Thursday, 20 October 2011
Half Way to Insanity
I feel like I'm half-way to insanity. Not because half of me is insane or going insane but because I am insane. I am also sane. It's a tug-of-war with myself. Won't anyone join me?
Monday, 3 October 2011
The Stage Hand
It is unfortunate that I am constantly banging my head up against a natural human characteristic. The tendency of people to not appreciate things that they don't necessarily see. Perfect example are stage hands and staff at plays. There is a LOT of work that goes into creating the set, manipulating the set, timing said manipulations, timing lighting, timing music, assisting the actors/actresses off stage with hair/makeup and costume.. etc etc. Without them the play wouldn't be what it is but we don't normally pause to think of them. It's because we don't actually see them doing the actions as well as because we take things for granted. All the results of a stage hand's job are things that we expect as the norm and therefore think nothing of. However, if they're not there or done badly we will remark upon it.I feel like an abused stage hand these days. A lot of it has to do with things that occurred on the Toegoff forums which I manage.
First was the whole drama incident where I felt rather insulted that people could complain about my efforts to make the community a safe, friendly place. If you honestly don't know then someone got banned for being continually disrespectful and making personal attacks on people on the forums. It was a bit of an express ban since he made it clear to me that warnings have no effect on him whatsoever. Anyways, the issue is that people started saying the admins banned whoever the heck we wanted if we didn't like them; saying that we're too strict with the rules and that we're restricting their freedom.
This really insulted me because when setting up the forums and the rules and guidelines for them I seriously took into consideration the fact that the rules may interfere with the forum experience. I made the rules in a way in which we could still enforce a friendly environment but not have people feel like we're breathing down their necks. Even in enforcing these rules we were so lenient that warnings were hardly ever given. That doesn't mean that there was no moderating going on though. Our moderating crew and I spend a lot of time just going through the forums. But no one sees that. Even if someone gets a warning, no one but the recipient sees that either. No one witnessed the amount of thought I put into making the rules or all the messages I sent to members regarding little ways in which they were toeing over the rules. In fact, there have been many many cases where if I was strict I should have given them a warning, instead I just wrote them a message about it. But no one really knows the number of these that go out except me.
Second is something a bit more specific as well as largely general. The Toegoff forums recently made the change from invisionfree to zetaboards. To do this I had to get a new layout since invision codes do not work on zeta. After everything was done, one guy says that he would like a different theme to be available for use since the one on there right now makes his eyes bleed. It's not really the insult to the layout that bothered me. Tons of other people have told me they like it so I don't really care that much about one dick's opinion on it. But rather how completely dickish that request was. First of all the layout took a lot of work from me. In their minds all I did was find a layout and paste the codes in. That's not what happened at all. I'll be completely anal and go through every single thing that went into making that layout what it is at this moment.
Of course the very first step is to find a layout. I am not a coder and have no knowledge of CSS at all; therefore, making my own layout is out of the question. This first step is actually one of the hardest. It's pretty dang hard to find a layout that looks good, as well as functions well, as well as matching your individual need. I spent literally over 2 hours picking a layout. When picking a layout I need to put aside my own personal tastes and consider the theme's appropriateness for the forum and its audience. I went through so many layout threads it's crazy. And then I found one that had a really cool feature of a menu at the top which has the options slide slightly when you mouse over it which I thought was a cool effect. I really liked this menu because it let you put a LOT of links at the top (up to 12) and I really wanted to have something like that. Unfortunately, while the actual layout was very well done and pretty to my eyes, it was... too pretty. It was kind of girl-ish and that's definitely not what fits the Toegoff forums. So I found another layout and with my complete zero knowledge of CSS put in that menu I liked at the top of this new layout. That process sounds so easy in a nice little sentence but trust me it was a lot more. I had to figure out where the coding (html) went in the headers. Then I had to go into CSS and find its corresponding coding (which is no easy feat when you have no knowledge of CSS at all) and put that in the new layout CSS. Unfortunately again, I wasn't pleased with the results. This entire project got scrapped.
