~Goodbye Korea! Til Later~

So, I'm sitting on my bed, or rather, my host sister's bed as my time in Korea has turned into mere hours. I can't believe I'm already going home.  As I think back to when I first got here, it sort of feels like a long while ago and sort of feels like yesterday.  I guess most good things feel like that... 

When I got to Korea, it was damn cold! And the snow lasted forever! It warmed up in MN before it warmed up here, which is very atypical.  My bags are mostly packed and I think I did a much better job of keeping things under control this time... Last time, after study abroad, was kind of a disaster...  My luggaged ended up weighing almost twice the allotted amount.  Oops...  That sucked.  I have two suitcases, a carry-on, and my backpack.  I did ship a box of winter clothes/jackets and all of my Korean textbooks home, as I swear it was my textbooks that did me over last time!

LAST TIME:

THIS TIME:

I met as many people as I could fit in the past few days, did as much shopping as possible, and called/contacted everyone else.  I went out to dinner with my host family tonight and they were asking about my various friends who were in Korea, and most of them have now left! or are leaving soon.  Susie is gone, Kyungmoon is going, Becca left, Mary and I are going together, and Nik and Emily are going leaving in a month, although they'll be back in Korea by the end of the summer for another year.
 

At the best Chinese restaurant! 

Bye Kyungmoon! See you at SupHo!

 Nik and Dan

Originally, I was supposed to leave July 3, but since I got sick/had surgery, I'm leaving a bit earlier.  I kind of wish I could stay longer, but c'est la vie.  Plus, I'm pretty sure I'll be back sometime next year.^^

A picture from my last tutoring session with Sara and Justin~

Yesterday, I met up with Sarang and we had lunch with her uncle.  Then we went glasses shopping at namdaemun.  I got new glasses, as well as a suitcase. Then, I met up with Mugong, from Tte to buy the cloth for tying drums.  A few of the other tte members came along too (Maktoe, Ttegu, and Mangsa).  We were in the traditional music area and I totally ran into my drumming teacher from 4 years ago, when Sarang and I took drumming lessons (summer of 2006!).  Crazy! and I was really surprised that he A. recognized me and B. remembered my name.  Funny.  Anyhow, we went out to eat and then I headed back home to drop off all of my stuff, which was really heavy!

Tte - Maktoe, Ttegu, Mugong, Mangsa

 Then, around 9, I met up with Jacyln, one of my classmates at Dongdaemun.  Fun fun!  I got some summer clothes and gifts for people.  But they've kind of redone the market area, so we were really disoriented and couldn't find the main 시장...  weird.

1. Mmm.. goodbye delicious street food!     2. we witnessed some serious organized chaos Korean style - the unloading of clothes and merchandise for the markets and stores. wow...

Today, I met up with Eugene, from my drumming class at 9:30 and we hungout for a bit.  She is so sweet and gave me a bunch of really cute socks!!!  Then, I headed over to 종로5가 insearch of drumming pants; Eugene told me I should buy them there.  Then, I headed to Itaewon to meet Sarang and Youngwha unni for lunch and to get a few gifts.  At 4, I met my reading/listening teacher at Sogang for a bit.  That was fun - she is really nice and one of the most cheerful teachers I've ever had!  Then, I came back and tutored John one last time - he has a test coming up next week. And then, my host family and I went out to dinner one last time^^

Ku Eunmi seunsangnim

My host family took me to a gogi restaurant and we had kalbi, grilled ribs. Yum! After dinner we went to the park across the street from their apartment complex.  It was a really nice night out so there were a lot of people around and my host siblings went wild, running all over the place.  There was a big group of ajumas exercising. My host mom told me they are there every single night! It was so quintessentially Korea; a large group of ajumas, most wearing matching shirts, dancing in unison to a choreographed song.  Plus, there were people practicing their inline speed skating, which is also very popular here. 

Anyhow, my flight leaves Incheon at 11:40.  So, my host dad being super nice and giving me a ride to Gyeongbukgung to KoRoot, where I will meet Mary and from there YunJeong unni is going to give us a ride to the airport. How sweet!  So, I'll probably need to leave the house around 7:15 am.  Hm... maybe I should go to bed.

There is  a huge match against Nigeria tonight though, so I think at least half of Korea is still awake.  The match starts at 3 or 3:30 am Korea time...  I talked with Emily, who originally had plans to wake up and watch the game at her students dormitory, although, she is rethinking that idea.  I also met up with my reading/listening teacher today and she said her current students (summer session) are all going to jimjilbang (public bath house) to watch the game.
And I think Mary is just staying up all night and hanging out with people and watching the game, and then leaving tomorrow morning. Crazy!
Well, good luck Korea!
Wish me safe travels!
Til next time~

Korean Sign Language III

So, here is the third part of my very short introduction to Korean Deaf culture.  hehe. So, Joo, the woman I met at Sarang's church who interpreted for me, invited me to go to a "deaf movie" this past Saturday.  I thought that'd be pretty interesting, so I decided to go.  I went to an ASL movie last year at WSD with Crystal (one of my roommates) and that was a pretty cool experience, so I wanted to see how this movie was.

I met up with Joo and another woman whom I had met the previous week at 약수역 and we hung out at a Dunkin Donuts for about half an hour chatting, while we waited for another guy to show up.  The guy who we were waiting for is from China. He is ethnically Korean, but grew up in China because his dad moved there for work.  So, apparently he came back to Korea to learn Korean Sign Language.  I don't know his name either! He had a Chinese name and a Korean name, neither of which I remember...

my movie ticket

Anyhow, we headed over to the movie.  The film was made by Deaf Media which I think is a production company... and the event was held in some sort of Community Center.  I didn't really know what the movie was going to be about or what type of film it was going to be.  Joo showed me the ticket and said that there were two parts to the film (documentary). The first was about deaf Koreans living in Japan.  The second was about deaf communities in India and Nepal.

To give a tiny bit of background on the Japan documentary, there is a fairly large group of ethnic Koreans living in Japan, and some of their families have been in Japan for 3 or 4 generations (presumably after the war).
When I studied abroad back in the spring of 2008, we took a trip to Japan and while in Osaka - where the largest concentration of jae-il kyopos (재일 교포), as they are called lives - learned about the Korean-Japanese population and history.  It seemed that although they're very much integrated into Japanese society and some even have Japanese names, most of them attend Korean school instead of a Japanese school.  And even though their families have lived in Japan for generations, they are still not allowed Japanese citizenship and must maintain their Korean citizenship. 
So, this documentary discussed the interesting situation the Korean deaf population in Japan is in. Many of them expressed that they feel they missed out on learning their Korean heritage and culture, as they could not attend Korean school and instead attended Japanese deaf schools.  They don't know Korean Sign Language (although apparently due to the 35 year long Japanese occupation of Korea, KSL and JSL are 70% the same... However, Joo told me she couldn't understand what they were saying).  In addition, the Japanese government wont provide them with any support or assistance, as they are not Japanese citizens, and the Korean government does not provide them with any because they are living abroad.  So, they are kind of stuck in an odd state of limbo.

The second movie, about India, was a bit more interesting in my opinion, because the filmmakers traveled around the perimeter of India and into Nepal to explore and meet new people in various deaf communities.  It was interesting to see the different signing styles used. Some of the people interviewed used American Sign Language, but most of them used British Sign Language (which is completely different from ASL) due to the British colonization.
The movie had no sound, everything was signed in either KSL, JSL, ASL, or BSL, and everything was subtitled in Korean at the bottom.  I tried reading the subtitles but most of it was over my head and went by WAY too fast.  Sometimes I got the gist of what they were saying, but Joo interpreted the entire movie for me into ASL so I could understand it. Whew. That was a lot of work for her!

