Ok, super-short

FOR ONCE!! And I worry, as I always do, that by saying anything I will jinx myself, but last week and this week my upper body workout showed some improvements. Last week I remember feeling a little stronger, doing a little more. Today was a holiday, and I stayed home, never left the apartment, and didn't even eat brunch for once! Cooked up all my veggies and very trimmed pork... bacony-things (pork is the main meat here in Korea), and looked at my unopened bottle of Absolut Korea. It was a total last-minute buy when I stopped for some grapefruit juice at the convenience store across the street, and they had it. The flavors are almond, coffee, and chili. And I have to say, I love it. Tried it first with (too much) lemon juice and pepper, then just tried it plain, and I like it that way best.

Oh! but anyway, this afternoon I thought, just be lazy, don't workout, only 4 days/week is enough (except Friday's wine and yoga pants night so no, not 4 days), and then went ahead and did the tortuous tabata workout. I held 2 sets of the halfway down push-up for all 20 secs, did a better job of bringing my chest to the floor first in burpees, and then did tricep crab thingies (sorry, I know, not helpful), whereas I usually didn't bother dipping.

Didn't even make it to the doctor because when I set the alarm Saturday I'd set it for weekdays instead of Saturday, and got up too late to get to the clinic. So another week (still have 3 weeks' of pills), but hoping that the small improvements will continue. Yay!

It's funny because I've actually encountered more of that weird English you hear about in Asia in the 3 weeks I've been at my new school, versus the 5 months I was at ILS, and ILS adhered a lot more to Korean customs than my new school. Aside from my having gotten over my culture shock, Jungchul is a lot more accessible culturally than ILS. By that I mean the other teachers and staff are nice and respectful to everyone, Korean or otherwise, have a sense of humor. Last minute planning still happens, but FAR less often, and isn't just so ingrained to how things are done that it's less stressful for everyone all around. The other little difference is that at ILS we removed our shoes and wore slippers at work, whereas here we just walk around in our shoes. Of course, it appears ILS was just an overall shitty place to work, while Jungchul is definitely not.

But the kids at ILS rarely, if ever,wore t-shirts with English on them (or much writing at all), though when they did it was fine. The books we used were actually school books from the US, so those likewise spared me the fun, albeit harmful* fun for those trying to learn English.

At the new school, we use many books that were written in Korea. In fact, 1/2 of my middle school classes use books that explain language concepts, instructions, etc in Korean, which worried me about teaching since I don't speak Korean (turns out we just play the CDs so they can get their instruction in Korean, then listen to English examples and exercises).

And so, there are definitely some mistakes to be found. Some are very small, like the middle school class today who listened to 2 Americans talking about where to go for pizza, and in the script, it talked about thick and thin bread, instead of crust. I will add that the kids found that particular exercise way too easy, so I blew their minds by explaining something that apparently they didn't get, and didn't know they didn't get: that the girl liked goat cheese on her pizza. The kids were truly shocked, not just that other animals produce milk that people consume, but that they'd make cheese out of it. I then had 8 middle schoolers howling with laughter as I attempted to draw a camel that looked more like a puzzle piece, a sheep, and then worked on their request for me to draw a dog which kept just being a horse. Teacher draw time is a hit for all ages.

And then there are the conversation books that are designed to give kids small conversation practice, like introducing yourself, meeting your friend's mom, going to the store... or asking someone what they think about what you're wearing, which reflects no word usage a native speaker would ever use, albeit due to cultural difference (in Asia, it's perfectly appropriate to tell someone not wearing makeup that they look pale or ugly... telling someone you're ugly can be commonly used particularly if the person doesn't know other words. It's also considered fine to comment on how nice or bad a woman's hair or skin is, for example, pretty much only if you're white & not tan, which means daily, frequent comments on how nice and light your skin/hair is/are. Naturally they'll tell you if you're fat, ask what's wrong with your skin, etc.).This conversation is on agreeing and disagreeing, as well as the phrase, "you're right:"
     A.    Is this right for me?
     B.    Well, I don't think so.
     A     Is it to small?
     B.    That's right.
     A.    Maybe I'm too fat.
     B.    You're right.

And it wasn't until this school that I finally have seen a kid oblivious to the fact that his baseball hat says FUCK in big, capital letters.

