Monday, April 21

I didn’t do much during the day. I’m slowly settling into a my new “no school” routine. Sleep til I don’t want to anymore. Breakfast. Work on blog post, photo editing, social media til lunch…then do 1-2 hours of remote work…lay down and listen to audio book, maybe dozing a bit…dinner. I’m trying to not push myself to Do Something every day. And by Doing Something, I mean Going Somewhere.

I’m overall feeling sort of low energy these days. Not exactly sure why. Age? Depression? Frustration with the injury merry-go-round? Not consistently eating well? Probably a combination of all of the above…but the one I can actively do something about is eating, so I’m making a point of getting enough protein on a daily basis. This is surprisingly difficult when you don’t have unlimited access to a kitchen and only a very small fridge in your room.

And you’re basically lazy, ha ha.

Anyway, when I was in the dryer room this morning I noticed some pink on this side of the lake – the opposite side’s cherry trees had finished blooming over a week ago. But I’d forgotten that it’s a different variety on this side. A later-blooming, double-flowered variety. So I took a little walk around sunset to take some pictures.

I used to prefer the double-flowering varieties cuz the flowers are fuller and floofier. But after seeing so many single flowering varieties here in Korea, I came to appreciate their delicateness and grace. And now the double-flowered trees seem almost clunky to me!

Tuesday, April 22

I got mail!

Didn’t sleep well as the room was quite warm (the ac line isn’t turned on til late May) and I felt some chest congestion coming on. By the time I finally got up in the morning I had a slight fever and was all clammy and uncomfortable. Fortunately I’d brought some cough and cold medicines (ie, symptom relievers) back from the US so I was able to sleep most of the day.

It’s nice being sick and feeling no obligation to be anywhere. It’s always a difficult choice when you don’t feel well but you know work will be harder for someone else if you’re not there. Or a teacher or boss is going to check on you and tell you to go to the doctor.

I’ve never really gotten behind the “if you’re sick, go to the doctor” philosophy. If I don’t feel well enough to go to work/school, then I don’t feel well enough to go sit in a doctor’s office. If I feel well enough to go to the doctor, I’m probably up to just going to work/school! When I’m SICK, I just want to stay in bed, resting, and staying as comfortable as I can in the peace of my own home.

I generally live by the 3-day rule. I think MOST illnesses will heal themselves over time. So, usually, only if I see no improvement by Day Three do I consider a visit to the doctor’s office. Exceptions are: clearly broken things (bones, etc.) and being incapicitated or in so much pain that you can’t do what you need or want to do.

Also, it was heavily raining all day so it was a good day to just stay home in bed.

Wednesday, April 23

All my life, Amaretto Di Saronno has been my liquer of choice. How am I only just now learning that since 2001 it has not been called Amaretto at all, but just DiSaronno??

Fever gone, chest hurts but is not unbearable.

Oh, but since I didn’t do a regular “life this week” post last week, let me just share the couple of things that did happen

On Wednesday I went to the therapist for a refill of welbutrin. He also prescribed me a few more “just in case” Xanax. I’d never used any of the first batch cuz the days I had the most anxiety were days when I was somewhere or doing something that didn’t seem like a good time to take a new medication….like right before my trip to the US, when I was driving the rental car from FL to SC, and when I was in the hospital for the eye surgery.

I did run into a building friend walking back home from the bus who I haven’t seen in weeks cuz I haven’t been going to class. We typically meet in the hallway during class breaks to chat / vent. She just had lasik so we got to compare uncomfortable eyeball stories. It was nice to talk to a human. Without going to class I’m pretty solitary here.

On Thursday I did think about going somewhere…but “somewhere” just ended up being the market and pharmacy. The pharmacy had neither of my prescriptions…and the market didn’t have a few of the things I’d gone for. BUT that little trip wiped me out. When I got home, DRENCHED, I took a quick cool shower then lay on the bed for two hours listening to my audiobook til I felt recovered enough to put away the groceries.

Other than that I really just stayed home and inside.

Thursday, April 24

Passed this on the way home from the hospital.

A trip to the hospital for a follow-up with the eye surgeon wiped me out and by noon I was back in my nightgown, wanting to just lay down with my audiobook.

Good news and bad news from the doctor…bad news: they thought they could make me glasses to help me read while I have this oil in my eye…but none of the lenses they tried made it better so glasses are out. Good news, they can take the oil out in two months (instead of 3, which was originally 6!) because the eye is healing well (which has no bearing on my vision, it just means the retina is reattaching well). AND, the “oil taking out surgery” can be done in one day with a local anaesthetic (you wanna talk anxiety!!!) and should only (“only” ha ha) cost about $800 without insurance (at that point I will probably no longer be on the Korean health insurance and the private insurance will not cover pre-existing conditions) (#foreshadowing). $800 is not GREAT, but I was afraid it was going to be THOUSANDS. And I’m down to only 2 kinds of eyedrops 4x a day (from 4). Woohoo.