After the movie, there was a Q & A session.  We only stayed for a bit because we were hungry, but it was interesting how it was conducted.  At the time we were there, they were discussing the first film, about Japan. So, they had the filmmaker, who is Korean, the MC, one of the Japanese-Korean people who was interviewed in the film, a Japanese Sign Language interpreter, and a voice interpreter.  So, an audience member would ask a question, and the MC signed it so the audience could see it.  While he was signing it, the JSL interpreter was interpreting the question into JSL for the movie participant, and then there was someone interpreting what was being asked and said into spoken Korean.  Wow, talk about a lot of languages going on all at once!

L: audience member asking director a question, director, Japanese-Korean guy, JSL interpreter

Anyhow, after the film, the four of us went out to dinner.  The Chinese guy and I kept trying to talk, but we had some serious communication issues because he didn't know any ASL and I don't know KSL.  So, he was ask me something and I would sit there and thing and stare at him.  Then I would ask him something and he would sit there and think... and then we'd laugh and give up.  Joo and the other woman, who knows a bit of ASL, would also help us get our message across.
One of the questions he asked me was if I had a lot of friends.  the sign for friend in KSL looks an awful lot like the sign for marriage in ASL, so I thought he asked me if I was married, to which I exclaimed, I'm only 22!

 FYI the Chinese guy doesn't actually look sad, its just a bad picture of him...

After dinner, we went back to Dunkin Donuts and met another guy who was going to the movie, as there were two showings.  He had lived in the States for a while 15 years ago, so he know a bit of ASL too.  Man, I felt so monolingual... Sad.  Americans are terrible compared to just about every other country...

Anyhow, the movie was an interesting experience, and more than that, trying to communicate with a variety of people with only a slight common knowledge of the same language was definitely a memorable experience!

HyeJung and me - she is going to the States to study in August

That night I slept over at Sarang's and the next day we went to her church to the deaf service because I wanted to say goodbye to people.  After the service, we went out to lunch.  Sarang knows a bit of ASL and a bit of BSL (she grew up in Indian), which know one there knew.  But she did a pretty good job of communicating with people and HyeJung can read lips really well, so Sarang was talking to her in Korean.  The majority of people at our table knew ASL, so most of the conversations were in ASL, although I did learn a few Korean signs.  I just thought it was really amusing how many languages were going on at once in different modes of communication; KSL, ASL, spoken English and spoken Korean.  If only I knew them all!

Korean Sign Langauge II

On Thursday I went to visit the Seoul National School for the Deaf (국립서울농학교).  Since the school is down the street from KoRoot, Pastor Son and his wife, me and Pastor Kim, director of KoRoot, met at KoRoot and headed out from there.
The school was started in 1913 during the Japanese occupation and will be celebrating its centennial in three years.  We went in and met with the headmaster, who gave us a very through tour of the school museum as well as school/facilities.  The headmaster spoke in Korean, so Pastor Kim translated into English for me and the Pastors wife interpreted for him.  Pastor Kim was really impressed because the headmaster knows every single one of his students name's, which is really uncommon in Korea.  If I understood correctly, the school serves infant through high school and apparently, the school has such good facilities and curriculum that hearing students want to go there too; they currently have 40 hearing students and 131 deaf students enrolled.

artifacts in the museum

 some of the early KSL books

 Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan came to visit the school in 1938!!!  (I think they said Helen Keller is the one on the right)

Pastor Son in the museum

The buildings all seemed really new and the decor inside was sooo nice! Everything was so aesthetically pleasing and pretty!  It looked like a children's museum.
The headmaster took us through the schools museum first.  It was really interesting and gave the history of the school, Korean Sign Language etc.  Interestingly, all the informational signs detailing the schools history were in both Korean and English.  The school was established in 1913 and in 1946, Yoon Baekwon, the first Korean headmaster (I think), created of the Korean manual alphabet. 

 original alphabet created in 1946

 present day alphabet

We also went to their speech and language area and the audiologist said that their equipment is better than any hospital around.  And they had really cool games and computer programs etc.  One of things they had was a pad and when you stepped on a certain colored square, it would show a picture and make a sound of something, like a car horn.  They also had another program that was obviously Korean-made, as it made sounds of various Korean traditional instruments, like the sogo! 

