June 22, Chicken Disease

“You look weak these days,” Jack told me.

There was nothing to be offended about because he’s right. I nodded in agreement.

“We have a saying here. 닭병. You have chicken disease. Like when a chicken gets sick and weak.” The descriptors weren’t very helpful but I could imagine a crated chicken slowly wasting away in a cramped cage.

Between hospital visits and stress over my travel school lesson plans and lack of sleep that keeps piling up from thrice weekly online Korean classes and additional online English classes and the change of seasons and the promise of the end of the semester, I am tired. I do feel weak. Death by a thousand cuts and all that. I’m sure I’m not the only teacher who’s tired as summer rounds the corner.

But there’s still another month to go before I’m free to… desk warm. So I’ll have to hang on until then!