I have been going to the dentist every week for a month now. Preperation for a crown. A gold crown... So I just now read (from dad) that gold fillings aren't the greatest. I haven't got any of those. I've just gotten something like composite.... The first two were done by my college friend's father. They were $100 a pop because I didn't want lead. They have been ok, but when I went to a student's mother's place for dental work, she said the cavity in my bottom tooth was so big that I might need a root canal. I said to fill it. She convinced me to get the most expensive one. I think she did a fine job because I couldn't tell which tooth had cavity after. 2 month later, I had sensitivity-might have been that I was sick. Anyway, he poked and proded it so much that the pain was incredible 2 days later. After drinking ice water every 13 seconds, I'd have horrible pain. So the famous doctor in the area took me in that day. He said he'd check my filling and see if I needed the root canal or not. Prodding the tooth didn't create pain at all. It was the ice water wearing off that hurt. After getting the filling off, he had my manager look at my nerve. Evidently it had been irritated to the point that it had to be killed. I was thinking to get the tooth colored crown (dentist said porcelain) but the dentist said it was harder on your teeth because they had to file down more of the tooth to get the crown on and it was easy for it to break on high traffic teeth. He suggested gold because regular metal felt alien to one's mouth when chewing and there was a chance of allergy. So I agreed on the gold and paid $350 instead of $550 for the porcelain (of course, now it's a bit cheaper since he won value has plummetted).

I've been going in every thursday to get medicine put into the open tooth, and to temporarily fill it. I'm evidently more sensitive than *Koreans* because I can still feel a lot in the tooth. This last time, I didn't feel any pain but the dentist wants to be extra careful so I got an extra week of medicine. Thursday, dentist will make a mold for the crown, then Saturday again. The following Thursday will finalize the process. I will now have metal in my mouth...

So, the value of the Korean Won has dropped so severely that instead of getting about $2500 a month, I'm now only making about $1600 a month. And it's been fluctuating. Not only that, but the prices at costco has gone up -_- Oboy Oberto jerky is no longer 13,000 won, it's now 15,000 won. Rose in less than a month. Of course, when the value of the won goes back to nomal the costco prices will remain the same. According to the papers here, the 2 US companies that went bankrupt caused a 50% stock drop in China, 38% in Korea and less in Canada and America (Though still substantial).

I won't be transfering money back for a while... Loans will have to hold out on minimum payment. Good news is I have less than $5000 debt. Though, before coming here I thought I'd have paid them off in a year. Didn't realize how expensive Seoul is.

One of the Korean girls who worked at my school last year had become my good friend. She recently got married. She married a famous producer of the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS). His wedding guests were all famous people from Korea, including JYP (JinYoung Park) who isthe most famous singer/producer in Asia. He even produces some famous American hiphop singers. He is the creater of the Korean sensation "Rain" (Bi). He starred in the recent "Speed Racer" movie. He's also one of the most famous singers here.

ANYWAY, that friend is taking me to watch a Korean music tv show (I guess her hubby is dragging us along) and says that Rain will be there on that day. She's very excited because she loves Rain. I'm excited because I can get his autograph for my friend Lane, who is obsessed with him. She recently was caught working illegally and is about to be deported. It will be her deportation gift. My friend says to take my camera, maybe I'll get photos with a lot of cute, famous Korean teenie bopper idols (kinda like Backstreet Boys).

Here's Rain... I just found out he's 4 days younger than me. I thought he was something like 22... -_-

Anyway, that's all that's going on here... Monday I get to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving.