It's been a while...damn near close to a year, but it's been a hell of a year. I won't go into everything in this post, but I will work to get everything caught up soonish.
That being said, I am hoping to get active on this blog again.
But, like I said, it's been a hell of a year.
Moving to Seoul was great/terrible for me. Ha! So, it was great, I have access to tons more here and I really do like my school (mostly), and my place is pretty accessible to most of the places I like to go. The major plus being that I only have to go to one school and I can take a 5 minute bus ride rather than a 10 minute walk, 40 minute ride, 10 minute walk then get through the day before I have to repeat the commute. But, on the flip side of that, last year my school/co-teachers were uber-demanding and constantly criticizing everything while offering no real help/solutions to the point that I nearly had a nervous breakdown. Knock on wood, this year has been better, even though I haven't dramatically changed much, but my co-teachers changed and are incredibly supportive and encouraging...I mean, co-teachers really make or break your experience here.
But because my work situation was so sever last year, I really got my introvert on and would retire to my room for almost all the time I wasn't at work. I got really into my crafting hobbies and am quite good at them, so I still like to while away the hours watching youtube and crocheting.
The biggest thing is that this past year I had both a cancer scare and a cancer diagnosis. Just before I moved to Seoul the doctors found a lump on my thyroid, biopsied it, and decided I was fine but to come back every six months. Ok, so I thought "crisis averted" because, after all, lots of people live with thyroid nodules.
No.
I went back for my periodic check this last February and they decided that the lump was 1cm bigger (which is a lot considering it was 2 cm when they first found it) and needed to biopsy again. This time it came back as cancerous.
Just f'-ing great.
Now what?
Apparently, thyroid cancer is the "best cancer" to have. Like if you have to choose a type of cancer, then you should choose thyroid cancer. Generally, it's slow growing and its uncommon to spread. That being said, since my (now) tumor is already quite large, I need to not dilly-dally on treatment. So, I'm spending my summer vacation having a partial thyroidectomy and the recovering a little before I have to go back and teach an intensive English camp.
So I was depressed...a lot...spent hours crying and feeling sorry for myself because "I have f'ing cancer" and the only treatment option for me is to stay in a foreign country where I don't speak much of the language and have to be without my support network and have surgery and getting back to the grindstone.
Then I got angry...because I am a "good damn person" and work so hard and care so much (even when it costs me) and my reward is cancer. Not cool, universe...NOT cool. Especially because I thought I was finally going to get to China to see the Terra-cotta Warriors...I know that seems silly to some, but the Terra-cotta army was really what inspired my interest (and eventual Masters) in Anthropology and it would break my heart to leave this side of the world without seeing them in person. So vacation plans iced.
So, now what?
Just waiting for my surgery date.
