The Curse of Kevin Teacher

So, I haven't been very good about updating this. You know this. I know this. Despite how long it's been since I updated this, I have been sick since before the last time I wrote. The last time I went a full day without blowing my nose at least fifteen times was about January 20th. That's right, I've sick as long as Barack Obama has been president. And, including the other times I've been sick, I have been sick almost half of the seven months i've been in Korea. I've been to the doctor more in the last three months than I've been the rest of my life combined, and ingested, at best guess, over 400 pills. As well as I can tell, this stretch has included two, possible three, colds, strep throat, and a sinus infection, all tied together by allergies. The good news is I'm hoping the nasonex I was perscribed last week is starting to kick in. I only had to blow my nose about 15 times today (down from the 40-50 at the end of last week). Believe me, there will be celebration and rejoicing the day that this thing goes away (if it ever goes away).

So the only thing worse than being my for the last couple of months is being one of my students. I have had five students that have had to go to the hospital in the last five months. It all started when one of my students, Leah (the girl on the right), was hit by a car. She was hit by the bus (really a van) from another English school. She hurt her arm and scratched her head, and spent a couple of days in the hospital. This apparently isn't as uncommon as I at first thought, because I heard from another English teacher in the area that one of their students was hit by a car as well. But still, very scary, and reaffirms my belief that drivers in Korea are out of control.

A month or so later, one of my students, Angie, was spending some time between classes in one of the classrooms. She was running around the classroom, as elementary school students are prone to do, and she slipped and banged her head rather hard against a table. There was lots of blood, a trip to the hospital and a set of stitches. And, I found out today from the Korean teacher who also teaches her that she has developed a tick where she has trouble focusing during class (and at home) and she sometimes starts blinking uncontrollably. It doesn't seem too serious, but it doesn't sound like much fun either.

The third one happened only a week or two ago. I have a group of students who are brand new to studying English; they started studying at the beginning of March. For some reason this class has real trouble with chairs. One girl, Amy, falls out of her chair at least once a day. And we're not talking goofing around or leaning back, we're talking sitting in her chair, doing a worksheet and the chair slides backwards and she's on the floor. Well, another student in this class, Steven doesn't have much better luck. This particular day he was walking back to his chair and put his hand on the chair to support himself as he went to sit down, well the chair slid backwards, and his hand went with it and HE banged his head against the table. He sat down and nestled his head in his arms, and, having seen the whole thing, asked him if he was okay. He didn't respond the first couple of times I asked him, and then he lifted his head up and there was a line of blood running down from his forehead. So I got him to the front desk and they got him to the hospital. He came back later that day and I asked him how he was doing, he only knows about six words of English, but he wasn't using even that, and he seemed pretty spaced out. I'm thinking he may have had a concussion. Well, Steven has a bit of a rivalry going with one of the girls in the class named Kate. And he quickly became convinced, and convinced his mother that Kate had pushed him, and that's why he hit is head. Luckily we have cameras in all the classrooms, so the manager showed him the videotape of him hitting his head, and was able to convince him that Kate had not actually pushed him.

Then the poo really started to hit the fan. Last Friday, I had two students who both had to go to the hospital. One, in the same class as Angie (see above), was playing at the playground and was pushed and fell and smacked her face. The Korean teacher, Sarah, told me that she lost her four front teeth, but when she came to class today, she still had the front two, but there were some massive wires, and I'm not sure if they're fake or real. Other than the dental work, her cheeks were somewhat bruised, and the middle of her face was swollen enough that her mouth looked significantly smaller than normal. (Angie is the one on the left, and Christina is next to Angie)

The other one on Friday, I'm not exactly sure what happened. I tried to ask him about it today, and all I could get out of him was that he and at least one other person had tried to play a practical joke and somehow he had smashed his head into a table (what is it with my students and tables?). He ended up with a bit of a black eye and a very bloodshot eyeball, and he was apparently unable to wear his glasses during class today.

So the rate at which these accidents occur seems to be increasing exponentially. So, don't be surprised if I'm back in the states early because I was deported as a threat to the wellbeing of the country. Or maybe the months of sickness and all the injuries are from some kind of cosmic battle that I have gotten stuck in the middle of. Whatever it is, I hope that both the sickness and the accidents stop, or my last five months are really not going to be much fun at all.