After some more searching I finally found one that was clean, simple, yet still "styled". The process of finding this layout and then finding where the coding for it was is a story in itself. One thing that I didn't like about it though was that it had a designated box for the advertisements on the board. As someone who uses adblock plus and doesn't see the advertisement, the white blankness in the middle of the board just felt absurd to me. So I asked Toegoff to take a look at the CSS coding for me to see if he could take out the box. He succeeded but it changed the board's white cells to black. He then asked bobtherocket (another moderator) to take a look at the CSS (since bob is a website designer) and even he couldn't figure out a way to get rid of the box and maintain the same colors at the same time. He probably could have done it but we decided it would be too annoying and wasn't really worth it. So that's two other people's time poured into this layout that no one will ever know (well now you do since you read this but let's be honest here, who's still reading this crap?). And of course changing button graphics on those forums are fucking tedious as hell. The thing is I had to do this twice because I originally did all the fiddling around on a different private forum to make sure everything was ready. So I copied and pasted a ton of links from the layout code source to the private forum, then I had to later copy and paste again from the private forum to the actual forum. You'll probably think "what's the big deal? It's just copy and pasting." Yes, but it's a LOT of copy and pasting. My fingers were literally sore after all the copy and pasting. It's mindless, tedious work.
So now I got my layout. Now I had to configure the board to match it. First of the matter was that the layout came with a banner which just said the theme's name on it. Obviously I wasn't about to use that. So I had to go into the CSS, find the URL of the background of the banner and multiply it about 12 times in photoshop just to have a backdrop for the new banner. Then I got to actually working on the banner. Looking at my list of fonts I had nothing very good. So I had to go online and browse a ton of shit fonts to find a couple that may or may not work. Installed all of them, then finally back to photoshop. Try out a dozen of these new fonts and found one that would serve well. Then I went through a lot of different effects such as metallic gradient in the font and a boarder around the word that has an inner and outer glow. Fiddled around with it for a while. Then finally settled on font, metallic gradient, bevel, settings to make it look metallic. Finally done. Up it goes to photobucket.
Next are the pips. The user rank indicators. I had no idea what to use for pips but looking around the new layout I found that the topic markers were little orb things that could serve as pips. So I open it up in photoshop but unfortunately there was no way to separate it from its background cleanly so I decided to make my own from scratch. Black dot, bigger white dot behind it with bevel, smaller white dot on top of it which is then blurred, put an even smaller white dot on top of the smaller white dot and blur this too. And there you go, you have an orb with a beveled white border. Save for web as gif, upload it on photobucket, put its link in the coding and now I have pips. But unfortunately invision's pip system was a bit messed up so in turn my old pips were messed up. I had to go in and edit every single tier and change it to use forum's default pip and set how many of the pips. Another tedious task. Then comes the issue of admins and mods who have 7 pips currently. Admins red, mods blue. Photoshop time again. Except this time with those colours respectively and instead of one orb I have to stretch it to 7 in the actual one pip. This goes up onto zeta as a badge and then I have to go into group settings for admins and mods and set each badge accordingly. There was the additional thing of making a hearts badge for pwnies but I won't bitch about that because it's a personal joke I played on him a long time ago.
Then came the menu links. This layout displayed them nice and large at the top (which is part of the reason the other menu code that I liked wasn't used). I wanted to add some personal links on that bar. So off I go into google and zetaboard forums to find coding for that. I find one and successfully put in a link to Toegoff's YouTube channel. Later on I decide that I want to add his Livestream link too. I add it and it completely messed things up. Adding the new link made the bar stretch too long and therefore it went to a second line. Needless to say, looked horrible. So then I had to go and find a code that lets me completely take control of that menu so I could take some stuff out. Had to go and get the links for the standard links like Search and Members: put those in minus the FAQ and Portal buttons which were useless then put the new ones in and finally everything looks good.
