Medical Attention

Our school got a bad run of eye infections. I don't know exactly what it was, only that dozens of students had pink-red eyes and had to sit in the back of the classroom to avoid contaminating others. The word on the street was that the going rate for rubbing an infected classmate's eyes was 500 Won per rub, plus an additional 500 Won bonus if you actually got sick. The school had to change its policy so that sick students were quarantined rather than sent home to curb the purposeful spreading of disease. Personally I thought 500 Won was a little cheap (about 50 cents). On the other hand, if you pay three different kids to rub their eyes (to increase your exposure), do you have to pay ALL of them the bonus if you get sick, since it'd be pretty hard to prove which was the "lucky" rub? I was wondering.

In other news, I hurt my knee a month ago while running for exercise. It still hasn't healed completely, and I was worried about it but avoiding the doctor, as usual. So Dong-Yun convinced me to go to acupuncture with her instead. I agreed since I've never done acupuncture and I was curious. Today was my second trip. So far there's been no noticeable change in my knee, but I did get to experience some traditional Korean healing. Plus some kind of electro-therapy.

I managed to snap a photo, too. Surprisingly, despite my childhood fear of needles, the pins didn't really bother me. They hurt just a little bit going in, but after that, it just feels a little prickly, but not painful. Both times the treatment included receiving some kind of electric pulse therapy (which did hurt) and an ice pack. We're going back on Wednesday. Dong-Yun, meanwhile, is in for a slipped disk. I guess it could be worse.