All the classes have SmartBoards (HUGE ones too! LdF, the school I student taught at had them, and at the time I thought they were pretty sizable, but these ones put them to shame. haha!)  We went into one classroom and the teacher was showing us how on the school website they have various videos in KSL, and spoken Korean for the kids to use. They had the national anthem in sign, as well as the text.  And other videos used students telling folktales in KSL etc. It was really cool!  Pastor Son, alumni of that school was really impressed.  We also saw the dorms, and rec room, which are really nice.

Although the school is really nice and equipped with great facilities, I learned that most of the teachers come in not knowing how to sign and learn it from the students as they teach. From my understanding, the deaf ed. programs don't require teachers to learn sign and leave it as an elective.  Plus, until very recently, like the past few years, the school had no deaf teachers.  But I guess the deaf community began protesting so the school hired two to "appease" them.  One of them is Pastor Son's friend, so we went and met with him for a bit.  He teaches high school social studies, and from how I understood it, his curriculum is so good, other schools are starting to implement it. Wow! Kudos, because curriculum development is really hard!

Since I wrote my senior thesis for both my anthropology and education majors on deaf education last year, and spent some time at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf, I was really interested in this school and wanted to check it out.  It was really awesome tour of the school and I felt I learned a lot.

Korean Sign Language I

This was so long ago, I can't even remember the specifics, but I think one time I mentioned to Nik that I wanted to check out the Seoul deaf school (located near KoRoot) and he mentioned it to Pastor Kim, the director of KoRoot, an adoptee guest house in Seoul.  The director goes to a church (same church as Sarang) with a deaf Pastor and said he could introduce me.  But, things got busy and honestly, because it was a meeting through church and I'm not Christian, I felt a bit uncomfortable about it, so I just kept putting it off.
But, Nik mentioned it again last week and since my trip is coming to an end, I decided hey why not.  I knew if I didn't do it, I would regret it, so I made an appointment to meet Pastor Kim (KoRoot director) at his church last Sunday.

I was introduced to Pastor Son, who is deaf and leads services for deaf and hearing congregants.  He was really really nice and knew a bit of American Sign Language (ASL).  (*Every country has its own sign language, so Korean sign lang. and American sign lang. are completely different)  My ASL is super rusty because I haven't actually formally studied it since high school and haven't signed in over a year, since doing my observation at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf during college.  However, it slowly started to come back throughout the day.

His wife, who is an interpreter asked me if I would prefer to have the service translated into spoken Korean or ASL. Since my Korean still isn't super great, I said ASL, as my ASL comprehension far surpasses my Korean comprehension.  She seemed to think this was really funny, but said she would find me someone who knew ASL.  There were two women, one who had studied in the States for 4 months, and another who had traveled around South East Asia and picked it up from other travelers she had met.  That is crazy cool, if you ask me!

Anyhow, the woman Hyejung, who had studied in the States was in the choir, so the other woman, Joo, sat next to me and interpreted the sermon/service from KSL to ASL.  Actually, it was really cool.  So, the pastor's wife was interpreting it into spoken Korean, and the text for the hymns and passages was projected onto a screen, and someone had lent me an Korean/English bible, so I could read the certain passages that were being addressed in English.  Plus, I could watch the pastor signing in KSL and get a more condensed version in ASL.  So, I would hear what was being said and perhaps get the gist or it or at least the theme or concept from various words etc. that I recognized, and then maybe read it in Korea and piece it together some more, and then, Joo would tell me in ASL.  In Korean you would describe that situation as 복잡해 or congested/busy. haha.

Anyhow, the service was a very interesting experience.  On top of it being carried out in multiple languages and means of communication (text, auditory, visual), they were discussing some passage about Peter and some visitors.  Early in the service, Joo had asked me if I was Christian and I said I was Jewish.  She didn't know the ASL sign for Jewish, so I finger spelled it.  But she didn't know that word in English, so I wrote it in Korea and she got it.  Whew.
Anyhow, this whole passage was about how g-d sends down a sheet filled with unkosher animals and tells Peter to go kill and eat.  And he protests because he says they're unclean. So, during the sermon I got a lot of questions from Joo about what Jews do and don't do. haha.

So, of course, right when the Pastor starts his actual sermon, all of a sudden I had to go the bathroom.  Arg... I felt like it would have been rude to get up and leave, so I held it.  I figured it wouldn't go too long.  Well, it did, and then we had to stand up! ah! And then, when I was about to burst, they called up new people, which included me. I had to go up in front of everyone and introduce myself.  That is stressful in it of itself, plus I really needed to go the bathroom, plus, I wasn't sure what language to introduce myself in.  I asked when I got up there, and the pastor said I should do it in ASL, but the pastors wife, didn't really know ASL, so she couldn't figure out my name. So I said it out loud like three times, but for some reasons, she misunderstood me and said my name was LeeAnn. So not my name. lol!  Anyhow, after that, they called up all the people with June birthdays. After we sang happy birthday, I booked it out of there and found the bathroom. ^^

After the service, everyone went to lunch together at a neighboring restaurant.  I sat with the KoRoot director, Pastor Son and his wife, and Joo.  The pastors wife interpreted from KSL to Korean.  Joo interpreted from KSL to ASL and Pastor Kim (KoRoot) interpreted from Korean to English.  Whoa.
I primarily talked with Joo because she was closest to my age and is a really interesting, well traveled person.  At lunch, Pastor Son, who is the past president of the Seoul Deaf Association and an alumni of the Seoul National School for the Deaf said he would take me and Pastor Kim on a tour of the school that coming Thursday.  (We went on Thursday and the school was really nice!) 

Nik was actually supposed to join us for lunch because he had something to give me, but had difficulties on the purple line because its confusing and splits... He ended up going the wrong direction, so he was a bit late.  After lunch, I talked with Pastor Kim a bit and then went back to the church.  When I got back, there were a few people who had memorized passages from the bible and we reciting them from memory.  Wow, I am terrible at memorization!
Nik came, I brought him up and he caught the last five minutes of the service.   

Afterward, some of the congregants hung around including Joo and Hyejung and we sat there and chatted for a good hour and a half.  A lot of the people I met seemed to know a little bit of ASL, so we could kind of communicate and if someone got stuck, we would ask Joo or Hyejung to translate.  It was a very cool experience, linguistically and otherwise speaking, and I met a bunch of really nice people! Joo invited me to go see a movie with them this Saturday, so I shall report back on how that goes.  Good night!

World Cup Fever

So, the World Cup (soccer) is going on right now in South Africa.  It is the Stanely cup of soccer times 50!  Because it takes 32 soccer teams from 32 countries.
Korea hosted the World Cup back in 2002 and goes nuts every time the World Cup happens, which is every four years.

The color and slogan of the Korean team is the red devils.  I don't know about soccer crazy countries, but it is definitely an experience to be in a country that loves soccer during these games.  Plus, Korea is a pretty nationalistic country, so there's a lot of national spirit going on.  For example, if one of the soccer players royally screws up during a game, the entire country will hate him. Seriously.  I mean, if someone messes up during the Super Bowl people get angry about it, but a year down the road, people won't still hate his guts for it.  Not so here. Plus, if Korea does really well, the team members get exempt from doing their mandatory military service. 

Last Saturday was the first game Korea played, against Greece.  It was pouring rain all day, but thousands and thousands of people showed up to cheer at cheering sites all around the city.  EVERYONE was wearing red!  Emily and Nik came to Seoul for the game, and we meet up at COEX mall to cheer.  Since, I was still a bit sick, I didn't stay for the entire game.  But, I felt I had to go for a bit.  Haha.  

