Whose Idea Was This?

Whose idea was this?

Kids are hard enough to interest as it is. Try making them sit in class and communicate in another language. I've never taught full classrooms before. It's exhausting. There's this one kindergarten kid who hates me. I know because every day in class he screams at the top of his lungs just to make me jump. This is a common occurrence. He spits in my face at least once a class period when I kneel down to try and help him. He hits me in the chest with his little fists, and climbs on or under the table constantly. He calls me "poo" in English and in Korean every ten minutes.

The hours are so long there is no time to figure things out. I meant to get a phone within my first week. I've been here for almost a month and still don't have a phone. So that's really working out.

Whose idea was this again?

I'm living with the Lyme disease diagnosis and it's awful. I can't eat anything with gluten, dairy, or sugar in it. I also can't have caffeine or alcohol. Living in a foreign country is already difficult enough without a weird diet. With food restrictions, I'm always having to explain myself. I always want these explanations to be quick, but they always snowball: "Oh, I can't have that because it'll make me sick. No, I'm not allergic, I have Lyme disease. Yeah, a lot of people don't know what it is. It can affect people in different ways. How did I know I had it? Well-" I realize these conversations are going to happen and that it's good to talk about my diagnosis rather than bottling it up inside of me. Sometimes, though, I wish I had a T-shirt with a huge explanation of this disease on the front and a list of dietary restrictions on the back. That way I could just point to the front and the back when I go out to eat. Maybe I should patent this idea, and get the shirt to read in English and Korean. 

Lyme detox is different for everyone. Any bad feeling I have now I blame on Lyme. I also blame my sleeping habits on it. Jet lag may be a real thing, but I doubt it causes intense nightmares and sleeplessness. I haven't had a week of solid sleep since I got here. Every night I wake up at least twice.

Whose idea was this?

Moving to another country has made me feel so insecure and vulnerable all the time, probably because I'm alone so often. I don't care what the rest of the internet says. Being an introvert really is not fun most of the time. It takes forever to settle in and make friendships, and when you do want to go do something, you have to do it by yourself because you were too shy to talk to people at that last thing you went to. I have a friend who moved to a new city and had a group of friends within two or three weeks of moving there. Why did he get to be an extrovert? Seriously.

I'm on vacation from teaching this week, but haven't had much of an opportunity to take advantage of it due to a lot of headaches, a sore throat, a bad cold, and very little sleep. I keep telling myself that I'm going to try to go out and meet people, and then I wake up in the morning after sleeping for four hours and think it might be better to take a nap. Thus, the past few days have been spent in my apartment. I don't want to be a recluse, or a hermit, or someone who never talks to anyone (I just used a lot of synonyms in that sentence). I just don't have anyone I can call, and I don't know how to meet people here. I'm sure if my friends were doing this, they would already have friends and a phone, but they're not and I am, so I guess I'll have to deal with it.

Whose idea was this, anyway? Did I think this was a good idea?