There are 2 reasons I can see for this:
1.) The boy who wears it, though he's in a class where they listen to conversations about cancelling reservations, boss and employee conversations, etc, clearly hears Charlie Brown's teacher when I talk, he looks at me so blankly whenever I say anything or ask a question.

2.) It's written in a Gothic font. If I connect my lowercase L to an E, my students freak out and can't figure out what word I've written. So, this particular font, which takes a bit of effort on my part to get, is way out of their league. But my GOD that first week that hat was right in front of me, in the front row, it was nearly impossible not to stare at it and wonder what the hell everyone was thinking.

For more on this, you should google "Asian kids wearing bad English." There was a whole page on kindergartners wearing shirts that say things like... well, why don't I just give you a few examples of the gems you'll find, which are not actually limited to kids way too young to get it:

DAMN IT.

My workouts for the past 2 months or so have basically sucked. Workouts I used to be challenged by, or super challenged by but capable of doing, are practically killing me. And no matter how often I do them, there's no improvement, no strength gains, everything's as hard as if I just started working out.

I haven't been able to do a straight-leg push-up in all this time, and bringing my chest to the floor with my knees on the floor is now the perfect challenge, which I do to exhaustion, within 30 seconds each set.

I've been eating rice at dinner, both because the dishes aren't close to filling enough (protein, particularly in the form of meat, is too expensive to the owner, so used very sparingly), and because I know from previous programs that I need carbs to get through my workouts, but it hasn't ultimately been helping

Today was a 10 minute HIIT workout, with a guy who usually does stuff that's too easy for me: when I was in Chicago, I'd have to do 2 of them in a row, increasing the work time and decreasing the rest time, just to feel it. Today 1 workout (though I still increased the work time) was at the perfect level. That was followed by a 12 minute upper body tabata workout, 20 seconds work, 10 secs rest, 4 rounds of 3 sets of exercises. Whereas I used to be able to hold 1/2way down in a push-up for 60-90 seconds, I can just make it to the 20 second mark for 2 rounds, today being the first time I could hold out for that long without dropping my knees.

It is true that the last time I went in to get my levels checked, I was supposed to call back to see if the increased dosage of thyroid meds was sufficient. I forgot for at least a month, and when I finally remembered, naturally, the English speaking doctor can only be reached through a Korean-only speaking staff, and they didn't seem to understand when I asked for Dr. Park. So there IS a chance I still need another bump in my meds. Plus the anxiety gradually wore off. (But then, I also got away from that hellish job.)

But the other, and at this point I'm going to go with more likely cause, is that I'm losing muscle building ability and energy due to this awesome part of hypothyroidism, where your thyroid levels are where they're supposed to be, but you're dealing with any of the myriad, really pretty shitty, side effects of it. Some people lose hair, some have brain fog, some people feel sedated, some people have headaches and soreness, some have stomach problems... the list goes on and on. People reported improvements in their conditions from the Autoimmune Paleo Protocol. Prior to my leaving for Chile, I was going to try APP, a diet that is really as bad as the symptoms you can feel. I decided since I didn't feel like shit as others did, I would take on the elimination diet once I too started having issues, but NOT before.

And it occurred to me today as I frustratingly struggled through knee push-ups for the 6th week in a row and needed a minute break between each set change, that this may be my version of feeling-shitty-because-why-not. It may be time to eliminate wheat, see how that works, then dairy, because those are the 2 biggest issues for people with autoimmune, then go from there. It occurred to me as well to cut out the rice and grains again, but fruit alone isn't remotely enough carbs (or at least, I haven't found them to provide them).

So, I have the unmitigated pleasure of trying this elimination shit here in Korea. You would naturally think this would be easy, since dairy isn't part of the diet usually, and wheat isn't that common either. Well, it WASN'T, but deep fried everything is as popular here as ever. So there's that.

Anyway, it all comes down to hating I have to do without this stuff. Especially when brunch is still a thing I do here... and we're going to the Original Pancake House on Sunday. But hey, if it's going to make push-ups more possible, it's almost worth it. Almost.

For those who missed it in Facebook,

Minseong was great and did a good job. Except for styling-by-frizzing. After I got home and fixed the mess with coconut oil and water, it looked like this, a little short but exactly what I wanted and like it. And God damn if my friend today sweetly thought I'd lost weight, or it was the haircut that made me look thinner.

There comes a time in your life when you must train an Asian.

