I want YOU...I want you so ba-a-a-ad...

There have been several moments in my life where I have thought, “Wow, this could be in a movie.” But never have I felt like I was in a movie more than I did yesterday at my required-for-an-alien-card government health check.

Mr. Kim, who we can only accurately describe as looking like the Korean mafia, rolls up to E.L.C. in the school van to take Amber, Chris, and I to the hospital for our health checks. This is a big day because a completed health check means we can be issued our alien cards and alien cards mean we can finally get Internet at our apartments! Wa-hoo! Now Mr. Kim may look like a mafia man but in reality he’s quite friendly. His English is very bad but he always tries. As we are driving he points at himself and says, “Help,” then points at me, Amber, and Chris and says, “Today.” Initially thinking HE needed help with something, I then realized that he was trying to reassure us he was here to help us today. Oh, really? Wonderful. :)

We arrive at the hospital, follow Mr. Kim to a waiting room area and sit as he is handed a pile of papers from the receptionist. Handing us each a few forms all in Korean he points to the highlighted boxes and hands us a pen seeming to forget that we don’t read Korean. “Ah, Mr. Kim? What might this say?” You can see panic on his face as he carefully responds and points to one box, “Name…” Great, got it. The next box, “Address.” We don’t know our addresses so Mr. Kim writes something (I think it was the school address). Next, “Umm, ah shit…number?” he says. Phone number? Nope. Passport number? Nope. Birthday? Nope. Visa number? After so many scribbles we are still not sure what number they were actually intending us to write on our forms but eventually something must have been correct.

Then the exam started. It was exactly like that scene in Across the Universe when Max goes in for his army health check. I was directed from station to station, room to room. First height and weight, then eye check, then hearing, then some x-rays, then I was hooked up to some strange machine (Chris thinks it was an EKG?), then back out to the lobby where I was handed a Dixie cup, pointed to the bathroom, peed under the pressure of a ticking clock, then back out to the lobby where blood was drawn (with everyone waiting looking on), then immediately following there was a woman checking my teeth. And then it was done. Total time for everything: 1 hour.

We all walked out of the hospital together. Without skipping a beat Mr. Kim pulled out a pack of cigs and politely offered us one, we declined, had a good hearty laugh about the irony of it all and back to reality we returned...