Monthly Archives: January 2008

I just think these are the cutest cookies ever. They are also tasty. And they lead to entertaining moments (see below). Clearly, they are the best cookies ever.

I gave one to my roommate, and after oohing, she put it on a plate to eat in a minute. But she put it upside down. She turned it over and the lemon curd had “cried” over one side.

Hannah (turning cookie over again): *gasp* I killed the happy!

For happy cookies (aka Linzer cookies):

I followed this recipe, but added a little extra lemon zest and cinnamon, used ground hazelnuts instead of ground almonds and used lemon curd instead of jam.

Is it surprising that I’m baking? Especially now that I have unsalted butter?

I found out today that I can now get unsalted butter at the mart right near my place. Sweeeeetness! Shame I didn’t discover that before I went halfway cross town for some. Anyway.

I made chocolate chip walnut cookies last night, and today I made the Daring Bakers’ challenge for this month (which you will have to wait until the 28th to find out about). Planning to make soon: Chocolate ice cream, cinnamon ice cream, apple tart, linzer cookies, and maybe eventually some chocolate souffles, or some hazelnut truffles.

Oh, and I promised Christina I’d show her how to make bread.

Somebody should really stop me before the baking gets out of hand, actually.

My left knee is hurting less, but now my right knee has started hurting, and is hurting more. The left knee is still a little sore. The shoulders have joined in. I can’t roll my shoulders back without feeling and hearing some AWFUL clicking/popping, especially on the right side. It’s also quite sore. What the heck?!

On the advice from a friend, I’m taking the week totally off from dancing, and probably going to the doctor soon after that. I’ve been limiting my dancing lately, actually, both in how often I go to dances, and how much I dance when I’m there, but I’ll be taking a full week off and seeing how that affects things.

My personal theory is that all the various parts of my body are having a race to see how quickly they can break themselves in the new year.

We are not amused.

Otherwise, things are going really well. I’ve even gone to Hannam supermarket (and discovered, for the future, that they deliver FREE) and bought some unsalted butter, so maybe there’ll be some baking soon!

So bored in the office. Nothing to do. Completely bored.

Snxzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Preparing for the retirement home already, it seems.

I’ve always had a bad back. But lately, my left knee has been a little sore (not hurting, but sore enough that I notice it’s there), and it’s been clicking sometimes (mostly if I move my leg back. It’s also not great if I walk up and down stairs, and it hurts if I stand or sit for long periods of time). So after a few weeks of this (including through my vacation, where I wasn’t even dancing), I decided to go to the doctor to check it out.

Can I just take a moment to say that Korean doctors rock? At least this one did. He took maybe 15 minutes to figure out that the problem doesn’t originate in my knee at all; it’s my back that causes the problem. Surprise! Then he sent me for xrays (done in the clinic), which confirmed it. Seems my back is not good, which causes my pelvic bone to be slightly higher on one side than on the other, which causes my kneecap to damage/thin out the cartilage on one side of my left knee. Or something like that.

Then he pinpointed the problem. It has nothing to do with dancing at all. Turns out, what’s been aggravating it is teaching kindergarten. Hunching over and bending down to be at eye level with the kids is not happening anymore. Good posture only; sorry, kids. Also, no more of this sitting on the stupid low chairs. He said that that was the worst, because my knee is bent more than 90 degrees then, and then suddenly straightens out when I get up. He gave me some medication, some exercises to do, and told me to find a physiotherapy clinic closer to my place and go a couple times a week. Then he said I should go to the clinic’s other room where they’ll start the physiotherapy today, and then head down to the pharmacy where I can pick up my meds (which are painkillers, I think).

About this time I asked in a small voice: What about dancing…?

And guess what? Dancing is not a problem at all. I assumed when my knee was bad that dancing was to blame, or would at least aggravate it. But no. Dancing is in the clear. Phew!

So then I went out to the other room to have them make my knee feel better. They lay me down on a bed/table and put a hot cloth on my knee, and told me to relax. About this time, I realized that I might be late for my classes in the afternoon. It was about noon, and I had left at 9am to go to the doctor. Where had the time gone? So I called Hannah, because she always has her cell with her, and I knew her number, and asked her to tell the others. Within minutes, I get a call back from  Heather, my Korean co-teacher. She asks me to be back on time. *roll  eyes* Of course I will if I can, but I may be late, I tell her. I wanted to give you a heads up. I don’t know how long this will take, and the people here (unlike the doctor) don’t speak any English. If I would be late, maybe they could just take off half a sick day, I suggested. I told her I’d call her later. I think she wanted me to get up and leave right away to be sure to be on time. Well, sorry, my knee is more important.

So then a little while later, the nurse(?) comes back and attaches me to some machine with something like 4 suction-cup-type things, which she puts around my left knee. She turns the machine on, and tells me it’ll be 15 minutes. It feels WEIRD. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Apparently it’s a Korean thing.

I realize I will be late. The clinic I went to was through the recommendation of a friend, and it wasn’t very close to my work at all. And since public transportation here is good, but slow, I realize I will be late for my first class. I still haven’t even eaten any lunch. I call Heather back, but she doesn’t answer her phone, so I text her saying that I will probably be a little late.

The machine finishes, and I leave. I decided not to stop for lunch, though I did stop at the pharmacy to get the prescription the doctor gave me. By the way, another good thing about the Korean medical system; I’m covered by the National Heath Insurance Coverage that all E2 visa holders must be covered by, and it rocks. The whole thing cost me a total of 9000-something won, and another 2000-something won for the meds. And they threw in a free vitamin drink.

I get back just before the end of what would be my first 40 min class, which Yvette covered for me (she’s Korean, but lived in Australia for 10 years, and her English is really good. She’s another Korean ESL teacher at my workplace).

I finished my classes, and headed home soon after. I ate a snack and took an (unintentional) nap.. I was going to get up and make dinner later. Ah, well.

More on this later, but apparently it’s not super serious, and if with physiotherapy, the exercises, making sure I always have good posture and all doesn’t result in big improvement in the next 4 weeks, I should go back and see the doctor again. I’m going to try to get back to sleep now, I think.