Cluster Fudge

Dear Diary,

What a mess. Coronavirus 2019 is running rampant in Korea. Who knows if they have it or not. I'm becoming more and more tempted to go to a hospital and get myself tested. Just to be 100% certain that I don't have it. I have a cough, but no aching muscles (well, only because I played basketball for 40 minutes when I'm usually a totally sedentary person ... and I know that's what it is because my body only ached after that day), no mucus in my cough, no fever, no other symptoms that resemble pneumonia. BUT I don't just stay inside and watch the $h¡t show that has come to Korea. I have gone out so that I don't go completely crazy, and symptoms don't show for a maximum of two weeks ... so that's two weeks one could be going about their daily life without knowing. Two weeks you are in close contact with friends, family, coworkers and the occasional random stranger. Two weeks you could be passing it to any and everyone you meet.

Using Corona Live, I can see all the key people. (Headlines altered for grammar.)

"Confirmed case. Prison officer, who was in contact with 82 prisoners, is put in an isolation cell without getting any medical checks." ~23:00 on 27 Feb [The headline doesn't mention 54 colleagues the officer was also in contact with.]

"Alarm in National Security. Confirmed cases amount to twenty-five in military base" ~22:00 on 27 Feb

"Corona 19 confirmed case. Blood donation nurse who visited Goyang, Paju police station and 'emergency' military unit" ~19:00 on 27 Feb

"29-year-old female, a confirmed patient, visited Mapo District Office" Also ~19:00 on 27 Feb

 "Female in 20s in Nowon District (northern Seoul) has been confirmed. Her boyfriend took CPA (Certified Public Accountant) test [This is a national test, so people from all over the nation could have been there.] on the 23rd" ~13:00 on 27 Feb

"[Songpa District] Delivery guy (Baemin Food Delivery) is confirmed to have Coronavirus" Before 23:00 on 26 Feb

Plus, all the docs who are now getting it and the hospitals that already had cases of it, like Eunpyeong Seongmo Hospital in Seoul. I wonder if it came in through that 9,000ish-member cult church. The one that was getting a lot of the blame, Patient #31, couldn't have known that she had it when she went to a church "service" that was also attended by another thousand members, but ... now we're 1,766 cases in with another 25,568 people waiting for their test results to come out. With the headlines above, I imagine that it could rise more. A lot more. People are only being tested if they show symptoms or believe they were in contact with a publicised case. But what about those who don't have symptoms that actually do have it? The ones who are unknowingly spreading it? Maybe we should all just get tested. Too bad the labs will probably take too long with a population of 51,629,512 (2018 figure from the National Statistical Office) if it's taking this long to test the 64,886 suspected cases (39,318 were negative).

Two of those church members were diagnosed recently and quickly were discharged. So quickly that I wonder if there was a problem in the test. Either they didn't have it (false positive) or they still have it (false negative). In the worse case of the two, they could be continuing to spread it, even at this moment (okay, not at THIS moment since it's after 2 am).

Surreal times.

*~Lili~*

45 Days until Easter

Dear Diary,

My biological mother has some nerve. In July 2017, she told me some story about my biological father being a married man. I'm not sure that is true as the story she told (or supposedly told ... I heard a lot of adoption agencies made stuff up) me is quite different from the story in my file.

Anyway, after that, she didn't contact me. Since we originally didn't contact each other very much anyway, it took me eleven months to realise that I hadn't heard from her in a while. I contacted her in July, a year after our last contact, asking her how she's been. She read the message, but did not reply. After a few days, I realised that she wasn't going to get back to me.

With Coronavirus raging, I thought I should ask her if she's doing okay, implying that I was asking because of the virus. She responded pretty quickly, saying she was fine and asking where I was. When I didn't respond (or even read it technically - yay for previews), she messaged me again in the afternoon saying that she was waiting for me.

I can't believe it. I didn't hear from her for a year, so I tried to contact her. She hasn't messaged me for nearly 3 years and says SHE was waiting for ME? Insane.

I'm hoping that 23andMe does another sale soon so that I can buy a kit and get us tested. We've never had a DNA test, so we don't even technically know if she's my mom. I mean, I had her citizenship number in my file, so you'd think that was good enough evidence, but ... I want it confirmed. When I go and test her, I will ask her about my father again. I will ask for the whole story, including his name and age at the time of their relationship ... I heard hometown is important, too. She told me before if I went looking for him that she would cut off our relationship. Well, if our relationship is not talking for three years, that sounds pretty cut to me. After I try to get all that information from her, I will cut off our relationship cleanly.

She just makes me so angry now. I used to find her slightly uncomfortable because she's just some Korean ajumma to me. We couldn't really communicate verbally or culturally either. But now ... I'm really done with her. I didn't even want to meet her in the first place. I wasn't curious about her at all. God or Destiny or whatever you want to call it played a hand in that, making us meet. ASJDFLK.

*~Lili~*

President Mun Jaein

Dear Diary,

How sad. Someone made an unreasonable petition to impeach Mun earlier this month because they thought he didn't do enough against the Chinese entering the country. I say "unreasonable" because at the time of its creation, Mun was right - the virus would probably be gone by March. The numbers with it were going down. People were leaving the hospital cured. It was great.

But, unfortunately, it's not unreasonable now. Mun could not have predicted that some crazy Christian cult with over 9000 members would have a member get it and then spread it when she went to a church meeting with 1000 other members. However, it happened and now the petition is quite valid. I personally think impeachment is a bit too extreme when compared to Trump's recent impeachment in the House, but not the Senate.

Still, 848,249 Koreans have signed it at this point. That's a lot of angry Koreans. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Petition to Impeach President Mun

*~Lili~*

Ash Wednesday 2020

Dear Diary,

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent 2020. As you know, I have given up social networking sites, like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I'm not really sure if blogs count or not ... The definition I read seemed to imply that a social community would come about from the site. Since I have not shared this URL with anyone (at this moment anyway) and have disabled comments ... would this be considered a community??

In any case, when deciding what to give up for Lent, I decided on Facebook (I have both Twitter and Instagram, but don't really use either since they were introduced in my 20's) because nowadays, it seems really toxic. People can't comment on news stories or anything public without being attacked - even when your original comment was neutral. With my personality, I have to argue with anyone who comments on my comments (I say argue, because somehow they argue with my comment - even the neutral ones). For the most part, I know they are just trying to get a reaction out of me and I should just forget it, but I can't help but reply. Especially with COVID 19 running rampant in Korea, I feel like I have nothing to do all day in my apartment except be on social media and watch Korean dramas. I'm hoping to get some stuff done and be more analog. I guess I could be writing this out instead of typing it, but ... I guess I prefer typing as a medium versus writing. Probably anyone born in the mid-1980s or after would feel the same way. Plus, my handwriting is really terrible.

So, I will be on here often to say what I want to say. Somehow talking to oneself is probably frowned upon. Don't want to get into a habit of that, especially once the spring semester starts. Can you imagine if the person next to you just constantly talks to herself out loud? No bueno.

Unsurprisingly, I made this new blog quickly to express something ... but now I've forgotten. It was probably about COVID 19, no? Anyway, I'll write to you again later.

*~Lili~*