I've been waking up in the middle of the night since I got back. It's 5 in the morning now. Been up since three. I will go back to bed before dawn, but I've got the alarm set to wake me up at 7:30 a.m., regardless. Last night I was up at 3 a.m., went to bed again at 5:30 a.m. Next thing I knew, I was looking at a clock display that said 2:30 p.m. Slept right through all that open study time and even through my class. Was up just in time to go to work and go buy groceries before going to bed again.

Something catastrophic has happened at Dave's office in Korea. The day after I left, the woman he hired to replace him when he leaves in March fell down a flight of concrete stairs, busting off some teeth, breaking an arm, and lacerating her leg to the bone. His other coworkers rushed her to a nearby hospital where she had emergency surgery to reconnect the tissues in her leg. She will be out of the office for 6 to 8 weeks. We will not move from Korea in March, in all likelihood. The news is devastating and terrible and unbelievable. Incomprehensible, after all this time. We can only think of ourselves, it's true. I feel bad for her, but to be honest I'm just 1) so glad it wasn't Dave, and 2) extremely upset about how this has screwed up our plans. Dave thinks she'll quit, in which case they will make him stay even longer to find another replacement. Apparently, the nearest hospital was a small one still stuck in the third world. He said the conditions are atrocious and she is terrified, as she has lived in the US and is familiar with 1st world medical care. He said the sick and dying and bleeding were lying in the hallways and the place was filthy. They have tried to transfer her but the large hospitals in Seoul won't take her for fear of malpractice. The company is paying for her medical expenses, of course. I figure this is their just dessert (or desserts?) for not heeding Dave's warnings about the hazardous conditions of the structure in which they work. He's been trying to get them to relocate the office since we arrived nearly 3 years ago, but the economic benefits of a poorly built structure have been more attractive to them. Now they will pay for their neglect in the form of rehabilitation, reconstructive surgery, and Disability.