Saturday, August 19, 2006

I can see!!!

well.... not 20/20 yet. It's supposed to take a while. but I see well enough to drive! and read! and write emails! and blog! **happy dance**

am happy enough to take back all the stuff I said about Joe. I'm sure he's.. um... doing the best he can.

Last night was pretty bad. I woke up after a nap and it felt like multiple sharp objects were lodged in my eyes. Was tearing like crazy, couldn't open eyes, couldn't look into the light... *panic* Am really thankful that Lisa n Shaowei were there for me.

But when I woke up in the morning it felt great!

1) the multiple sharp objects had disappeared
2) I could SEE!!
3) I could SEE!!

Things still look a little fuzzy, bright lights hurt, and when I try to roll my eyes to the extreme left or right there's a little twinge of discomfort. The sunglasses/goggles they gave me to protect my eyes frm dust are Massive. They take up half my face. I look like those Jap anime characters. Went to Safeway to get milk just now and kept my sunglasses on the whole time because the lights there were incredibly bright. Felt like a failed movie star wannabe. Am convinced that the cashier was trying not to laugh.

Yesterday I was in the lunch rm, reading the Arthitis medical report. It's something doctors give to patients.. There was this article in there that touched on Assisted Pain Alteration. or something like that. Basically the idea is this: patients listened to a tape of someone asking them to visualise their pain, and to describe it: what does it look like? what color is it? Then patients were told to imagine their pain changing, becoming less... um.. evil/painful.

Amazingly, the grp of patients that listened to the tape described their pain as less severe afterwards, and by the end of the study (a couple weeks) described their pain as manageable. The control grp of patients were given the same medications etc without the assisted pain visualization thing and just told to record their medications. Their pain remained the same.

So last night after I took some medications/eye drops etc and was trying to sleep, I tried to visualise my pain. Immediately I thought of it as a black devil-like creature with a very sharp staff/triton thing which it was poking into my eyes. So I thought of it putting down the stupid triton, and sitting down to meditate. Like the chinese saying: Fang(4) xia(4) tu(2) dao(1), li(4) di(4) cheng(2) fuo(2) [loosely translated as: put down your sabre and become a buddha]. It was actually quite an amusing exercise and I think helped me to some extent. Highly recommended for people trying to deal with pain.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

In-sight.

I'm going for LASIK tomorrow!!

still don't quite believe it. I've gone for the consultations, had machines measure stuff, talked to the doctor, talked to friends (ie Lisa n Qingyuan).... Today I went for the final measurements, and paid my $$. but it hasn't really hit me yet. I'll probably get nervous on the ride to the surgery, and the feeling will slowly escalate right up to the time the Valium takes effect... It's been like that for all my major exams, i think. Am superbly calm until 30mins before it starts, when all the nervousness I've saved up for that special moment hits me with full force.

On my way home frm lab today I was just thinking about how much I've grown to dislike Joe. In the beginning I'll always defend him when people tell me how much they hate him. I'll point to his scientific expertise, and how he sometimes has good reason to act superior and feel that everyone else is a moron, or a slacker, or a slob. But gradually I've come to realise that he doesn't have a right to belittle everybody because he's not that fantastic himself.

Recently he's been giving me crap about how late I come into lab. I admit that I come in late. usually ard 10.30, 11am. but it's not like I have anything to DO in lab right now. I'm waiting on the !#$%! cells and the antibodies that Joe has taken upon himself to produce.

So I said, "I'm sorry I came in late, Joe. Was there anything that you wanted me to help you with?"

"No."

"Oh."

WTF!?! Why is he begrudging me an extra hour of sleep just for me to show up early in lab and yawn in front of my computer? He could at least give me something to do. Actually. I take that back. He wants me to inject mice iv or ip with antibody and bleed them every 6hrs to work out the pharmacokinetics. nice to know, not need to know. Painful for the mice, and for me. But of course, I'm the grad-student-slave. Completely expendable and infinitely obedient.

[mouse-bleeding, btw, involves sticking a small glass tube into the eye socket, in order to pierce the capillary bed behind the eye. I'm terrible at it and both the mouse and me become extremely traumatised. Now think a grp of 5 mice that I have to bleed every fucking 6 hrs. no sooner do they heal that I have to poke them again.]

I wish I was like Ailin. She hates her boss and has no qualms about telling him so. My first instinct was to apologise, when actually I'll be quite happy to hit Joe forcefully in the head with a baseball bat, and then throw myself off a cliff. I think I need to start doing wushu. Taiji is not violent enough to dissipate my destructive energies.

crap. now I need lots of bubble tea to feel normal again.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Others

went hiking today! It is An Event cos I haven't been hiking in a while. =)

went to Henry Coe State Park with the Outing club. Actually, I would highly discourage people frm going there. It was quite a boring hike and the best views could already be had in the parking lot. And there were a lot of steep ups and downs. Tiring on the ups, dangerous on the downs.

The trip leader was this guy called 'V' (nope did not wear a mask), but he walked in the back to make sure no one got lost. So this girl Jane set the pace for most of the hike. Jane is a small little Asian girl. Even smaller than me. But Boy Can She Walk. Off we went, like a rocket. Speeding up the hills like a hot knife thru butter, we conquered the first hill, then the next, and the next... fwah. I never realised how out of shape I've become. I was gasping like a fish outta water (or a mouse under euthanasia) after the first 5 mins, but Jane and Aileen were chatting away as though they were merely strolling in the park.

*still in state of shock*

anyways. am taking inventory of all my stuff cos need to move to new apt. reading this book by Marian Keyes. Irish chick writer. Quite funny. was struck by how she keeps referring to her husband as "Himself". thought this was odd. but then remembered that Luz also referred to Nanguang as 'Him'. Like.. I'll mention a new movie, and Luz will say, "Yeah, I saw it with Him." At first I had to clarify: "Um... by Him u mean Nanguang?"... but after a while I cld safely assume that 'He', 'Him', and 'We' all refer to the same person.

What's the reason for this phenomenon? How come I dun hear guys refering to their partners as 'Her'?

Some possible reasons y some gals do this:
1) They feel some need to deitify their significant other?
2) They forgot his name?

hhmmm..... points to ponder...... =X

actually.. now that they've broken up Luz still avoids all use of His name. Now she calls him 'My Ex'.