The end of my xanga days:


http://brianhkang.tumblr.com/

*edit: I read this blog sometime after I wrote it and I realized how morbid and emo I sound. So read at your own discretion haha*


Hello people. It's been a while since I last posted, but I'm in a writing mood right now, so here you go. I have a ton of things I want to write about, but for today I guess I'll just update on what I have been doing in Costa Rica. Well, I started "volunteering" at a rehabilitation hospital around three weeks ago, and basically all I do there is shadow this one doctor dude in physical therapy. I thought it was going to be really boring and become a drag, but somewhere along the way, I began to enjoy it--at least somewhat haha. There are two main things I learned from working at this place. They are:

 1) Doctors are mentally, physically, AND emotionally challenged on a daily basis.
      I have to say that these doctors I've been shadowing are quite admirable for multiple reasons. One is that they always keep a smile on their face while working. This might not seem like much, but think about the circumstances here-- these people work their butt off every single day for a bunch of ill people that most likely won't be able to fully function ever again, whether it be mentally or physically. I'll get to the patients themselves later on the blog, but it's amazing how happy the doctors are around this place-- always laughing, always giving these slowly dying people at least some form of hope and joy.
     Also, for many of the physicians in United States, they don't have to deal with the same patients over and over again; for the doctors here, they come to work knowing that they'll be treating the same sickly person. I guess what I'm trying to get at is the fact that the workers here mostly deal with fatally ill people who are, for the most part, going to die no matter what kind of treatment they get. If I were in the doctors' shoes, I wouldn't be able to help but think, "Why am I doing this? Whatever I do isn't going to help Person A suddenly recover from their neck-down paralysis or fix Person B's mental illness. What's the point?" And yet, they press on every day, working with that smile, that hopeful expression that maybe one of these patients might be able to live a normal life again.  Doctors not only have to endure the long shifts or the complicated surgeries, but they also have to learn to control their emotions in front of these people who are suffering.

2) Life is unfair
     This part is hard. I guess every Christian has to answer the question, "Why would God let so much suffering to happen in this world?" And then we usually spit out the same hackneyed response: "We, as sinful creatures, won't learn our lesson until God smacks these issues and problems in front of us. That's the only way we can learn and become more like Jesus. We suffer to rejoice in God." Sounds nice and easy right? Well, how about those people who get hit by cars and become immobilized for the rest of their lives? Or those who wake up every day knowing that there's a degenerative virus slowly and painfully sapping away their mind and body? Or those who have to learn how to live with the left side of their face paralyzed? All three of these stories relate to a patient I met at the rehabilitation center; tell them to rejoice after what happened to them.
    Volunteering at the hospital has definitely put my perspectives in order; most people, including me, think we're suffering when we bomb our chem prelim or get rejected by a girl you like or don't have enough money to get the latest *insert personal object of value here* To an extent, yes that is suffering, but remember, there are other people who are suffering and struggling to survive. I would say that most of us are off pretty well. We're the lucky ones.
    Words can't describe the pain that these patients have had to suffer. Some of them just have this lifeless expression that seems to tell everyone that they're ready to give up on life. Others are still fighting, but you can tell that they're not going to win. And the saddest thing is that many of them suffered from an activity that any normal person would do. And not only that, there is so much irony regarding many of these problems that you might seriously consider whether God has a sick mind. For example, there is this one guy who got swept up by a wave in the ocean and got smashed on a rock, resulting in a waist-down mini-paralysis. He can barely move his legs, and you want to know how he's learning to regain control? Swimming therapy. Let's move on to another lady named Dania, a young pregnant lady in her mid-to-late 20's who got in an automobile accident; in one fell swoop, she was robbed of her front five teeth, the baby fetus, control over her body, and her sanity. Now, she's a twitchy, mentally-retarded patient who's struggling with a psychological illness where she keeps trying to put her hand inside her vagina-- the doctors say that she's still searching for her lost baby. Dania can't be spoon-fed either because she's too jerky, so she gets fed through a device that sends nutrients straight through her belly-button, the same way a fetus does inside a mother's womb-- irony at its best, wouldn't you say?
   It's easy to talk about suffering when you're a healthy, happy college student in a middle-class family living in the US. Imagine trying to preach the Gospel and tell these patients that God intended to inflict these painful injuries upon them. Can you really rejoice in your suffering when your body is nothing but a piece of flabby, dead skin or when you're desperately holding on to what's left of your deteriorating sanity? With God's help, clearly yes, but anything short of that won't get the job done.
   If you are sane enough to study for your orgo exam, then thank God. If you can go to the bathroom without assistance, then thank God. If you can move your arms and legs without screaming in pain, then thank God, Because you have been spared the wrath and judgment that we all deserve. Life is unfair-- get over it, and thank God that He's given us the fair life.

Boy. This is going to be an interesting 8 weeks.

I'm not going to lie. My first day in Costa Rica was... awesome and really disappointing at the same time. I remember looking out the window of my airplane and just marveling at the green shades of forests stretching out for miles and miles; it seriously reminded me of shigol country where my grandma lives. Even as my volunteer roommates and I were being driven to the program house, I couldn't help but relate the hustle and bustle of the downtown San Jose area to the big cities in Korea. Even the drivers were freaking dangerous and crazy! (okay maybe not as reckless as those Korean taxi drivers, but it was pretty close). I was pretty excited at this point.

My first impression of Grant, my coordinator, was that of a shy and kind of dorky kind of guy. Turns out he's an alcoholic. haha. I guess I don't have a problem with that, but the fact that he just took all the volunteers out to the bar to get drunk and "have fun" kind of disturbs me. Since the legal drinking age here is 18, it's technically not illegal or anything, but I still feel like he shouldn't be endorsing people to drink. He's actually not a bad guy at all--he's super exuberant and makes sure everyone feels comfortable. Honestly though, I do feel like an oddball out here because I'm the only one who chooses not to drink-- it was really obvious that everyone else thought I was crazy when I told them that I didn't drink and I didn't want to go to the bar. That made me a bit sad.

Also, another thing that kind of irked me was when I was told by Grant that I would spend the first four weeks here just studying Spanish, then go to the rehabilitation center the last four weeks to volunteer. So basically all I'll be doing is... learn Spanish for a month. That's it. It's not exactly what I had in mind. Hopefully things won't turn out the way I'm imagining it to be right now.

I know most of this blog has been a bit negative, but I am still excited for the next 55 days. I'm sure the anxiety and the uncertainty of what's to come has affected my early impressions of my time here, and it's not really fair to judge it solely based on that. Still, I know there's going to be a lot of temptations and judging that I'm going to have to fight against, but I trust that God knows what He was doing when He clearly made it obvious that I come to Costa Rica over the summer.

Please pray for me guys. I'm going to need it.