Even in that I left out some annoying shit I had to go through. I left them out because it was just a matter of stupid circumstance or mistakes on my part. I also left out all the new settings that I had to set after the conversion. But yeah, no one knows all that. No one even thinks about it. To them it's just "oh she just copied and pasted some shit into a box."
(Oh and the old doHTML tag was taken out which was how we were embedding videos. So I had to google how to do that in zetaboards. Then I had to go into the admin CP and enable that function. Then I had to write up a tutorial on how to do it for the forum ((and trust me, some people need tutorials that assume they're really stupid)). Not that big a deal but again, something that's taken for granted. Like honestly, I have things I'd rather do than write up a tutorial on how to embed youtube videos but I know that I should to let everyone know of the change and so that new users can be pointed towards the thread instead of having someone explain it to them every time. It's part of my responsibilities as a forum admin and I do it.)
And now finally back to the one guy and his one comment. See why his comment is dickish? Just because the layout isn't appealing to you, you want me to go through all that again? And you have the audacity to request this with an insult attached? Yes, like I'm going to waste my time pleasing your ocular senses. In any case, it wouldn't exactly work out right as the admin and moderator badges are just that... badges. Not pips. Therefore, they will not change with the theme change and will look very strange on a different layout. This comment had one good thing I guess though; it made me realize just how invisible my work on that forum is.
Another case on the forums where I felt a bit like a stage hand was a year ago for the community league of legends tourney. Sure, everyone said thank you to me for setting it up, etc etc. But no one but me knows exactly what a grueling task that damn thing was. Try organizing 36 mostly random people from the internet and getting them to be on at a specific time on a specific date. Not easy. I basically had to keep track of every single person and what times they said they can or can't be on. Once someone suggested a time I would have to make sure the other 3 all confirmed agreement to it. Not only that but things were made more confusing by the fact that people's forum names weren't their LoL names. By the end I had literally memorized who was who with a different name and everyone's partners for each round. And the biggest pain in the ass of all were the people who just didn't show up to set times or would come on the forum once in a blue moon to say "no, I can't that day." Then not check back for another forever. In total, I sent 53 individualized e-mails for the setting up of this tourney. Mind, those are just e-mails, not posts I made on topics or conversations I had on LoL PvP.net chat or on skype. I say individualized because... they were. What does that mean? It means it did NOT involve much copy and pasting but actual personal input from me to match that specific person's interests. I sent a variety of messages: asking them to please come on the forums and post their schedule, telling them that a date and time has been suggested and for them to confirm it, warnings for lack of participation, disqualification by lack of participation alerts, telling people on the stand-by list that they got in and had to respond soon or lose the spot and here was the thread and this was their partner... etc. But most of them were me telling people of the new suggested time and asking them to come and confirm it. But really no one knew how much time went into checking all this information for that person and then e-mailing them about it. If someone received one from me they'd probably not think much of it other than about the pertinent information at hand. They wouldn't think, "wow how many of these does she send out?" Yes, I got a pat on the back for this tourney but at the same time I don't think anyone really understands how much shit went into it. You have no idea how mind boggling it is to have 8 people discussing their available times in one thread while keeping in mind which 4 are together as well as the connection between forum name and LoL name and keeping track of who has or hasn't confirmed to what time. Then realize that there's 4 of these going on at the same time. As the organizer I literally spent forever organizing all those in my mind as well as on Notepad and making sure everyone has confirmed availability on the set date. It's not really something you can understand unless you try it. Especially with a group of people who don't really have a motivation to keep responding to you.
And that is the conclusion of my bitching about people not realizing how much work I do. I probably sound like such a bitch in this post but honestly I don't give two shits. This is my blog on which I vent shit. If I can't be a bitch on my own blog then that's when I know it's time to shoot myself. And see, now that all this has been recorded on this blog, that much more of these thoughts and feelings has left me. Isn't that just so wonderful about blogs?