Friday, April 25

I said to a friend earlier, I’m calling this period of time my “sleeping as much as I want to” era, and MAN, can I sleep! I feel like I’m catching up on a LIFETIME of missed sleep!

I’m in the “chest breaking up” phase of my cold so I just stayed home today and coughed alone (I’m sure I had an unenthusiastic partner in my next door neighbor, but…). Don’t need to take my coughing show on the road and torture everyone. Including myself. Ever since covid, I’m horrified to cough in public, so I try to hold it…which of course just makes you need to cough even more, so. Home I’ll be until the constant cough is gone.

Seems like a nice day out there.

Saturday, April 26

My eye is so funny. And by funny I mean extremely annoying. Thursday I really felt like there was definite improvement. There was no achiness and my vision seemed…less ridiculous. Then yesterday and today, bam, achey, red, weepy, and vision is REE. DICK. YOU. LUSS. What the heck? I had moved past the “keeping my right eye closed all the time so I almost have normal vision” phase and was sort of…by consciously sort of making both eyes go out of focus, I could get sort of a common denominator vision between the two eyes it was a little less…unsettling. But now the two eyes are SO disparate, it’s like one is a 1 and one is a 10 and they just can’t play nicely together AT. ALL.

I think it’s a sign to take a nap.

Sunday, April 27

Wow, last day of the week. Another contender for most boring blog post ever.

Why are you even still here?? Surely there is some paint drying somewhere that you could go watch. That would HAVE to be more entertaining than this.

Slept late. Eye is still super weird (it’s the like the dr saying it was healing well jinxed it) but I need to leave the room and food and liquid. So I had to put on clothes. Yesterday my big achievement was I showered. I’m trying to buoy myself up for doing a couple hours of remote work by going downstairs for a coffee. There’s a pay coffee machine and a small room with tables they call a cafe. Sometimes I sit down there when I just want to get out of my room without actually expending any physical energy…but the chairs are uncomfortable and the chair:table height ratio is not good for me.

Okay, there’s a conversation topic. I am short – 5’2″ but my body is (relatively) tall. Short legs, long torso. So when I sit in a chair, tables/desks are often too low for me to work at comfortably. Eating is bearable, but working on the laptop, doing exercises in a workbook, writing in a notebook, etc, are all hard on my back cuz there’s a lot of leaning over/forward involved. At home, and fortunately here in the goshiwon, my chair is adjustable, and my desk is high enough for my comfort. But anytime I want to go out somewhere to study/write/work on laptop, I have to find a place I will be comfortable at for several hours…and those places are few and far between. And you can’t always tell til you get there what the chair:table height ratio is.

If I ever own a cafe (spoiler alert: unlikely), I will post those measurements on the website – like the airlines do with seat width and pitch. I can’t be the only one who decides on airline (after cost) by seat measurements.

Does anyone even know what I’m talking about?

Anyway, I digress (#shocker). Earlier, I got myself down to the cafe but they were in the process of cleaning/restocking the machine. It’s crazy how often I show up right at that time. And they’re always like oh so sorry, just 10 minutes. But I’m going to just STAND THERE and wait. Or sit at a low table and twiddle my thumbs til they’re done. So I come back up and set my alarm for ten minutes…but then I get involved in something (like sorting my MyDramaList categories and writing blog posts) and before I know it two hours has gone by.

So now, two hours later, I will go back down, get my coffee, and come back and do my remote job for…I’ll aim for two hours…then leave the building. Maybe for cake.

Shortly before I went to the US I went to dinner with building friends and on the way back we stopped into a new coffee shop around the corner that had all these interestingly-flavored cakes: lavender and Jeju matcha; sweet potato, chestnut, mugwort & black sesame; sweet pumpkin & mugwort (AND a very fluffy white dog that took a liking to me). I wanted the pistachio raspberry one, but they were out of that and I got something…that I CANNOT remember the name of …and it was SO GOOD!!! It was one of the weird flavor combos and I was like oooooh am I even gonna like this?? But I did and now I can’t remember what it was to order it again.

Boo. Life is so hard 🙂

You know, sometimes I write these posts and I’m like…this should really just be a journal entry. This is only interesting to me. But. It’s no fun writing just to ME. I write Very Differently when I’m writing thinking I will be the only one to read it. But isn’t that how blogs started…Web Logs? People just sharing their boring daily thoughts on the web? Whatta concept.

Anyway.

Surprise! I left the building! I don’t know who let me out dressed like THAT, but…

There were only a few types not sold out. This is the sweet pumpkin something something with an Earl Grey milk tea.

The lure of cake was good. The place is REALLY close. It was like 300 meters (like…2/10 mile) there and back. And I was still huffing when I got home.

Out of all these, there were only 3 kinds left. I don’t think any of them were what I had last time. I’m pretty sure it had a purple layer with chocolate crunchies on top. 

Okay. Another week down. I’m trying to promise myself (and you!) that next week will be better. This cough has got to stop eventually.

Can you believe it’s almost MAY?!?