Despite your understandable misgivings, you have to volunteer your hair to be their beautician school, experiment and teacher simultaneously. My hair was last cut/trimmed about a year ago, and the dead ends have long been telling me it's long past time to get it cut. I knew I wouldn't be able to find someone who can do the Curly Cut like at home, but it didn't really occur to me what I was up against until I saw posts from other women in the expat community. Their main concerns and replied horror stories related to the Korean hair people's inability to color Western hair. They would apply the technique they use on Koreans, apparently, which starts with frying/bleaching hair to death since they're used to starting with pitch black, and then going from there.

But I started to really get an idea of what I was up against when one random day on the bus, I looked around and thought how sick I was seeing of bowl cuts on practically every male around.

And to be clear, the majority of men are actually older and look much more like this:

Anyway, there's precious little variety when it comes to default hairstyles here*, and it dawned on me as I looked at the 100000nth bowl cut: there's not much else to do with their hair. It's super fine, thin, silky as water, and probably one of the substances on earth most susceptible to gravity. So naturally they aren't going to spend as much time and effort styling it to giving it lots of body or lift. 

A girl with basically straight hair posted asking about where to go if you have curly/wavy hair. I of course didn't actually know her hair was straight until she posted a pic after the cut. She liked it, it looked good EVEN IF IT WASN'T CURLY, so I once again have to wonder wtf is wrong with women. They don't know what blonde is and probably half claim they have naturally curly or wavy hair, but their hair is like the girl with wavy hair here:

Come on!

My consolation is her hair looks good and she likes it, and everyone says this guy will not stop working until it looks like you want, just bring pics. I downloaded quite a few from every angle. Now I just need to figure out how to translate in Korean that I lose around 2-3" of length when my hair dries from when it's wet and pulled straight. It's another tricky part about my hair, that I can't just say, "Cut it to shoulder length," and they can do that. Nope, you've got to leave a few inches so when it curls up it's shoulder length. 

I just hope he doesn't throw his hands up in the air and say he can't do anything because it's so thick. Many hair dressers in the US would go on and on about how thick my hair was, particularly when they were thinking they were done and then saw more layers underneath, lol. 

Might post a pic afterward either way. Icks-nay on the hopes for it to go one way (MARK).

*NOTE: There is actually a surprising and, well, to me, alarming variety in women's hair colors and styles. How colors look with skin is just not a thing here, so you'll see quite a few reddish-heads and variations on blonde that just don't work. But this is the Shakira effect, where apparently no one is bothered by yellow hair on top and black eye brows- oh yeah, except in Chile where they're referred to as taxis. Lol. 

Understandably, lots of people here dye their hair to stand out. It is damned true that everyone here looks pretty much the same. (One time I was meeting my friend Laura at the train station. It was a bigger one, that spits you out into a crowded mall. Even with the exit number, until I got upstairs I thought, "How will I spot her?" Once there though it was ridiculously easy because she was the only Westerner, lol.) So coloring your hair and even sometimes perming it will make you stand out.

Until you realize as I have that 60% of women (men too!) color their hair, so now I can't really say how much they stand out.

Except for the platinum blondes. They're rare, and their hair is usually black on top/at the roots, so they look like they have striped hair. But THEY stand out.

WTF are you talking about??

Totally unrelated to Korea, but back to my life of being completely unable to relate to the life and experiences of my peers, people who talk about some good, some bad stuff, but all of it a matter of everyone-knows-what-I'm-talking-about-because-we've-all-experienced it, except for me.

I'm talking of course about the advantages of being a woman/pretty woman.

First, in the vein of the NEGATIVE: catcalling. I think that happened a handful of times when I was 14, and the 2 distinct times I remember it, I definitely didn't like it. The clearest incident was when I was around 11 or 12: we were in Michigan at my grandmother's, and these guys yelled something at me. I didn't know what it meant, but was sure it wasn't good, and I felt dirty and embarrassed and ashamed. My (younger) sister was there and either did know what it meant (or at least knew as much as I did about it), and told my mom and grandmother about it. Interesting footnote that Kristin, with no ill intent, was happy to tell them, whereas I was ashamed of existing, and wanted to try and pretend it never happened. Mom was NOT happy. I spent the rest of the time, and subsequent visits to grandma's, feeling sick, unsafe, and terrified of going outside, never mind doing so alone.

