ppl are offering you to play HU with 1 card always exposed and you decline and now you're losing your job because of an ear infection

wtf is wrong with u

I was misdiagnosed as having blood ischemia (constricted blood vessels). They gave me medicine for it. Unfortunately, the doctor did not tell me the side effects of it and I ended up getting severe kidney pain which nearly hospitalized me again (the pain went away after the meds went out of my system). It seems likely that he just randomly picked out some disorder out of a book because it took 3 ****ing days to even get a diagnosis out of him.

I got a second opinion, explained all of my symptoms and what happened. Doctor said I had labryinthitis (sp?) and that the other doctor didn't know what he was talking about.

true

korean doctors r quite often terrible too lol

Yeah, this goes doubly for the countryside doctors I deal with. Hospitals are under-funded, contain lower quality equipment and poorly qualified doctors.

I have found that doctors in big cities with their own practices are more skilled and speak better English than doctors at hospitals. Hence, I have a desire to move close to a large city like Seoul or Busan if I can still stay in the country. Otherwise, I'll just go elsewhere.

Side note: Vegetarianism is hard to do in South Korea. Don't know how so many of my fellow English teachers are able to do it. Trying it for 3 days and it's already a pain in the ass.

what do you think about those english teachers in kangnam who were involved in that sat cheating scandal? i heard they were making upwards to 20 grand++ a month..(3 grand a class!) would you ever do anything illegal/unethical of that nature for such an enormous profit?

Those were Korean SAT lecturers, not foreigners.

damn i wouldve thought its like impossible :P

what are you eating everyday? kimchi and seaweed soup? lol

Kimbap (no meat), Kimchi + Rice, Spaghetti and tomato sauce, cold cereal, vegetable omelets. For snacks I eat fruits and nuts. I have a protein shake to supplement my loss of protein from lack of meat.

Yeah, it ****ing sucks.

wow haha. yeah i def dont think i have the self control to be a vegetarian in korea haha

not eating meat in korea?

good luck finding a girlfriend lmao

Are you really that stupid? Why would I want a girlfriend when I'm leaving in less than a month?

did you ever figure out if youre coming back/all that stuff? i kinda didnt pay attention to the thread for a few days so you mightve mentioned it and i missed it

a girlfriend for 30 days is better than a girlfriend for 0 days

unless of course you're a regular at the anma, then i guess i can commend your honor for not wanting to break a girls heart

heh, he's got a point

how is being a vegetarian hard in Korea?

btw, does you leaving mean you're no longer the expert on Koreans living in Korea?

I'm torn at the moment. The job market for teachers is getting kind of meh and I'm not sure I want to deal with the bull**** anymore.

For me, 2008 was pretty mediocre. No real ups and downs. Just a flatline. But 2009 was full of ups and downs for me. My health took a dive for a while. My father suddenly died in a freak accident. I had serious trouble adjusting the climate of Korea. This led to a few emotional ruts I had to dig out of. You can easily figure out when I had them when reading my previous posts in this thread. I had a big one around late April/early May (when I was hospitalized for a week), one around August (father's death) and have been on and off in one since that point. I've been told that it's seasonal affective disorder, but I'm not too sure.

Despite some of the downs, my time here was pretty good. Teaching had its positive moments. I made some good friends here and had some interesting experiences. I never had weekends where I just stayed inside all the time (aside from those ruts). I just wonder what more I can get out of another year of teaching in South Korea. It's been made clear to me that foreigners aren't wanted in the school system and you have to have tough skin to be in a place where you aren't wanted. Even the toughest armor gets chips in it after a while.

Always finding a way to attack me, eh? Thought you were past that by now.

Never mind my bitching and cynicism. As what occasionally happens, I was caught in a bit of a rut and took it out on 2p2.

Anyway, it is hard because there aren't as many vegetarian alternates as in America. It's probably easier to do it in a bigger city where there is a wider selection of food. However, I am in the countryside and vegetarianism is unheard of. Basically every meal in my area has meat as its primary staple and taking it out destroys the purpose of eating the dish in the first place.

seoul, girlfriends, meat, and playing against opponents who expose 1 card every hand are all really fun

i suggest you try them out before you leave such a bountiful land totally unfulfilled

Gave up vegetarianism already. **** it. No idea how someone can live here and be a vegetarian. I was surprised when I found out how many of my friends here are vegetarians (or ffs vegans).

No interest in playing live Hold'em in this country. I'm not rolling in cash like you are amigo. Buying in for 500,000W is more than 20% of my monthly paycheck.

But yeah no doubt I live near Seoul or Busan if I come back. Wanna grab a CELTA to boost my chances at a job and improve my teaching skills and help my family out for a bit. Might stay in NYC for a while after that too. Not sure if it'll be sick life or anything, but we'll see.

With a year of teaching in Korea + CELTA, I should be qualified enough to get almost any job I want. Probably be back around July/August. Way tougher to get laid in the countryside than I had expected.

If not, there's always Taiwan or Japan or a whole bunch of other countries looking for people like me to teach.

Another FAQ to the list:

21. Why you decide to live in the countryside?

Three reasons:

1. Close to my friends - My college friends lived a short bus ride away. Would be nice to see them often.

2. Money - I'd have to sacrifice 300,000W/month to work in a public school in a large city. When you're paying off debts like me, take the ****ing money.

3. Straight Out Ignorance - I just took the first job I was offered and went into this completely blind. Perhaps an act of idiocy, but what's done is done. I didn't even know about hagwons when I accepted the job.

you're an idiot

kimchijigae w/out pork

bibimbap without beef

soonduboo without meat

miyeokguk

bibimnaengmyun (i think naengmyun is made out of beef broth)

kimchi bokkeum bap

that's enough help someone like you deserves

<3 Syous

You're just such a sweetie pie.

taiwan, if you know the right people, is much like korea except wayyyy better

Rekrul can I get an Anma TR plz? My friends had a few epic ones, but I'd be curious to see what a true local has been through.

one time i was drunk as **** in my powertripping days a few years ago in the middle of winter drunk as **** trying to go to an anma with another white friend and a korean friend

they would not accept us

even though i was speaking korean and my korean friend was assuring them i'm not trouble

when things got desperate i started yelling in korean 'dont worry my penis is korean size ok? no problem for girl!! ok ok ok?'

then these 2 guys working there came up to us like trying to make us leave

then i told them i'd be back with baseball bats in 30 mins, but it was in english that time so they didn't understand probably

then i left and went home and promptly passed out on my bed

i woke up with little to no memory of the events that happened, i heard this all from my friend later that day and could only think 'thank god that happened' :waking up knowing you didn't do anything stupid at an anma the previous night is always a very clean and happy moment.

i'm going to write an in-depth article about the dirty side of korea soon