Eeewww...

Monsoon season is here.

Before coming here, I was somewhat nervous about what the summer in South Korea would be like. I had heard that summers in Korea were very hot and very humid. Summer is my favorite season. I love the hot weather, the beach, sunglasses, flip flops, the beach, iced coffee, barbecues, and I even kind of like the beach. But I CAN"T STAND humidity. Actually, it's okay if it's at the beach. Because, well, it's the beach.. With all of that water, humidity is inevitable, but the breeze totally makes it okay. And anyway, it's the beach... so.. yeah. Did I mention that I like the beach?

It actually hasn't been as hot here as I thought it would be. But humidity? GROSS. It tends to hover around 90-100%. And as much as I love the rain (shhh.. don't tell), I do NOT like the rain when it is 85 degrees out. Today I was walking around in shorts, a tank top, and flip flops... in the rain... carrying an umbrella. So of course, my feet are getting wet, I am in immediate danger of eating pavement (flip flops are not built for traction - at least not the $4 (actually ￦4,000) flip flops that you buy at - you guessed it - the beach), and my arms are getting wet because the rain can't follow the rules and keeps sneaking under the umbrella. So I have that nice, cozy, cold, wet, sticky, hot feeling. It's great. I'm a really big fan. Not.

But I can deal with all of this. My A/C works well and I'm quite comfy in my little home. I ought to be - my utilities cost me $100 bucks more last month than they did the month before - I can only attribute this to the A/C.

So what's my real issue? Clearly I'm not a fan of humidity. Or monsoon season. But I've just stated that I can deal, so what's the point?

Cockroaches. I CAN'T DEAL WITH COCKROACHES. Seriously. I can deal with a lot of things, but I am TERRIFIED of cockroaches. I'm not kidding. I realize that the extent of my fear may be a bit irrational. Although cockroaches are gross, they probably won't kill me.* Also, I am much bigger than them and if I could overcome my fear, I would have a fighting chance of killing one. But my attempts at being logical are not helping. I live in constant fear that I will discover one in my apartment. Just writing this is giving me the heebie jeebies and I want to climb up on something where I know I'm safe. I don't like spiders, bees, or most other bugs and creepy crawly things but I can deal with them. If there's nobody else around to do it for me, I'll kill the nasty little things. But I'm afraid if I ever find a cockroach in my apartment, I'll be more inclined to just move out. I don't know how much longer I can talk about this, or I won't be able to sleep tonight. I'm totally serious here, guys. You know me, I've held snakes before, caught lizards, pet a tarantula once (this wasn't a pet tarantula, it was one a friend found in Mexico - admittedly, petting it was ill-advised), killed many spiders and bees, but I don't do cockroaches.

I'm scared because I feel like there isn't much I can do to protect myself. I know there are precautions I can take that will help, but I can't really prevent cockroaches from getting in my place. It's like when everyone around you gets sick, you think it might be a good idea to take vitamins, and get plenty of rest, and eat healthfully. And it is a good idea. And maybe it will keep you from getting sick, but there's no guarantee. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO GUARANTEE THAT YOU WON'T GET SICK.

Part of what has me so paranoid is that last week, there were a few cockroach sightings at work. One of them was at my desk. Fortunately, I wasn't sitting at my desk at the time. But my friend Emma (who sits next to me) said that a cockroach was running around on my desk and hers. Then they discovered that it had LAID EGGS UNDER MY KEYBOARD. Yeah. Really. Suffice it to say that I cleaned my entire desk area (fortunately, someone else cleaned up the eggs and cockroach remains first) and for the rest of the day, whenever I was at my desk, I was sitting with my legs crossed in my chair and my iPod turned up to drown out the fear.

Writing this at night was not a good idea. Now I need to go to sleep but I'm too creeped out. Maybe if I clean my living room (which is also my summer bedroom - the A/C is in the living room) while watching some TV, I'll be able to sleep in an hour. If I have roach dreams tonight, I'm going to be VERY unhappy.

* According to this website, "Cockroaches can carry pathogens that cause asthma, allergies, abscesses, boils, bubonic plague, diarrhea, dysentery, gastroenteritis, intestinal infections, leprosy, lesions, typhoid fever, urinary tract infections and more."

Visitation or infestation?

Two days ago, I found what I thought was a large beetle in my bedroom. Now, insects are not generally something that I enjoy, but they don't cause me to run screaming from the room either. On this occasion, I decided to capture it and set it free on my balcony. But before you start to think that I 'm one of those really humane people that couldn't stand to hurt a fly, I'm not. I would kill a fly. I had two reasons for not stomping this particular bug. First of all, it was quite large- I don't mind squishing bugs, but I'm not particularly fond of hearing them crunch. Second of all, it was lying on its back unable to go anywhere, so the old glass & paper trick was a cinch (You know the one, you put a glass on top of the bug and then gradually slide the glass sideways until it and the bug are on top of a piece of paper, and presto - your bug is contained!

Once I had the little bugger trapped, I took pictures. I'm sure this does not come as a surprise to anyone, as that is typically my reaction in any situation. A few examples? I hit my head quite hard, it was bleeding and I had a mild concussion, so I felt that the logical course of action was- to take pictures. The bus doors closed on my friend Kelly's backpack and she couldn't get it free, so being the helpful friend that I am- I took pictures. At a fondue party, the fondue pot caught on fire- you guessed it- I took pictures. But I digress. Back to the story at hand.

Yet again, my fetish for taking pictures has come in handy. The next day, I showed my friend Kelly the picture of this "beetle" that I found. She told me it was a cockroach. I fainted. No not really, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I felt a little queasy. I realized that the chances of that being the only roach in the flat were slim to none. We don't have cockroaches where I grew up, which is why I was unable to identify it. Last summer, however, I had ants in my flat- little red ants. I had them for about a month and a half. When my landlords started receiving reports of ants on the premises, they decided to spray the perimeter- that only made things worse. Instead of being repelled from the building, they swarmed inside in an effort to get away from the sprayed area. Not fun. So then we were given ant traps. This helped a little, but they never totally went away.

At any rate, the concept of a roach infestation does not exactly warm my heart. My roommate, Elida, is convinced that it was one of our neighbor's roaches that sneaked in the front door. I hope she's right. This was the first time we'd seen a roach and it was full-grown. We're not taking any chances, though. We bought roach traps today and set them up in our flat. Hopefully we won't see any more of them.