Bugs

With the Korea Times this week potentially painting a picture of Korea as a nation of hypochondriacs, it is ironic that I should succumb on Thursday to a 'flu-like virus which everyone we know seems to have been suffering from in the last week. It's especially unfortunate given that the clock is ticking down on my time here and still have so much to do. So I've spent the best part of two days in bed, consuming enough pills to open a drug store in my stomach.

Back home, I wouldn't have taken the pills so readily, preferring to work through and let any illness run its natural course. The fact that I was not even surprised when my wife returned from the pharmacy with a course of not one, but four big tablets to take every few hours, tells me that I'm beginning to go a little native in my attitude to treating illness. There was a time when I was amazed at the Korean health experience, but with so many people I know here undergoing so many varieties of treatments, I've begun to wonder at what point you call it overkill, if you'll excuse the pun.

I expect this will be one of my last free weekends in Busan, and I regret being quarantined in my one-room apartment for it. But at least I still managed to drag myself out of bed to write a letter to some lawyers which needed doing, and armed with an excuse not to study I allowed myself another session with Ubuntu Linux, finally managing to get it working properly on my desktop after about nine months of trying on and off. The fact that it's taken me this long to do it, coupled with my failure to read the books I brought with me to Korea, probably speaks a lot to the experience I've had here - which has been pretty intense with little time for boredom - except perhaps, on sick days.

Korean tags: 건강