from quarantine with love

Luckily, the title does not refer to our family, but to a new entry in the blogosphere: An English Teacher Under Quarantine in South Korea. I find it to be interesting reading, both for the content and the humorous perspective.

Two ex-pats with regular blogs are also in quarantine, so their current entries are (obviously) about those experiences: Ruby Ramblings and Sparkling Chaos with Brian Dear. (I assume the last title is a reference to the Korea Sparkling campaign.)

I found the first blog through another that I follow, kimchi-icecream (specifically here), who in turn credits other ex-pat bloggers in Korea for posting first. One of those, Roboseyo, links to the other two in this post. What a small world this here blogosphere is. (I've now amused myself by using the term "blogosphere" for the first time ever -- in print, I've never uttered it out loud -- not once, but thrice, if you count the self-reference.)

The flu has also struck our little family, although I'm pretty sure it's just the normal seasonal type. Luckily, we've been back in Sokcho for a good two weeks now, so there's no chance that we carried this back from the States with us. (Normal incubation is 24-48 hours, with 7 days being an extremely conservative waiting period. Trust me, I looked it up!) In fact, I'm 99% sure came from the "nursery school" that Liam started last Monday. Three days of playing with other germ-infested toddlers and he became sick. Two days later, I was feeling as if I'd been hit by a Mac truck. Not a Peterbuilt, definitely a Mac. Liam and I are both recovering, but Matthew and Rowan are currently fighting symptoms.

We're also lucky because we arrived back on the 9th. There was a flight on the 11th that now has a confirmed case of H1N1, so all those passengers are currently being tracked down. I'm not sure if that's the same connection as the group in the blog or another separate case.

We're hoping this luck will hold out and keep us out of quarantine. Matthew's boss has already fielded several calls about us regarding our flight (not the 11th!) and our fevers (taking the boys to the doctor and filling prescriptions seems to have come up on the radar somehow). Until then, we're drinking lots of fluids, taking antipyretics, and getting plenty of sleep.