WARNING: The following paragraph chiefly consists of a somewhat poetic account of my grapples with my bike. So perhaps some of you might want to skip to the next paragraph (which is probably 50 lines down...I got kind of carried away...). So the front derailleur on my bike hasn't been as cooperative as I would have liked in the past few months - even in the States, I think it had its limitations, but I'm sure I messed it up a bit more when I put the bike back together, especially after it had been in the bike box for 2 weeks (poor bike...). I have been toiling with it for the past few weeks, trying to effectively manipulate the limit screws and the angle of the derailleur, etc, but with no significant avail. I mean, the bike was working, but the chain was rubbing against the FD (front derailleur) in about...maybe 8 or 9 gears out of the 18 that I have..not a pretty sound, so I would just try and avoid those gears, thus significantly limiting my ability to fully utilize the bike. So, my affinity for mechanically oriented activities and further desire to triumph over any obstacle that may prevent me from riding my bike in the way it was meant to be ridden finally convinced me to try and fix the problem. So I tried and tried (let me just state that if the limit screws had been labeled this would not have happened - I have faith in my basic-to-moderate bike mechanic abilities) to figure out the intrinsic nature of the FD, but (pathetically) I could not figure it out to the extent that was necessary. Amongst all of this, I somehow managed to cripple the bike even further by annihilating the function of the FD (which is to move the chain from the big chain ring to the small chain ring, assuming the bike only has two chainrings). GREAT. So now I only have the use of the small chain ring, and furthermore, the chain is still rubbing while in 3-4 of the 9 gears which can be utilized by only using the small chainring. I still have not done my riding for the day... So I took a break, got a little frustrated, and decided that I was going to just ride and then try and fix it after. But my curiosity and excitability dominated my desire to ride with a sub-standard drive train, so I tried again to figure it out. After a bit I thought, hey - if I just remove the FD completely, at least I will have the full function of all 9 sprockets in the back, even though I will be limited to only one chainring in the front (those who are not following me, just take my word for it that this is an ingenius idea...at least for my brain in comparison to how it normally functions...I still thought it was pretty clever though...). So I go to take off the FD, and...realized that I had not spacially thought this through...because you cannot remove the FD unless you also remove the chain. Makes sense, because, WHY WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO TAKE OFF THE FD. So I think, fine, I'll remove the chain. I have a masterlink (I think, either that or something close to that), which means that I should be able to remove that link with my hands, rather than having to use a tool to take apart the chain. However, I could not get the masterlink off - I thought it might be stuck. So I decided to use my chain tool to remove the chain. Here, my ingenuity stopped dead in its tracks and starts to rapidly retreat, for I decided to try and take the pin out of the MASTERLINK (for those who are still reading this and don't know what that means, it means this is an idea somewhat equivalent to the following situation: you have 26 t-shirts, 25 of them are white and one of them is brown. You also have a royal-blue marker. Your goal is to draw something of insignificance (the number 5) on one of the shirts and have it come out in a color such that when asked what color the number 5 is, any observer would say "blue[, of course]". But instead of choosing the simplest and most effective method to achieve this goal, you choose the brown shirt, because it had a cute little monkey on the sleeve...basically what I'm trying to say is that choosing the masterlink was a horrifically idiotic thing to do). Since there is no reason why anyone would ever try to use a tool to take the pin out of a master link (for the master link exists for the sole purpose of eliminating the necessity for using a tool to remove the chain), it is only natural that the link would break, thus altering the status of my bike from partially functional (and still acceptable to train with) to 100% dysfunctional. YAY ME. Bring on the tears. Enter comfort food.
You know, its strange. If I get lazy and decide I don't want to ride one day, and thus take a day off which I did not schedule, it doesn't bother me too much. But if I break my bike and cannot ride, its like my world is rapidly falling apart...particularly in Korea where I can't be assured that I will be able to take my bike into a shop and know that they will be able to fix it due to my inability to properly express myself and my (bicycle) deficiencies. It makes sense, obviously, because one scenario involves conscious decision-making and the other involves complete helplessness, but still. Grrrr.
Wow, that took way too long to write. I think sometimes my vocabulary gets more pretentious (which is unintended...is that even possible to be unintendedly pretentious?) when I get frustrated with my bike. I apologize for that... :) ANYWAY. So I legit almost cried Sunday...I did have a few bodily convulsions from internal sobs, and I definitely went out to buy some chocolate and other sugary things to console myself, as well as to make up for the calories that I would not be burning. I hate how that happens...this came at a particularly bad time too becasue I just signed up for IM China two days before this happened, and I was all starting to get into the mindset of training like whoa, and then this happens. Hence the sobbing. I didn't know if it would take two weeks to get this fixed...but actually, although I was scared to go to the shop myself with a lack of proficiency in Korean, this is something that would have forced me to get off my high horse and submit to the feelings of inadequecy and embarrassment.
Anyway, I canceled my Korean lesson on Monday so I could take the bike to the shop - bike/IM stuff = #1 priority (aside from work, of course). But of course, something else came up - which was that horrific bodily paid that I occasionally get in my stomach (the one I got junior year in college which resulted in my off-campus relocation...if anyone remembers that...). It wasn't as bad as in college but it was still bad enough that I couldn't stand up and my tear ducts were filled to the brim (damn, twice in two days, that's plain ridiculous). I was considering going to the hospital, since I didn't have much medicine with me for this problem, but I didn't want to resort to the hospital unless absolutely necessary. I'm not a fan of wasted time, and I consider that wasted time if I am not in a state of emergency (which I nearly was - I was getting feverish and dizzy...haha oh man...). So the teachers took me to the nurse's office where I took some more medicine ( I had taken a bunch of rolaids and some other related medicine in my office once I hit the floor from the pain) and laid down on a bed with a red heat-lamp radiating over my stomach. After about 30 minutes of being in the nurse's office, the pain started to subside, thankfully. But now my whole preperatory mindset for taking my bike to the shop has been extinguished, and for me, the mindset is 85% of the game when there is something of a stressful nature (of any degree) to be done. So I go home, don't take my bike to the shop...ugh.
So Monday I didn't get any exercise in (save 10 minutes of Pilates, but if I don't get in at least 30 minutes then I count it as an off day - actually even under an hour is pretty much an off day, depending on intensity), and with the bike problem compiled with the stomach madness and other personal frustrations, I can safely say that Monday was the worst day I have had yet in Korea. But for the worst day I have had in 2+ months, it still wasn't too bad. Definitely not comparable to some of the bad days that I have had in the States, ha. Actually, Monday I also started to discover my no-bullshit attitude in class (excuse the language, but that word is essential in portraying the actuality of the attitude). We continued with tests for 6th grade at Allak, and my focused-determination attitude of IM combined with my frustration of the day before caused me to unleash the fury. Or at least as close as I have come to that in class. So at the beginning of class, my co teacher and I would go through the flashcards that we were going to use for the speaking tests so that the kids could practice one last time, and so that we could give all of them a chance to get 100%. But when my turn came to go over what I would be testing, I gave very little mercy. Normally I would shush them and maybe wait a minute until they quieted down. But this time I got up there, said, OK - gave them a few seconds, and when they didn't shush up, I just continued to speak. I said, "when you come to me, I will ask you, 'How was your vacation?' And you will answer, 'it was good', it was great,' 'it was so-so', 'it was fun,' 'it was not fun.' You can say anything. BUT YOU MUST SAY SOMETHING. IF YOU DO NOT ANSWER THIS QUESTION CORRECTLY, I WILL GIVE YOU A ZERO. (The kids start to hush up a bit now but still are kind of noisy) So, I will ask you, 'How was your vacation?' And you will say...(pause for kids to give response)." About maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the class were responding at first, and then I repeated it one more time, emphasizing that I would 'take points off' if they did not answer that question correctly. There were still some kids who did not hear what I was saying because they were talking, but I told them I would take points off twice, and I had them practice the answers to that question three times, so I don't feel bad at all. When they came to see me, if they did not know what to say in response to that question (which, all they really have to do is understand what I am asking, because they all know how to say "good" - I would have accepted that, even though it was not in a full sentence), then I would usually give them the answer in Korean - like say "it was fun" in Korean, for them, and then say, 'say that in English'...which most of them did not do...so I gave them a disappointed face (with a smile but still I made my point) and took off points. Take that noisy 6th graders. Just kidding. But seriously, I will not waste time out of the 40 minutes that I have with each class every week to hush them up anymore. I feel that I am fair, and in order to be fair, I cannot let them waste time in English class yelling and screaming and talking to their friends in Korean. That would not be fair to them for me to let them do that, and sacrifice the time they have to learn English with me as well as the money that their school pays me to teach them. Sorry. Game over. Time to learn.
Hmmm...so there is more to tell about school Tuesday with my last classes for 3rd grade for this semester, as well as my adventure bringing my bike to the shop...but I have to jump on the trainer before bed. So I will continue tomorrow... :)
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