Okay, so the worst of the cold has subsided. I’m still sweating a bit at night, but nothing like what I was before. So, what joy awakened me this morning at 5am? The wisdom tooth I thought was doing fine, is apparently most unhappy where it is living. It’s started agitations on my lower jaw, and the gum is all swelled around it. And of course I have no ice. So now ice is freezing in my freezer. I’ll call a dentist I know in Iksan who can maybe recommend me to someone in Jeonju. I guess I simply need …

…because the people in the accursed Church across the parking lot are wailing in tongues, with the window wide open. Someone in that church is playing soft, New-Agey piano background music to this bizarre bedlam. Note the time: it’s 6:30pm on a Tuesday. These people do this crap en masse at any time of the day or night. Last night, 10pm, in the parking lot. Bedlam for all the neighborhood to hear. If they spoke English, I would probably just join the Church for the purposes of tormenting them; everytime they spoke in tongues I’d just scream expletives in strings …

Well, I think the worst is actually past. I still feel pretty much like the fellow in the picture, but I am alive, and that’s a relief. I got about 8 hours of conscious time this weekend, from Friday at 9pm until Monday at 7am, and the fever seems to have passed. I’m still low on voice, weak and shaky, and my joints all ache. Thank goodness I figured out how to turn on the heat in the apartment and took to the floor last night. The heat soaking up through the floor fed my body and made me sweat …

I am SOOOOOOOOO sick. I slept all day since about 9pm last night, had the shivers off and on, and am finally kind of awake. But unable to type, and likely to go back to bed. I did manage to have some soup and water and orange juice earlier, at least, but I still feel like utter hell. I hope I’m better tomorrow.

It’s weird living in a place where you don’t see physically handicapped people very often. In Iksan, I think they didn’t get out of the house much. I saw one man in a wheelchair a few times, and a crazy guy whose obsession was to jog in front of the university carrying banners and wearing a track suit with his name on it (the name being one character different from the name of a famous Korean runner). I actually saw a few crazy people wandering about the city day-by-day, but I almost never saw anyone with a physical disability. At …

Today I killed off some of my stress and some time at the Jim Jil Bang. This is a marvelous Korean version of a spa, at sane prices. You pay a little money and you can not only use the public baths (though, sadly, there seems to be no mud bath these days), but also the temperature controlled, semi-quiet relaxation area. It may seem strange to pay money to bathe with other people, and then sit in a T-shirt and shorts in warm rooms or in large open spaces with people lying on the floor sleeping or chatting… but it’s …