 Emily and I met up early and wanted to buy red shirts, since didn't have one.  We were at TechnoMart and saw this huge line and a sign saying free shirts.  We were like, 'awesome!' and hopped inline.  When we were nearing the front, I noticed that everyone had tickets in their hands.  I was like, 'oh no...'  We asked the woman in front of us, and she said that we needed to get tickets on the 9th floor in order to receive a free shirt, but that the tickets were free.  I turned to Emily and was like, 'run.'  So, she ran up 9 flights of escalators only to find out that the tickets had all been given out.  So sad.  Meanwhile, I was holding our spot in line and the lady in front offered us one of her tickets.  So Sweet!  But turns out, you hand the ticket in, receive a number, and an hour later, at 7, you take the number and get your shirt.  Wow, way way way too complicated. Plus, we had to meet everyone at 7, so it wouldn't have worked out. I thanked the lady but told her we had planned to meet friends at 7, so it wouldn't work out anyway.

So, Emily and I headed to COEX in the pouring rain without our shirts... We got to the place we were supposed to meet everyone a bit early, so we headed out to the cheering site to look around.  We saw a line - not too long - and it looked like people we getting shirts.  So we jumped in line.  When we got to the front I asked for an extra shirt for Sarang (she was still sick and couldn't go) and they gave me one! Nice!!! Free shirts and we only waited about 5 minutes!

 Korean teacher, Kim BoKyeong and me

 Nik, Emily, and I

 fans

 people ontop of a shoe shinning booth

 someone's attempt to climb ontop of the telephone booth

soccer cheer "대한민국 짝-짝  짝-짝 짝"

We met up with Nik, my speaking teacher from Sogang, who coincidentally has a mutual friend with Nik and Emily, and my teacher's two friends.  We ate dinner and headed out to watch the game.  I only stayed for about 20 minutes because I didn't wanna get sick again and also because I wanted to watch the rest of the game with Sarang, but it was really fun! the energy from the crowd was crazy!!!
It was a sea of red and unfortunately, it was so crowded, I couldn't really even see the screen.  People were sitting on top of shoe shinning huts and climbing on top of payphone booths! 

I went back to Sarangs, gave her her shirt and a pair of devils horns I'd bought her, and we watched the rest of the game.  On the way back, I rode the bus and everyone was watching the game on their phones.  When Korea scored their second goal, everyone on the bus cheered and the bus driver honked his horn to the tune of one of cheers.  Korea beat Greece 2 to 0. NICE!

Korea's second game (Korea v. Argentina) was this past Tuesday.  Originally, I was supposed to go to City Hall and watch it with SupHo people, but I ended up going to Sarang's house.  We went and watched most of the game at a nearby park that had a huge screen.  Since she lives in a more residential area, the cheering place was more family oriented and felt like the 4th of July but with soccer.

 screen and the fans

 ~sarang and me~

right after Korea scored their first (and only) goal

Sadly, Argentina won 4-1... Man, everyone was so sad.  Argentina brought their A game and Korea did not... They seemed to really lack on their defense, but I don't know soccer very well..  Sarang was upset about the outcome and couldn't stop talking about the game the entire night.  But, in any case, I had fun watching the game and cheering. ^^

Very Very Late Update

Hi,

So sorry for the long lapse in blog entries!!!  A lot has been going on the past few weeks.  On May 28 I went to see one of the camp staff's gayageum performace, which was totally awesome!  Afterwards, I crashed at Becca and Mary's hotel but I woke up around 6 in the morning with the worst stomachache ever!

Jinhwa unni's perfomance!

After about an hour or so and it not going away or lessening, I decided to wake up Mary and we went to the hospital.  On the walk to the main road to catch a taxi, I threw up.  That's when I knew, I was really sick.  We went to Severance Hospital, which is connected to Yonsei University, as that was the only reputable hospital I really knew.

In the international wing, I saw the doctor.  They checked a few things and sent me home with some medicine.  Meanwhile, Mary had called Sarang to tell her I was sick and Sarang and her dad drove over, picked me up, and took me to their house.  They live on the complete other side of the city~

That night, at Sarang's house, my stomach hurt so much I couldn't lie down.  So at 3:30 am we went to the ER.  I was there for a good 6 hours.  They couldn't specifically figure out what was wrong.  I got an IV and they did an xray and CT scan and they took my blood.  Eventually, I went home.
The next day, Sarang's mom's friend, a nurse came over and checked on me.  She gave me another IV and she checked a few things.

