40 Done (Island Style)

13 weeks (of 26) now complete.
Took quite a lot of strain today, so am relieved it's over. Arrived at the bank with quite a lot of time to spare, and then the guy ahead of me in the queue absorbed about half an hour. Caught a bus that goes to Hwajeong, but not quite where I need to be dropped off, and then the driver wouldn't stop when I disocvered my mistake. He eventually dropped me off about a kilometre further, and from there I caught a cab who started taking me the opposite direction!! Finally arrived ten minutes before classes started, feeling miserably hungry.
I was expecting a difficult day teaching but I'd prepared some fun puzzles and word search games, and I actually just relaxed and enjoyed the day.
Sandwiches arrived at the bakery not long after I first stopped by and found none, so gobbled up some of those.

Some unsettling news is that the currency, which has looked fairly solid, tanked over the last 24-48 hours, probably because oil has shot up and...possibly had something to do with South Africa contemplating a rate cut.
Anyway, the amount of money transferred a few days ago would have been about RX 900 and now it is around RX 313. The Korean Won went from W159 to W160, but the Rand strengthened to R6.31 (when not long ago it was over R6.50).
It's weird that we South Africans have our money routed via Morgan Stanley in New York before it goes to Johannesburg and into the banks there. Seems like a very inefficient pre-globalisation system. I wonder if it is because of Korean exchange controls, or because America simply wants to hold Korean currency and virtually no one else does. I'd like to find the answer. I'll ask my friend Alex who works for Standard Bank's Merchant Banking.

The other thing is that you do all this work, and at the end of the day, all that happens is that numbers that you can't even see, go digital and swap around, and you can use these numbers to buy stuff you need, and even more stuff that you don't need. That's the reality of all your efforts, beyond what you've experienced in the process. Seems kind've weird. But then money is an artificial thing people created to say, we think this thing is this valuable. If you found yourself cast away on a desert island, quite a few things we pay top dollar for we wouldn't even want. We'd be too busy fishing and fending for ourselves to check email, or watch TV, or checking out whether the latest pair of cargo pants make our butts look good. Would we want to be entertained, on our own, on a desert island? Would we care about music, or television when the sea and the birds and the trees provided the perfect soundtrack of calm and peace after the toil for food and the struggle to stay ahead of the weather? We might want a little music, some insect spray and a newspaper (better yet something more useful than news: a guidebook on catching fish, or herbs, or a recipe book), but only when we weren't hungry, and once we could be sure the weather was alright and not going to blow rain into our shelter. And we'd need someone, God, or something like Wilson to keep us company.

Eating, and sleeping, and being safe - in the real world away from the electrified, digitised, push button world, would be valuable to us. In contemporary terms: having fruit, some potates, some fresh water for cooking, maybe a comfortable pillow and blanket (and how about a mattress), and a warm dry cave or wooden shelter...well, in the real world you have to rent man made caves, complete with refrigerators, air cons etc.

And the concept of a Passport. Isn't it a bit old, a bit 20th century? Whoever heard of people with cashcards and cellphones walking around with a book, with a photo of yourself inside, and pages you have to stamp so you can get around. What if you lost it, or you left it in a pocket and washed it by accident (I've really done this, and at least one Embassy (the Japanese) have started to complain.

Finished nice and early compared to the rest of the week, at 7pm, and joined Karlee and Corneli at Starbucks. Nice to see the two of them again. We went from there to Outback where we shared a salad, some fish and vegetables, and some tasty chips. The meal was more expensive than I think any of us expected, but it was healthy, and also nice to share and exchange experiences.

Corneli told a funny story of how a Korean guy told her and Allali to be quiet on the bus on the way to the airport, and after that, he said, "Got it?!"
When you hear a story like that you realise you're not the only one is this country that's misunderstood.
And you know, I have newfound admiration for Karlee, who says she is teaching at a school where there are no air conditioners in the classrooms. She says the sweat just pours off her. I don't know how she takes it. When I step outside my apartment to go to work, it sometimes feels unbearably sticky. And when I get back, even after dark, I am silently clenching my teeth, resisting the urge to tear off my clothes and create a small cloud of kicking feet and swirling fists. Instead I just walk to my door, slot in the key and quickly get the aircon going.

We walked Karlee to the bus stop and the right bus arrived on cue. Ours did too, once we made it to the other side of the road. I girl next to me told me that it;s a two hour bus trip to Caribean Bay, and also that today was 'very busy'. Never been there, despite being in Korea for quite a while now.

Corneli invited me to a gathering of foreigners at Anthony's. I am just too tired, and my leg is uncomfortably sore. When I got out the bus, I felt a very strange electrical spasm in my leg. A nervy disconnection and connection. Maybe the cycling pants I'm wearing underneath my pants had cut off the feeling in some of the muscles. Hopefully its that and not something else.

Legs felt quite tired from the short but intense Pilates session last night. Good. Glad that's working.

Going to enjoy my time off this weekend. Especially sleep. Need to sleep, heal my leg completely and maybe lay off writing a little. Have started coughing a little and need to ward that off with enough rest and healthy eating. I'll exercise when I'm ready.