Long time no see

Yes yes, I know, it has been quite a while. So hopefully I'll update in several posts. It's just that, between reading, starting the search for remote jobs for when I leave Korea, and working on grad school stuff (have to get my CV finished), the blog definitely falls to the wayside these days. Prior to this, what's my excuse? Too much nonsense. Honestly, especially when it's a cleaning weekend, time seems at a special premium & I've been unable to do it all. 2 weekends ago I was supposed to clean, but I was so sick from a cold, I just couldn't do it. I'm also teaching a Saturday class for my favorite student, Leo (the owner's son). I'm his favorite teacher, & we don't have class together this semester, so I think he asked his mom if she could figure something out. Her solution was I'd teach him for 1.5-2 hours each Saturday. I was NOT excited about working on a Saturday, though I do love Leo & the extra money is definitely going to help. It's in the evening, so at least I can lay in bed & read & take my time doing stuff, which is my thing on the weekends, but early evening is also when I usually start cooking or cleaning, so I'm losing my prime Saturday activity time. Not to mention complicating if I can go anywhere after on Saturday nights, since I get out at 8:30. But Leo's great; hell, in our second class, he told me he'd been looking forward to Saturday all week so he could see me! Cute little bugger.

So we'll start recently and work our way backward, shall we? We shall. The most recent thing is I had a big old health check last week. Do I need to mention AGAIN how much I LOVE the system here? It's efficient, SOOOOO affordable... I could go on, but you get the point. We did full blood work, urine, thyroid ultrasound, uterine ultrasound, PAP smear, mammogram, & colonoscopy. All for $180.

Blood work & urine were all fine. My thyroid levels are a little high, which might be indicative that my body isn't completely converting the pills I take to the active form of the hormone, which is actually common with the usual meds. However, it could also be because I haven't been taking iodine & tyrosene because I honestly forgot about them. So, I'll get those again, plus she increased my dosage, so we'll see how it goes next time. The other great news is that apparently several months ago when we did the full blood works, my thyroid antibodies were gone, so my body isn't actively destroying it anymore. In short, yep, my aggravating & extremely limited (albeit really healthy) diet has done what it ideally is supposed to.

We'll need a breast ultrasound because mine are rather dense, which I knew. So we're doing that in June. Not sure why the wait, & wondering if I shouldn't ask about doing it sooner since I'm leaving, but hopefully there won't be anything to be concerned about. (I know my breasts can be a bit cystic as well.) The only bad thing was that apparently I have an ulcer. How perfect, yet unsurprising, given the leaky gut theory. I can't feel it; she prescribed some medication for it, & just said to avoid spicy foods (pretty easily done, except that Jessie took me to a great kimchi jiggae chain & there's one near my train station). Hopefully that will get straightened out, however that is done.