 Sarang's mom is really good in oriental medicinal things, so she gave me acupuncture.  Even though I was feeling really sick, I totally made Sarang take a picture.^^

The day after that, I was supposed to go back to the hospital where I had taken a CT scan, so the CT specialist could look at it.  But since it was two days old they wanted to take another one.   They also said I had some sort of blood infection or something because my white blood cell count was almost double the normal amount. weird.  They said I might need surgery and it might be my appendix.
But the CT scanner on my floor was broken, so there was a huge backup.  After like 2 hours of waiting for the dumb CT, Sarang's dad, who had been there with me the whole time, decided we should go to another hospital and I concurred.  Whew.  That hospital was kind of crazy!!! The ER, anyhow.  It was way over crowded and they ran out of cots!  So, there were people lying on the floor.  It was really weird; it kind of looked like some sort of medical area in a third world country after a natural disaster...  I know that sounds really horrible, but it was such a surprise because Korea is so technologically advanced and one of the top ten richest countries! I mean Korea is something like the 4 most richest country in Asia and 12th most richest in the world.  Odd.

Anyhow, the nurse who had come to Sarang's house knew people at KyeongheeDae hospital, so I got in really fast!  I was met at the curb with a wheelchair and everything was taken care of. I met the doctor, who interestingly, got his Medical Ph.D from the University of MN!  He told me that I would probably have laparoscopic exploratory surgery to see if they could figure out what was wrong.
I got a double room, but my entire stay of 3 nights and 4 days, I didn't have a roommate, which was nice.  Sarang stayed over 2 of three nights and since no one else was there, got to sleep on the bed. ^^

I went into surgery that night.  In all of the hospitals I was at (I went to a total of three) the nurses would find out I couldn't speak Korean well and freak out.  I literally had a few back away from me. haha.  In retrospect its funny.  The anesthesia guy tried to tell me what to do but the other nurses in the surgery room were like, 'oh she doesn't speak Korean.' well, I do a bit, because I obviously understood that... and he was like, "oh what do I do?!" In my head, I was like just stick the stupid mask over my mouth and put me to sleep. The end.  Easy as that.

After surgery, the doctor told me that my appendix was swollen but hadn't burst, so that decided not to take it out. Later, when I talked to my mom, she said that our American insurance had called and been told that my appendix was taken out.  What the heck... So, Sarang and I asked the nurse, and she was like, 'of course your appendix were taken out.'  In a very matter of fact manner, like it was preposterous of us to ask that question.  So, we asked another nurse, and she said the same thing, that my appendix were taken out.  So, I told my mom that and she was like you need to figure this out asap. So, when the doctor stopped by later, we asked him and he said no, my appendix had not been take out and were still in my body.  SKETCHY!  So, I guess I'd say I'm 95-97% sure I still have my appendix.

After surgery, I wasn't allowed food (which I didn't care about, as I wasn't at all hungry) or water (which I reallllly wanted) for over 24 hours! And I hadn't had any water since 8am the day of my surgery! ugh.  I had an IV, so it was okay, but I was sooo thirsty! wow.

Sarang and I hung out in the hospital and watched TV. She and her parents were so sweet and amazing!!! seriously.  They helped and took care of everything!
My host family, Becca and Mary also came to visit while I was in the hospital, which was nice!  After I got out, I went to Sarang's house and stayed there for 9 days.  During that time, Sarang actually also had surgery, although hers was planned.  She was in the hospital for 2 nights and three days and then came home and we lounged around her house together. Haha! Her parents must have been so worn out!

So, all in all, they made three incisions on my stomach, two very small ones and one that's a bit bigger to stick a camera in so they could look around.  They did not take out my appendix, as far as I know and when I got my stitches taken out, it was surprisingly painful.

As of now, I'm pretty much as good as new.  I'll be heading back to MN a bit earlier than originally planned due to being sick, so this is my last week in Korea!!! I leave next Wednesday Korea time and get back next Wednesday, Central time.