First was the whole drama incident where I felt rather insulted that people could complain about my efforts to make the community a safe, friendly place. If you honestly don't know then someone got banned for being continually disrespectful and making personal attacks on people on the forums. It was a bit of an express ban since he made it clear to me that warnings have no effect on him whatsoever. Anyways, the issue is that people started saying the admins banned whoever the heck we wanted if we didn't like them; saying that we're too strict with the rules and that we're restricting their freedom.
This really insulted me because when setting up the forums and the rules and guidelines for them I seriously took into consideration the fact that the rules may interfere with the forum experience. I made the rules in a way in which we could still enforce a friendly environment but not have people feel like we're breathing down their necks. Even in enforcing these rules we were so lenient that warnings were hardly ever given. That doesn't mean that there was no moderating going on though. Our moderating crew and I spend a lot of time just going through the forums. But no one sees that. Even if someone gets a warning, no one but the recipient sees that either. No one witnessed the amount of thought I put into making the rules or all the messages I sent to members regarding little ways in which they were toeing over the rules. In fact, there have been many many cases where if I was strict I should have given them a warning, instead I just wrote them a message about it. But no one really knows the number of these that go out except me.
Second is something a bit more specific as well as largely general. The Toegoff forums recently made the change from invisionfree to zetaboards. To do this I had to get a new layout since invision codes do not work on zeta. After everything was done, one guy says that he would like a different theme to be available for use since the one on there right now makes his eyes bleed. It's not really the insult to the layout that bothered me. Tons of other people have told me they like it so I don't really care that much about one dick's opinion on it. But rather how completely dickish that request was. First of all the layout took a lot of work from me. In their minds all I did was find a layout and paste the codes in. That's not what happened at all. I'll be completely anal and go through every single thing that went into making that layout what it is at this moment.
Of course the very first step is to find a layout. I am not a coder and have no knowledge of CSS at all; therefore, making my own layout is out of the question. This first step is actually one of the hardest. It's pretty dang hard to find a layout that looks good, as well as functions well, as well as matching your individual need. I spent literally over 2 hours picking a layout. When picking a layout I need to put aside my own personal tastes and consider the theme's appropriateness for the forum and its audience. I went through so many layout threads it's crazy. And then I found one that had a really cool feature of a menu at the top which has the options slide slightly when you mouse over it which I thought was a cool effect. I really liked this menu because it let you put a LOT of links at the top (up to 12) and I really wanted to have something like that. Unfortunately, while the actual layout was very well done and pretty to my eyes, it was... too pretty. It was kind of girl-ish and that's definitely not what fits the Toegoff forums. So I found another layout and with my complete zero knowledge of CSS put in that menu I liked at the top of this new layout. That process sounds so easy in a nice little sentence but trust me it was a lot more. I had to figure out where the coding (html) went in the headers. Then I had to go into CSS and find its corresponding coding (which is no easy feat when you have no knowledge of CSS at all) and put that in the new layout CSS. Unfortunately again, I wasn't pleased with the results. This entire project got scrapped.
After some more searching I finally found one that was clean, simple, yet still "styled". The process of finding this layout and then finding where the coding for it was is a story in itself. One thing that I didn't like about it though was that it had a designated box for the advertisements on the board. As someone who uses adblock plus and doesn't see the advertisement, the white blankness in the middle of the board just felt absurd to me. So I asked Toegoff to take a look at the CSS coding for me to see if he could take out the box. He succeeded but it changed the board's white cells to black. He then asked bobtherocket (another moderator) to take a look at the CSS (since bob is a website designer) and even he couldn't figure out a way to get rid of the box and maintain the same colors at the same time. He probably could have done it but we decided it would be too annoying and wasn't really worth it. So that's two other people's time poured into this layout that no one will ever know (well now you do since you read this but let's be honest here, who's still reading this crap?). And of course changing button graphics on those forums are fucking tedious as hell. The thing is I had to do this twice because I originally did all the fiddling around on a different private forum to make sure everything was ready. So I copied and pasted a ton of links from the layout code source to the private forum, then I had to later copy and paste again from the private forum to the actual forum. You'll probably think "what's the big deal? It's just copy and pasting." Yes, but it's a LOT of copy and pasting. My fingers were literally sore after all the copy and pasting. It's mindless, tedious work.
