Warning: possible overshare ahead

What have I been up to since last week I hear you not actually ask? Well, Saturday was an interesting night in which I almost got assaulted by some random Korean girl that one of my friends befriended out of pity that we then couldn't get rid of. Very friendly, but very agressive. Some things she could have done with knowing: if people want to leave, let them leave - pick up the clue that they may in fact be escaping; don't try and pimp your new friends out to your old friends and think that this is funny; affectionate is cute, grabby is not; 'holding on' to someone's bag to prevent them leaving is not a good idea unless you want things to end very badly, and throwing a temper tantrum as a last resort in a packed bar when that person wrestles their bag back and goes to leave will not make said person want to stay any more. Luckily, it was also Emma's birthday and this was only after we'd done the majority of the fun stuff celebrating already. As she had sent us all a text message saying "What are you doing tonight? I want beer and a face full of cake!", she got her birthday wish and the subsequent face full of blueberry preserve and egg tart. So at least the night started out well!

Warning: the story ahead may be a little more than you ever wanted to know. In fact, I just remembered that a bunch of us were talking about this only last night and I actually specified the rule that any detail about bodily emissions was an overshare, so I apologise for my slight hypocrisy. Don't worry, it's not that specific.

So I say started, because it ended with me going home after a couple of hours feeling a little queasy, despite not having drunk an inordinately large amount of alcohol. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with some cup 짜파게티 (jjajangmyeon ramyeon) I thought - little did I know that my night wasn't over yet and that I was going to wake up again repeatedly sweating with a fever over the next six hours continually running to the bathroom and trying not to hurl my guts out. You could say it was an improvement when I finally managed to, except that I then spent the rest of the morning pretty much sitting on my bathroom floor sobbing into the toilet and wishing it would stop between bouts of whatever else was pouring out of my body at the time. Part of this melodrama might have been the fact that I couldn't even keep any water down, and since I had had a few drinks the night before, I was getting pretty dehydrated.

Anyway, thankfully the vomiting stopped after four hours, and I managed to have a shower and some sleep. Later on, watching "Killing Bono" with some food and tea with Eadaoin also helped - great movie by the way! Stars Ben Barnes as Neil McCormack (Prince Caspian) and Robert Sheehan (Nathan from 'Misfits') as well as Martin McCann as (according to Eadaoin) an eerily lookalike Bono. It also had Pete Postlethwaite in it in his last role before his death from cancer earlier this year, looking tragically remission gaunt rather than cocaine-chic gaunt, but doing a great job (as always) nonetheless. By the way, best quote of the movie from Pete Serafinowicz: "Don't boo me, I went to Eton!" haha^^

Monday saw me with more stomach pains and sleeping through both my deskwarming and the two classes I had (they were watching movies anyway) and Tuesday slightly less so (probably because I skipped two meals entirely and didn't have any carbs or dairy) but still sleeping all afternoon at my desk. I'm feeling much better today so I'm going to see how I go with lunch and if it comes back then it's probably doctor time. One of my co-teachers kept trying to get me to go home yesterday but I didn't want to go since a) I've already taken a few sick days off, b) my vice-principal doesn't like me as it is, and c) I can sleep just as easily at school as at home (there's a very comfortable couch in my English room office). So instead she's been giving me a bunch of extra medicines and a kind of back massage-pummelling to help circulation or something. Another got me some 죽 (juk) or rice porridge for lunch since I didn't want to risk the kimchi fried rice and hotdogs that were today's lunch, so I am being very well taken care of :)

At any rate, I can easily say that of all the indigestion meds (소화약) I've tried, by far the best have been these herbals ones called 보화환 (bohwahwan) and 생록천(saengnokcheon). I think that 보화환 might actually be a generic name for that type of medicine, but it basically looks like little choco-balls, or really big brown silica gel balls, and goes with the 생록천 drink. Apart from dried orange peel and ginseng, I have no idea what is in either of them, but they work really fast and last for a good couple of hours at least. You can take them three times a day and were 3000 won (about $2.80) at my local chemist.

So that's the update on the state of my digestive system. Hopefully things get better and I don't have something awful like the last couple of times I didn't think I was sick and ended up having tonsilitis and then a kidney infection. If you don't hear from me, assume that I've got stomach cancer or appendicitis and have been hospitalised... or more likely that I'm fine and just lazy about blogging. Peace out y'all! Hope your tummies are feeling less grumbly than mine :)