Since I didn't document my experience getting vaccinations last time I went abroad except to refer indirectly and sarcastically to the fear of death that travel clinics pound you over the head with, I failed to recall my previous adverse reaction to the Hepatitis A vaccine, round 1, and thus failed to report this to the nurses at the UCI clinic, and thus got blindsided with a fainting fit in round 2 yesterday.

It was embarrassing because in the middle of a sentence in which I was bragging to the needle-wielding nurse about how I don't mind shots or needles and hardly ever have adverse reactions to anything, I started feeling very strange.  Namely, my lips started tingling.  In a vain (and somewhat random) attempt to counter this, I asked her a question about the nursing school she attended.  In the middle of her answer, I interrupted: "I'm sorry, I'm dizzy, I'm going to put my head down.  Go on, sorry for interrupting."

And then in the middle of her repeating herself, I suddenly realized that I was going to pass out.  I don't remember too much after that except that suddenly four nurses were in the room trying to cajole me into transferring myself into a wheelchair before I lost it completely, and I was mumblingly arguing with them that moving meant vomiting and vomiting was out of the question.

Have you ever greyed out?  It's very distinctive.  Your eyes are open but everything is turning white.  Your ears are open but everything is turning tinny.  I didn't actually go all the way, possibly out of sheer stubbornness.  I made it onto a cot and lay there until the world came back.

I am told I spent the whole time apologizing for being rude.

In happier vaccination-related news, being vaccinated against typhoid fever means street food is a go!  It's too bad that they only serve silkworm larvae in the cold months in Korea, because any food that 100% of the people I've asked describe as something along the lines of "the most taste-bud-unfriendly and olfactorily insulting snack imaginable" deserves a hearty try.  

The only place I draw the line is at that live baby octopus dish.  You know, the one where people die every year because the still living tentacles grasp at their esophagi while trying to escape.  First of all, octopi are too smart to be eaten alive without massive amounts of totally justifiable guilt.  Second of all, death by tentacle-grabbing-esophagus.