Sick. "I fight like hell to hide that I've given up. Woo!"

My lingering cold will not die for the life of me. It seems that just as soon as I think it’s on the way out, it lurks around the corner and waits to capitalize on my obliviousness. I'll admit that much of this is self-induced (forgetting to sleep enough and staying out in the snow for too long), but this menace has taken center stage in my life recently and refuses to mind the curtain. It has even curtailed my social life a bit. I was supposed to celebrate New Years with the Seosanians, but instead I stayed home and slept. Likewise, I was supposed to go to Busan this weekend (a coastal city on the Southeast corner) but decided that I didn't want to further my sickness.

In other news, I booked my ticket for Osaka to see my friend, Brynn. Nothing funny. Her boyfriend lives a stone's throw away. Originally, I had planned to go to Tokyo while in Japan, but decided against it because for a few reasons, the primary being cost. Actually- the others are worth mentioning: She referred me to a few websites for lodging and train times, but the whole thing looked pretty overwhelming. I saw an imbalance between the amount of time and money I would spent planning a trip to Tokyo and the amount of things I would actually want to do and see there. The resource expenditure/fun ratio didn't really leave me satisfied. Also, as humbling as this is, I'm sort of a novice world traveler; so the idea of getting on a night bus for 8 hours to a city I've never been to, in a country where I don't speak the language to find some remote hostel was sort of unsettling. Yeah, it’s an adventure, but I'm taking baby steps. (Note: I wrote the past two paragraphs after watching hours of British comedy. Two things: (a) This is explains why I have the voice of a pretentious jackass and (b) it’s important that you read this passage with a thick British accent. Like, don’t even be apologetic about it. Thick British accent.)

I’ve been watching a lot of British comedy recently. Since my foreigner status deemed me unsubscribable to the tele service, DVDs are about all I have at this point. I was livid about the blatant foreigner discrimination, but I guess every nation needs to have a proverbial dog to kick. Better make it a minority. Anyway, it took me a while to warm up to it, but British comedy is some of the cleverest, most outlandish, uncomfortable filth I’ve ever witnessed. A fellow English teacher loaned them to me, a bloke by the name of Andy. Yes, in a school virtually devoid of any English names, we are blessed with an Andrew and an Andy. I was surprised at how quickly the kids caught on. Maybe it’s because his name is Andy and mine is Andur-rew.

So, my week and weekend were pretty uneventful due to my viral nemesis. I’ll be checking in soon.