I have been so disturbed by my cobwebby brain that I did an experiment this morning and forewent my pain medication. I’m not sure it really worked. Wendy and I went into the city (Seoul) for a few hours and walked around. I still was absent-minded as all-get-out, and it was very annoying. I
forgot my phone at home and had to go back and get it. I got lost
(disoriented) twice in a subway station – that wounds my geographical
pride.
Walking around, though… I was fine, walking around – she kept worrying about if I was OK walking around. I emphasized that everything below my shoulders is quite fine and even in tip-top shape. Walking around was great. Only when we stopped to eat, and I attempted to eat some leek jeon and some dumpling/tteok soup (both bland-flavored and I can manage them, chopped into little bits) I had to break down and break out the codeine. And talking hurt, too. I talked too much, as usual. So it’s the above-the-shoulders stuff that aches and hurts and burns and is all fuzzy. That’s all.
When I got home I lay down and had a feverish-feeling nap. That’s the other thing the analgesics do (which are embedded with / accompany the opioids): they solve the feverish sensation that comes from my immune system’s current overdrive status.
I have to teach tomorrow – my September Saturday-only schedule which was off last week from the holiday.
Next week, with the start of October, I will have an approximately 20-25% teaching load. I’m really worried about it – my talking feels blurry and distorted. It’s going to be hard, and I don’t want to let down my fellow teachers or students, either.
The walking, though. Fine. We really didn’t even walk that much. Here is Wendy, probably unhappy about trying to keep up with me, in Seoul (we went to Namsan – we took the cable car up the mountain, which minimized the climbing, but didn’t eliminate it entirely).
Note the homeless guy camped on the side of the stairway-street: South Korea isn’t some kind of utopia, as some people seem to think I’m implying sometimes in how I write about life here. I like it here, and I view the country’s social problems as less severe than in the US, but I am hardly in denial that the country has some major social problems, many of which parallel those in the US.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
