that's why my blood sugar was 20, & 27 is pre-diabetic), every hormone & vitamin level & all sorts of other shit I can't even remember. I've been thinking about this: do I stay in a place that is possibly/probably making me sicker but also has ways to treat it? Or get out of the bad environment but then have no good, affordable, reliable or consistent way to deal with the health issues that are all there now, regardless of what or how they were brought on? The national heathcare here is PRECISELY WHY I can understand staying here for 10 years or more, as so many teachers do (& they DON'T have the health problems I do).
Many people with Hashimoto's, as well as people in the paleo community, but especially within the autoimmune, will go on & on about adrenal fatigue. They'll talk about their sensitivity to wheat or milk or whatever. & the doctors will tell them there's no connection to food, they're not celiac (I was tested within a year or two of my diagnosis since I'd been reading up, & the doctor told me I'm definitely not allergic to wheat). I asked about being tested for adrenal fatigue... the doctor was a little irritated, but there IS a test & she ran it & I was fine (but you know, a good 6-7 years ago).
When I see my doctor here, she'll say, "Oh yes, people with Hashimoto's tend to have problems with dairy or wheat," or she'll ask how my symptoms are when I'm a little hypo. At my latest appointment, she was curious about my cellular metabolism (I THINK?), & ran some test where they put these clamps on both wrists & 1 ankle. It measured my pulse, the cellular metabolism I guess... & showed I have adrenal fatigue, which means I need some enzyme. But thanks to the extra tests & of course grocery shopping, I have to make $100 last through 2 dinners out & food this long weekend plus for next week, then around $30 for the week after that. Ohhhh, and it was my bank's turn to do "an update" on a holiday weekend, so I had to take out all the cash I'll need on Friday because Saturday through Monday, my atm & debit card won't work. We foreigners (mainly) must use cash. Every bank in Korea pulls shit like this. Of course, everything here is STILL run on internet explorer, if you can EVEN believe it, THAT is what they use here. It's a whole thing. But anyway, I went to the pharmacy, where I got 2 weeks' worth of: antiobiotic pills (2/day for a week) for my rosacea breakout; 6 primrose oil pills/day (which is usually more than enough to keep my skin clear); my thyroid pills; this pill for stress due to high cortisol & adrenal fatigue (twice/day); & iron pills. Interestingly the pharmacist speaks more & more English with me when I see her, & she told me the primrose pills she gives to her husband & son, 10/day (!!!) & their seasonal allergy symptoms are pretty much gone. She suggested asking my doctor about that. As I always do during & after my visits, I marvel at how the clamp test plus seeing the doc to discuss all these tests in-depth, plus looking at iHerb for supplements I should look for & order, all cost $22. That list of meds cost me $8, because after the government negotiates the prices with all drug makers so people outside the US pay far less for most meds anyway, it was $28, but the pharmacist pointed out that the government covered an additional $20 of the price, hence the $8 for 2 weeks of lots of pills.
When I think about leaving Korea in just over a year, my anxiety kicks into high gear: I have to figure out how to get a job, preferably online/remote, which means freelance & no insurance; how to get MORE LOANS to get certified to teach & live for a year or so in the US. It's nearly impossible to find a remote job with insurance. But EVEN IF I DID get a job with insurance? I can't stomach the idea of going back to that nightmare system. Doctors doubting everything, that deductible bullshit-- what they pull out of my paycheck for the national system here is about $16/MONTH. There's no fucking DEDUCTIBLE-- that $16 is all I pay, then another $3 just to see my GP or ear, nose & throat guy, or an orthopedic (who still seem to be mostly clueless) each visit. & then hoping you also have a prescription discount card to still pay 2-3 times what I pay for the same shit here! Spending 30 minutes with the doctor, who doesn't rush through & talks over everything. Offers me NATURAL ALTERNATIVES to antidepressants if I want to try that before resorting to the drugs (& I will ALWAYS take the natural alternative first), but will write me a prescription for the drugs if I want. That $88 blood work? She checked my liver & kidney function, my cholesterol, my blood sugar (I may be allergic to histamines, AND am getting close to glucose intolerance, common AGAIN with Hashi's, which means much bigger chance of being diabetic. I'd had a bit to drink the night before my blood work, so I'm hoping that's why my blood sugar was 20, & 27 is pre-diabetic), every hormone & vitamin level & all sorts of other shit I can't even remember. I've been thinking about this: do I stay in a place that is possibly/probably making me sicker but also has ways to treat it? Or get out of the bad environment but then have no good, affordable, reliable or consistent way to deal with the health issues that are all there now, regardless of what or how they were brought on? The national heathcare here is PRECISELY WHY I can understand staying here for 10 years or more, as so many teachers do (& they DON'T have the health problems I do).
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