So now I got my layout. Now I had to configure the board to match it. First of the matter was that the layout came with a banner which just said the theme's name on it. Obviously I wasn't about to use that. So I had to go into the CSS, find the URL of the background of the banner and multiply it about 12 times in photoshop just to have a backdrop for the new banner. Then I got to actually working on the banner. Looking at my list of fonts I had nothing very good. So I had to go online and browse a ton of shit fonts to find a couple that may or may not work. Installed all of them, then finally back to photoshop. Try out a dozen of these new fonts and found one that would serve well. Then I went through a lot of different effects such as metallic gradient in the font and a boarder around the word that has an inner and outer glow. Fiddled around with it for a while. Then finally settled on font, metallic gradient, bevel, settings to make it look metallic. Finally done. Up it goes to photobucket.
Next are the pips. The user rank indicators. I had no idea what to use for pips but looking around the new layout I found that the topic markers were little orb things that could serve as pips. So I open it up in photoshop but unfortunately there was no way to separate it from its background cleanly so I decided to make my own from scratch. Black dot, bigger white dot behind it with bevel, smaller white dot on top of it which is then blurred, put an even smaller white dot on top of the smaller white dot and blur this too. And there you go, you have an orb with a beveled white border. Save for web as gif, upload it on photobucket, put its link in the coding and now I have pips. But unfortunately invision's pip system was a bit messed up so in turn my old pips were messed up. I had to go in and edit every single tier and change it to use forum's default pip and set how many of the pips. Another tedious task. Then comes the issue of admins and mods who have 7 pips currently. Admins red, mods blue. Photoshop time again. Except this time with those colours respectively and instead of one orb I have to stretch it to 7 in the actual one pip. This goes up onto zeta as a badge and then I have to go into group settings for admins and mods and set each badge accordingly. There was the additional thing of making a hearts badge for pwnies but I won't bitch about that because it's a personal joke I played on him a long time ago.
Then came the menu links. This layout displayed them nice and large at the top (which is part of the reason the other menu code that I liked wasn't used). I wanted to add some personal links on that bar. So off I go into google and zetaboard forums to find coding for that. I find one and successfully put in a link to Toegoff's YouTube channel. Later on I decide that I want to add his Livestream link too. I add it and it completely messed things up. Adding the new link made the bar stretch too long and therefore it went to a second line. Needless to say, looked horrible. So then I had to go and find a code that lets me completely take control of that menu so I could take some stuff out. Had to go and get the links for the standard links like Search and Members: put those in minus the FAQ and Portal buttons which were useless then put the new ones in and finally everything looks good.
Even in that I left out some annoying shit I had to go through. I left them out because it was just a matter of stupid circumstance or mistakes on my part. I also left out all the new settings that I had to set after the conversion. But yeah, no one knows all that. No one even thinks about it. To them it's just "oh she just copied and pasted some shit into a box."
(Oh and the old doHTML tag was taken out which was how we were embedding videos. So I had to google how to do that in zetaboards. Then I had to go into the admin CP and enable that function. Then I had to write up a tutorial on how to do it for the forum ((and trust me, some people need tutorials that assume they're really stupid)). Not that big a deal but again, something that's taken for granted. Like honestly, I have things I'd rather do than write up a tutorial on how to embed youtube videos but I know that I should to let everyone know of the change and so that new users can be pointed towards the thread instead of having someone explain it to them every time. It's part of my responsibilities as a forum admin and I do it.)
And now finally back to the one guy and his one comment. See why his comment is dickish? Just because the layout isn't appealing to you, you want me to go through all that again? And you have the audacity to request this with an insult attached? Yes, like I'm going to waste my time pleasing your ocular senses. In any case, it wouldn't exactly work out right as the admin and moderator badges are just that... badges. Not pips. Therefore, they will not change with the theme change and will look very strange on a different layout. This comment had one good thing I guess though; it made me realize just how invisible my work on that forum is.
