Caveat: And the Panda Says…

A while ago I [broken link! FIXME] posted about the fad song circulating online by Ylvis, "What Does the Fox Say?" It's a funny and entertaining song.

Now the parodies and imitations have begun. This is a China-bashing parody out of Taiwan. Also funny, in a different way.

Related to the "Fox" song, I also ran across this meme-image.

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Caveat: Linguistic Shortcomings

Today was a pretty bad day.

I went to work early. There was a two-hour meeting about new curriculum. This type of meeting is frustrating for me, because a great deal is being said that I have no doubt I'm interested in, but because it's Korean I often only get the gist of something, or it takes me too long to realize what's being said for me to be able to provide timely input to a conversation. Mostly decisions get made and I am merely witness to the process, which is better than not being included, but still more frustrating than a strongly opinionated individual such as myself might prefer.

Then I had some classes to teach. I have a lot of classes to teach, these days – I'm back to full-time. I teach 26 per week, I think.

Each day, I struggle to stay positive and focused and provide effective teaching. Yet my tongue and mouth have a limited ability to remain coherent after hours of talking. I'm often just plain physically tired feeling, too.

It doesn't help that I'm constantly hungry, yet I avoid eating because it's painful. Today I threw away part of my lunch (some rice twice-cooked with water – homemade juk) because it was taking me too long to eat and I needed to get ready for work. So I was so hungry my back and gut ached, but I wasn't willing to do anything about it. Just work through it.

I thought after two months after the end of radiation, I'd be beyond still eating like an infant and feeling pain with each bite.

There was a hweh-shik (회식 = work dinner) after work and everyone was pressuring me to go, and I just said no, no, no: a) it's not fun for me to watch other people eat and drink; b) I'm exhausted; c) I'm not feeling celebratory after an 11 hour day.

Sigh.

I do better in moments of crisis. My whole summer was crisis. This isn't crisis, this is just life – with the added discomfort of a messed-up mouth and tongue. I'm sick of it: it's just a long never-ending battle with my shortcomings (linguistic in several senses of the word) and discomfort.

[daily log: walking, 4.5 km]

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