Day: August 10, 2013

It was a very long and busy day.

I taught two actual classes – meaning officially assigned classes for which I had to have lesson plans, take attendance, etc. Although I did some substituting and visits to classes this past week, these were my first real classes since the Thursday prior to entering the hospital, which was at the end of June.

In both classes, I made part of my lesson a presentation of my cancer surgery experience. Over the years, I’ve learned that most middle-schoolers are utterly enthralled by the health problems of others, especially when conveyed as “true stories” – and nothing could be truer than pointing to my still very visible bandages and scars and saying “here” and “here.” So as far as captivating attention, I’ve rarely had a better lesson plan – but it was essentially a one-off success, in that respect.

I made a video recording of one of my presentations – to my “special Saturday” 7th graders. If it’s appealing enough, I might edit and post it – we’ll see. I really like those kids – they are what I describe as my “not advanced but always interested” class. They’re fun without being inclined to burnout, like more intense, high-level students can get sometimes.

After that, I talked with Curt and some other teachers for a while. Then Curt and I drove over to see my new apartment.

“Whaaa?” you might say.

Yesterday, out of the blue, Curt said, “Hey Jared. Do you want to upgrade your apartment?”

I said, “Of course.” I’d been recently experiencing apartment envy, after seeing my friend Peter’s apartment in Bucheon.

Next thing I know, we’re planning for me to move into an apartment in the Urim Bobo County building. It’s definitely a nicer building – newer, cleaner, and the apartment is marginally bigger (3.2 meters x 4.8 meters versus my current 3.0 meters by 4.2 meters) but more importantly, has a much better floor plan and more closet and storage space than my current apartment. Furthermore, I like the location better – it’s more “urban” and downtownish, being in the heart of what passes for downtown in Ilsan, which has always been my tendency. As a small bonus, it’s about 1 km closer to the cancer center, which is of course convenient given my new lifestyle as a cancer patient.

The fascinating irony is that this exact same Urim Bobo County building was my first apartment building when I came to Ilsan in 2007. Life keeps spinning me in circles.

Here is a picture of my new (old) apartment building, taken in September, 2007 – it was literally the first picture I took, my first day in Korea – really! The building still looks exactly the same. My new apartment is on the 9th floor (1 down from top). I will move there very slowly over the next several weeks, between cancer radiation treatments, I guess.

After spending some time with Curt preliminarily checking out and cleaning the new apartment, I came back home, collected Andrew, and he and I went there and cleaned a little bit and evaluated some more. Then we met my friend Peter for dinner – Thai food – and then that was more like the end of our evening, walking back first to my new apartment and then after a pause there to inspect it with Peter, back to my old apartment.

Interesting things keep happening. Life is good.