Frustrations in America

You know, I have so many friends dying to come back to the States, but for me I see the states as a place of endless frustrations and expenses that I don't have to worry about while living in Seoul. I've been home only a week or so, and I'm already so frustrated with certain points of life that I can't get back to Korea soon enough.

1: Lack of health insurance. I'm sick. I don't know what's wrong, but my asthma is kicking up something terrible, I have a hacking cough, and my nose is an endless faucet. No idea what it could be but it's been going on for a week and a half. But I refuse to go to the doctor because I have no health insurance. It's not even the doctor's appointment that is so expensive, but if I need drugs or tests on top of the doctor's visit, it's going to get too expensive. Even trickier is the fact that I live in Massachusetts, the only state where it is mandatory to have health insurance. I love that idea, but I don't plan on staying that long and I don' t know if I can get health insurance for just one month. I have two choices if I want to get health insurance. I can get the cheap plans, but it will cover nothing and I might as well just pay out of pocket, or I can get the expensive ones and pay very little IF I actually need to go to the doctor. What is a person to do? I miss Korea, where the national health plan covers just about everything.

2: Transportation. Relatively, by American standards, my house is in a very good area to get public transportation. By Korean standards it is very low. Today I had to take the bus home from Macy's for the first time since I was in middle school. It took me 2 hours to get home. It took me 15 minutes to drive on the way to work. Why didn't I drive home? Well, I drive with my mom to work, since she works at Macy's too, and we start at the same time. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I finish at 10:00, where as my mom finishes at 2:30. So, I either have to wait for her at the mall for 4.5 hours, or I can take the bus home.. and get home 2 hours before she does. Some options. I had to catch the bus from the mall, to Quincy station. That only runs once an hour. Then from there I caught another bus, which also runs once an hour. And wouldn't it figure that I just missed one bus and had to sit for nearly an hour for the next one to arrive. Then that bus did a zigzag tour of Quincy and my town until finally dropping me 1 minute from my house. I think tomorrow, I'm going to ride the bus to the train, take the train to JFK/UMass, change from JFK/UMass to the Ashmont line, and take the trolley to my house that way. Yes, it may take longer.. maybe, but at least I'll be inside instead of outside in the freezing cold waiting for a bus.

3: Home. I won't go into personal details, but living at home isn't exactly a peaceful existence for me. One problem I need to get over at home is the cat. Our cat is very sweet, but I'm allergic to her. It could be the cause of one of my symptoms, though I was definitely sick in San Francisco too, so I can't blame it all on her.