the triple threat

it’s been a rough week. and i’ve paid little attention to it.
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last weekend the former president of south korea committed suicide by jumping off a cliff near his home. from what i’m hearing, he had been under investigation for accepting money from some businesses during his presidency. a lot of his platform and apparent morality was against that kind of action. the current president- who is openly tied to businesses and corporations, and has accepted lots of money- is the one who is pushing for the investigation. i guess the whole thing is a smear campaign. . . but it seems a little bizarre, so i’m probably missing something in the translation.

the former president seemed to be very popular (unlike the current president) and many koreans have been in mourning this week. his funeral was yesterday and seoul was overrun with people attending. some of my coworkers have come in to work with puffed eyes after catching some of the news.
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there was a nuclear test in north korea. . . or two i guess. it’s got a lot of countries bristled. my grandpa is perked up and wondering why his grand daughter isn’t flying home. around me the koreans wonder why all the foreigners are so interested in what their crazy northern cousins are up to. seriously. . . people here seem to pay little attention to the north koreans.

i guess the mindset is- for the north koreans to do anything serious is so incredibly asinine (being that the retaliation would wipe them off the planet)- that we should pay their muscle flexing no mind.

so, i’ve adopted that attitude for now.
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then there’s good ol’ novel influenza A (H1N1). . . swine flu. there is a number of new foreign teachers who have been put into quarantine for a week to see if they will develop signs of the flu. someone is blogging from inside with a rather entertaining point of view.

one of our teachers just flew back to the US for his sister’s wedding. it has our kindy parents in an uproar. they want to know where he is going, and how close he will be to any reported cases. i had only heard of the case in texas, so i was asked how close he would be to texas. the wedding is in vegas. -hmmm, well, you can fly there, drive there. . . but i don’t think you can spit that far.

he’ll be in a tourist popular area, having flown around the world. is it possible that he will come in contact with someone who has been in contact with someone who has the flu? sure. anything is possible. however, it’s more likely that the next sickness to hit our school will be brought in by one of our lovely drooling, nose-picking, coughing germ infested students.

i don’t think our answers are what the parents want to hear.

we’re beginning to wonder if he’ll be pushed into quarantine because of the parents.
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so yeah, that all happened.

our semester is ending. i will have new elementary classes, new books, maybe some new students. that seems to be my bigger concern.

maybe i should bust outta my bubble a bit. . . pay a little more attention to . .

ooooh, another csi marathon is on. . . gotta go.

(kidding. . . kinda)