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The end of the reign of the snakeskin glasses

6/23/2014

When I was in my tweens and teens I was unlike most of my peers in a gazillion and one ways. It's probably not possible to write about the gazillion, at least not with a very long blog dissertation that would be aptly titled "Let Me Count the Ways I'm Weird." And I feel that certainly would be an unproductive use of my time.

Back in those tweens and teens, when my peers were finding themselves, I new pretty well who I was. (Which is odd because I haven't found myself yet. )

I strode into the world with snakeskin glasses that my mother wanted me to want when I was seven (because she wanted to stick it to my dad, which I knew in the way kids know things) and, though it was unsaid, I cold never change said frames because they had been expensive. And because they were the glasses my mother wanted for me.

Foster care brought to an end the reign of the snakeskin glasses and a year later, my wandering eye. As the website says, the surgery was cosmetic. I still have mono-vision, that is I see with one eye at a time, and I don't have depth perception. Nonetheless, it improved my life. For one thing, people stopped asking me if I had a staring problem. (That was meant to be funny. )

More importantly, the correct diagnosis, meant my first pair of glasses that corrected vision in both eyes, instead of treating the "lazy" eye as if it were useless. This lead to me wearing my glasses, which resulted in being able to see. Funny how that works: wearing glasses= world not a big fuzzy blob. But it wasn't until recently contacts that I can wear have been developed. I tried at various times throughout my life, but they always felt uncomfortable. Finally, a doctor explained that because I switch eyes, but have a dominate eye, the non-dominate eye gets dry. But the new breathable lenses have corrected that problem. Now, the only issue is getting toric lenses for an oblique astigmatism in South Korea.

A few years ago I came this close to having eye surgery ( see a centimeter between my thumb and forefinger) but changed my mind after learning that surgery does not last. For some people it, their eyes heal very fast and just a year later, they need glasses again. For others, surgery lasts up to ten years. But there is no guarantee. Because I know one day, my vision will get really bad and that I will have to have surgery. (It's a family thing, only back in they day, my grandma just wore bigger glasses until she they took way her license., as if that would stop her from driving. Ha!)

Anyway, I came to the conclusion, that one's cornea is only so thick and that it's perhaps best to wait until I need surgery to have it. Because it would really suck to need surgery and not be able to have it because I had it when I didn't need it.

Chernobyl

6/9/2014

I haven't blogged in a while. This is partly because I've been busy, but mostly because, the only thing I have to write about is my job (which I've come to not like very much) and I didn't know how to write about it.

Well, I still don't know what to say, but it's what's happening here in Yeongju so I'm going to try to tell you about it.

So you know I'm terrified of escalators, or was. Whenever I approached them my heart would crawl up in my throat and I'd break out in a light sweat. I just couldn't get on them.

I was also terrified of horseback riding my favorite hobby. Yes, yes, being terrified of one's favorite hobby quite the conundrum. Thankfully, I wasn't afraid to get on the horse, just everything that came after getting on.

All this will tie into my job, I promise. Just one more rabbit trail before it does.

Like oh, say, a gazillion people, I wasn't elementary school or middle school, and, unlike just about every teen triumph film, I never found my place in high school or college. I count the friends that I have as blessings.
I'm content with quality and not one bit concerned with quantity. I think my Facebook page says I know like fifty people.

So, to make a long story short, I'm not well liked at work and bit of this has to do with my lack of involvement in the foreigner community. There are a lot of reasons I haven't gotten involved but it comes , I feel overwhelmed with this job, writing, maintaining one very good friendship, and running a publishing company.

I love teaching, but Yeongju English Center is a lot more that I expected. It feels like a pressure cooker. Sometimes, I feel like Chernobyl and my reactor is in the red. Alex says I need to take a step back and not try do so much more than is required. I trust her, so I'm trying to do my best and be helpful and kind to kind to everyone. Do your best and leave the rest. Twall will come right some day or night. I think that's originally from the bible, but I remember it from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.

Well, that's what's going in my life. Okay, not the only thing going on. My short story 'James' has been chosen for an anthology by Liquid Imagination. Also, I had a dream about a novel that I had previously abandoned, I dusted it off, dusted off and with my head extracted from my butt, discovered my dream was right. I know how to tell this story. Yeah!

The end of the reign of the snakeskin glasses

Chernobyl

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