Note: in the interest of not putting everyone to sleep…because I only have like 3 pictures from this week…I’m sharing some pictures from this same week last year.

Monday, March 31

I went outside today to a follow-up with the surgeon.

The weeks just keep on coming, amiright?? Today’s big outing was to the hospital for surgery follow-up…more eyeball tests, etc. The dr said the retina attachement is healing well, but prescribed another week of “stay home, face down.” I asked when my vision would clear up in that eye…SIX MONTHS. SIX MONTHS?? Yes, SIX MONTHS.

I’m pretty sure that detail was not in the orientation brochure.

In addition to the gas bubble, which is causing the distortion, there’s also some kind of silicone that is…injected? put in? I’m not sure how it got in there, but it’s there, it’s to help the attachment process, but in the menatime it keeps the vision Very Blurry (imagine holding a piece of wax paper in front of your eye. Yes, technically you can se through it – but really only amorphous shapes and colors. That’s my right eye right now). And it stays in until she takes it out – AFTER SIX MONTHS. First of all, CRAP. Second of all, I won’t even still BE here in six months – she said we’ll figure that out. And when the right eye is all done, I want to get the cataract taken care of in my LEFT eye, so I need time for that, too…and The Clock is Ticking!

So that was a lot of information for one day. I go back to her again next Monday.

Tuesday, April 1

One day I turned on my computer and the desktop was in complete chaos. CHAOS.

I don’t even have an April Fool’s joke in me…everything feels like a joke these days, so…

So since I was “allowed” out for two hours yesterday to go to the hospital, I feel I am now allowed two hours every day…to be face up and go somewhere if I want. Someplace EASY. I thought I’d go to a nearby-ish park where I know some cherry trees are already bloomimg. I went to sleep last night at 10 after figuring out my time and bus. I woke up at 6am, which was too early, so I shut my eyes again Just For a Few Minutes…and woke up at 1pm!!! What is up with me – I legit feel like I could just sleep all night all day.

I don’t do anything mid-day, so cherry tree park was out…and instead I spent 2 hours doing my remote work, which, mercifully, has been nonexistent for the past couple weeks. But they just sent me an assignment last night so I tackled that. S L O W L Y. Ugh. I switched my laptop display to this high contrast deal but it changed like the structure of everything, too…so as much as it’s a help, it’s also an annoyance.

After that I lay back down and finished an audiobook, Crying in H-Mart. I’ve started it A MILLION TIMES but I always fall asleep and then can’t find where I left off…after 3-4 tries over the past few months I decided to just get through it, whether I sleep thru a couple chapters or not. I think it’s her voice. It’s very sameintonationnomatterwhatshe’ssaying. Anyway, it’s DONE and I can finally put it behind me and move on. Audiobooks have been a lifesaver the past few weeks!

Wednesday, April 2

Saw this on someone’s IG. These are my people.

I don’t think I did much of anything this day…slept, sat around, started a new (so far meh) audiobook. Thought about things. My immediate future plans are perhaps morphing…

Thursday, April 3

Cherry trees on the other side of the lake today.

Feeling a little more human today than I have in awhile. I slept late but then felt like getting up and being a little productive….so am alternating face-down time with short bursts of upright time and I did a little remote work (THAT’S slow going), straightened my room a bit, organized all my medical paperwork to give to the dean to show I was legitimately out all these days for medical reasons.

Cherry trees from the other side of the lake 2024

From the kitchen on my floor I can see the cherry trees on the other side of the lake are blooming and I may just take a little walk over there later. And get some ice cream on the way back.

PS: cherry trees and ice cream did not happen.

Friday, April 4

This week last year I had dinner with my stupid friend Hyunggun at the ginseng chicken soup restaurant. It was fun but he’s stupid.

Ginseng wine.

Every night I go to bed earlier and earlier cuz I’m just tired of sitting in my limited set of allowed postures. It’s 7:50pm and this is as long as I can hold out.

It’s been two weeks since I’ve been to class and today is the first day I got a message from a teacher saying the midterm starts today, am I not coming to class?? I didn’t notify each teacher individually (there are four, I don’t have all their emails, in fact, one I’ve not even met yet) – I sort of thought the dean would have passed the info along, but I guess not.

Another day in paradise here…woke up around 6 (I mean, I was probably asleep by 9, so), picked up my groceries from downstairs, did a load of laundry, had three square meals, took pills and applied drops…lay down mid-day to continue listening to meh audiobook…did some remote work…

Thrilling.

Saturday, April 5

Last year I only got to see the cherry trees blooming on campus. This year so far I haven’t even been able to see THAT! The season is SO SHORT. Guh.

The excitement of the day was walking to the convenience store next door for grapefruit juice…then going to the OTHER convenience store (just about as close but in the other direction) because I’d forgotten to get a cup of ice. In the rain.

Sunday, April 6

More of last year’s trees.

With life as boring as it is right now, the only thing I really look forward to is FOOD…and even though I have plenty of groceries with which to MAKE food, sometimes having a food delivery to look forward to is….needed. I had pasta one night, Dunkin Donuts yesterday, and a coffee and pastry this morning.

ChatGPT and I spent much of the afternoon trying to figure out my insurance situation once I’m no longer covered by the Korean national health insurance. It starts out not too bad, but then, oh, you have a pre-existing condition? That will be extra. Oh, you’re already in the country in which you want to purchase insurance? That will be extra. Oh, you’re going to be 2 weeks in the US before your Medicare starts? Extra. You want a low deductible? Extra. SHEESH. I’ve got it narrowed down to two companies, but now I have to TALK TO THEM. On the PHONE.

My other problem right now is, in trying to make my computer easier for me to see when my eyes are not interested in seeing, it set everything to black background (I can live with that – I hate it, but I can live with it for now) but it also…changes the formats of every web page, and puts white box frames around EVERYTHING. My search field is pale pale grey and I can’t see AT ALL the white text in there. I sent my Excel spreadsheet over to payroll at my remote job and they were like it’s just a blank white field. Guh. And I can’t figure out how to set it back to NORMAL. I THINK I went through systems>accessibility, but nothing there is setting display back to default. I’ve tried contrast themes, but none of those are the default, and there’s no like “turn all contrast themes off” button. I would rather not have to do a system restore back a couple weeks cuz who knows what else I’m losing then, plus, those just always scare me. Can anyone else think of what I could have done, so that I can undo it?? I’ve tried googling “set my windows 11 display back to default” and a) their steps don’t exactly match what’s on my computer, and b) what I TRY to follow is not changing anything. This has nothing to do with resolution or text size. I didn’t change those and they’re both set to “recommended.”

help.

And there you have another boring week in my room in South Korea. I go to the dr tomorrow for another follow-up. I’m hoping for some kind of good news, like, “you can leave the house, you don’t need to stay face down anymore, but you shouldn’t go back to class yet. And we have magic glasses for you so you can see.”

Odds of that??