Wednesday, February 17, 2010

On Hiatus, End-of-Contract Nonsense, and Shingles

It was brought to my attention that my blog was out of date. I leave Korea, possibly for good, in just under two weeks. The lead up to this has been stressful as Hell, so I more or less forgot that my blog existed. Now that I've remembered, here is a summary of where I'm at:

When I finished my first contract in Korea, my boss honoured my contract, paid me in a timely manner, and personally delivered me to the airport. While I didn't expect the same treatment from a much larger, less intimate institution, I expected something more than what I'm getting. Still, in the end, I will more than likely get paid what I am owed and return home in one piece. It's not all horrible. I'll provide more details on what went down after the dust has settled; if I write about it now, I'll produce a 10 paragraph mess of angry gibberish.

(producing 10 paragraph messes of angry gibberish is not below me, but I may as well save what little energy I have to fight the incompetence directly)

In light of all this stress, I developed shingles. Again. For those of you not in the know, shingles are really, really sexy. In this particular case, it's basically a line of herpes down my neck. Or, as I prefer to call it, my "neck AIDS". Unsurprisingly, nobody else at works finds this as amusing as I do. Thankfully, it's only been a minor hindrance. This is the second time I've had shingles. The first time, I reacted badly to the medication and ended up with a head-to-toe sunburn like rash in addition to unmedicated shingles itch and pain; this time I have no idea what they gave me, but it seems to be working. It must have been the butt injections that did the trick. I'm going to miss those!

I am really, really looking forward to flying out on March 3rd. I will be posting about Korea for a while after I land, so the blog should be active for a while. There are a few things that I refuse to post about while still in Korea, for various reasons. Some of them actually make good stories. Others, less so.

Until then... Happy belated Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day, Family Day, and all of those other holidays between last time, now, and then.