So, I get it. But what I'm NOT getting is that it's a frequent thing, particularly after a certain age. I can't recall a time it happened after 16 or 17, never mind every in my 20s or after. For this I am grateful, though still amazed that people call this widespread. My friend Leeza talked about it happening in Santiago and how unsafe she felt there. I couldn't wrap my mind around her impression of Santiago: I lived across the street from a construction site, and not ONCE did I hear a thing. Nor did I witness it. Is that my sending out these "leave me alone signals" people mention that reach several floors above me, and cover the women around me? Or is this an example of some sort of privilege that you don't notice what's happening because it doesn't affect you?

The second is of a girl on "This American Life" who talks about how drastically things in her life changed when she lost the weight. When she was fat, she said, people stared at her, glared at her, and radiated disapproval and dislike. When she was thin, however, people would look her up and down, and nod at her. She said, "Thin people nod at each other?" What? Uh... no, we don't. I never have, and have never experienced that at all. I've occasionally nodded at someone on the street/had them nod at me, but not after any up-and-down looking on either part. So, again... what the hell is this girl talking about?

Same girl THEN goes to a deli, and at the register realizes she is $10 short for what she has selected. She is looking at her stuff and determining what to get rid of when the deli guy says, "Just take it." She is shocked, cautious, but when she leaves the store with no problems, she decides to see if it'll work elsewhere. So she goes to another deli, intentionally gathers more stuff than she has money for, and starts the pretend weening process, when the same thing happens: the deli guy says, "Just take it."

So, of course, there are a couple questions that occur to me at the same time:
     1. What the HELL is she talking about?
     2. Why have I RARELY received the free stuff, FREE DRINKS, and whatever else that
         women supposedly get all the time?!
     3. What color hair does she have?
WHY, for Christ's sake, have I mostly had to shell out my own damned money, which I always seemed to have to be a lot more careful of spending than everyone else for my hereditary high tolerance like a fucking chump?? I want some shlub to buy my drinks, or save me $10 at the store too, God damn it!!

I am willing to bet newly-thin girl was blonde. Just as she says there's a different, parallel, better world she is totally unaware of when she's fat, there is one for blonde women in particular. Except, that Shangra-La veil comes off if there is a blonde woman in your line of vision. It is so pervasive that when I am trying to get a boots-on-the-ground cost-of-living estimate for a place, I would COMPLETELY ignore anything a blonde woman posts, because the cost of living as a blonde woman is AT LEAST 25% less expensive than it is for anyone else. You can be pretty, gorgeous, or average, dressed up, a little sexily, or like a librarian, and you will STILL get attention and free shit. Am I bitter? You fucking betcha!!! Because please refer back to my constant lack-of-rolling-in-the-dough status, for a start. Though honestly, it is largely the blondes that receive the largest largesse, but pretty much every other woman I've known, can or could, at some point in her life, go to some bar with the intent of getting and rececing free drinks! How the FUCK did I escape that? I'm not gorgeous but Jesus, I'm not a gargoyle!

Well, I DEFINITELY no longer drink enough since I'm at a job I kind of like, but I can't remedy that now, as it's definitely bedtime. So until then, be well, and if you can, I guess, be blonde!
     

Before I give you the official first week recap,

I must ask, WHO and HOW does South Korea go about negotiating things? Old age is the golden ticket here, meaning that rather than having a bunch of snotty-nosed 20-year-old assholes walking around as we do in the West, here you have 50-and-up year-old entitled assholes walking and shoving their way around, really just because they can.

So I wonder if age alone is the qualification for becoming the diplomats and anyone negotiating international trade agreements, resulting in a bunch of entitled, rude old people pissing off everyone else so much that this is the price they agree on:

In case you weren't up on your cheap wine pricing, this is almost 3 times what you'd pay in the US for the same bottles of wine. And so it goes, with pretty much... well God, a lot: fruit, liquor, meat, and anything else that doesn't naturally occur nor can apparently be made to occur here, because why make it when you just import it at 3 times the price?

I know that imported goods are always more expensive. It's just that this is really the first time I can really recall getting fleeced for any alcohol, since wine is pretty cheap in... every other wine producing region except apparently for Australia, and possibly the US.

Unsurprisingly, the Chileans seem to be the only ones who were completely unfazed by whatever approach the South Koreans took, because Chilean wine is almost the only wine that is consistently the most reasonably priced.