Candy, Kids & Coughing

November 4, 2013

Well it was inevitable. After almost 4 months of being here, I finally got sick. Luckily, it wasn’t the “fevers, aches, pains, lay in bed all day” type sick, but more of the “sore throat, runny nose & tired” kind of sick.

So, lets back track my week a little bit and I’ll fill you in on how I think I got my cold.

Last week was Halloween. In Korean schools, this is a big deal! Teachers will dress up, we encourage students to dress up, and we plan mini little activities to do with the kids. We prepared for Halloween and celebrated it on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. Instead of my normal teaching hours of teaching a class per hour, I taught 3 mini classes per hour, each consisting of 20 minutes. On Wednesday, I taught almost 18 different groups of kids! Thursday was similar, just a bit less. Though it was a game activity I had, and it was lots of fun, it was a lot of energy!

I think seeing that many kids and speaking loudly every 20 mins for 6 hrs got to me. Also, many of the children don’t cover their mouths when they cough. By the end of Wednesday and beginning of Thursday, I had that annoying scratch in the back of my throat. The show had to go on though and by Thursday evening, though my schedule was a little less intense, I was feeling the cold creeping up on me, especially in my throat and my nose.

Friday morning, I woke up and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I debated going to the doctor, and although health care is really great here, I knew that this was just a head cold and nothing too serious. I opted to just go to the pharmacy. I walked in, told the pharmacist what was wrong, and he gave me two different types of pills to take. I have no idea what the medicine was, but it worked!

Saturday, I spent the day just recovering, drinking lots of tea, and finishing my painting. By Sunday morning, when I woke up, I was about 80% better! The only thing that I have leftover from my cold is a tiny cough. It is nice to know that if I get sick in a foreign country, that I will survive!

The weather has started getting really cold. I think that was also another reason for my cold. When it gets chilly here, the air dries out and leaves barely any humidity. For this reason, many people find it hard to sleep, so John and I bought a humidifier this weekend. We are so used to hot and humid Florida, that we want to make sure we prep for everything before the real cold hits!

All in all, this past week was fun and interesting, to say the least!

Enjoy all the pictures below!

My Cheetah Costume! I went to Forever 21 here and bought a Cheetah print sweater to match my Cheetah Ears. I also found Cheetah Print nail stickers (picture below) for less than $2 dollars, compared to $8-$9 in the states!

For Halloween, my activity was a fishing game. I found halloween themed fish online, printed them, and stuck magnets on the back. The kids were blindfolded and had to work in teams to lead the fisherman to the fish. For each fish they caught, the team got a point. Each fish also had a mini challenge on it. It was fun but my fish, by day two, barely survived!! 🙂