Another case on the forums where I felt a bit like a stage hand was a year ago for the community league of legends tourney. Sure, everyone said thank you to me for setting it up, etc etc. But no one but me knows exactly what a grueling task that damn thing was. Try organizing 36 mostly random people from the internet and getting them to be on at a specific time on a specific date. Not easy. I basically had to keep track of every single person and what times they said they can or can't be on. Once someone suggested a time I would have to make sure the other 3 all confirmed agreement to it. Not only that but things were made more confusing by the fact that people's forum names weren't their LoL names. By the end I had literally memorized who was who with a different name and everyone's partners for each round. And the biggest pain in the ass of all were the people who just didn't show up to set times or would come on the forum once in a blue moon to say "no, I can't that day." Then not check back for another forever. In total, I sent 53 individualized e-mails for the setting up of this tourney. Mind, those are just e-mails, not posts I made on topics or conversations I had on LoL PvP.net chat or on skype. I say individualized because... they were. What does that mean? It means it did NOT involve much copy and pasting but actual personal input from me to match that specific person's interests. I sent a variety of messages: asking them to please come on the forums and post their schedule, telling them that a date and time has been suggested and for them to confirm it, warnings for lack of participation, disqualification by lack of participation alerts, telling people on the stand-by list that they got in and had to respond soon or lose the spot and here was the thread and this was their partner... etc. But most of them were me telling people of the new suggested time and asking them to come and confirm it. But really no one knew how much time went into checking all this information for that person and then e-mailing them about it. If someone received one from me they'd probably not think much of it other than about the pertinent information at hand. They wouldn't think, "wow how many of these does she send out?" Yes, I got a pat on the back for this tourney but at the same time I don't think anyone really understands how much shit went into it. You have no idea how mind boggling it is to have 8 people discussing their available times in one thread while keeping in mind which 4 are together as well as the connection between forum name and LoL name and keeping track of who has or hasn't confirmed to what time. Then realize that there's 4 of these going on at the same time. As the organizer I literally spent forever organizing all those in my mind as well as on Notepad and making sure everyone has confirmed availability on the set date. It's not really something you can understand unless you try it. Especially with a group of people who don't really have a motivation to keep responding to you.
And that is the conclusion of my bitching about people not realizing how much work I do. I probably sound like such a bitch in this post but honestly I don't give two shits. This is my blog on which I vent shit. If I can't be a bitch on my own blog then that's when I know it's time to shoot myself. And see, now that all this has been recorded on this blog, that much more of these thoughts and feelings has left me. Isn't that just so wonderful about blogs?
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Mush. Room?
I am a total... mush. I don't know what to call it so I put "mush." It means I'm mushy-feely. I've always known this but I just had an overwhelming "omg, I'm a mush" moment that I just had to proclaim it. I'm a mush. A total mush. Let me share my mush moment. So I've been using adblock plus on my firefox for the longest time but recently it's been causing some issues with youtube videos. So I turned it off. So for the first time in forever I got an advertisement on youtube. It was a google chrome advertisement. For those of you who watch a lot of youtube (ads) you probably know what's coming. The Dear Sophie ad. Oh DEAR god the Dear Sophie ad.
At first I'm like, "why the hell would anyone make their e-mail address 'dear.sophie.lee'?" Isn't that something you put in the subject or some shit? Then I'm like, okay this is probably one of those silly romantic google ads like the one about meeting a girl in Paris. Then... I watch the rest. As I watch I get weird cold tingly feelings on my arms. My heart melts a little and the bridge of my nose stings as tears start to form around my eyes. At the end of it I'm sitting open mouthed going "oh... my... god..." then I get startled the fuck out as the intro to YogsCast starts playing after the ad.
If you haven't seen it and want to know what I'm talking about, here it is. Yep. That's what I almost cried to. I'm a mush.
I think I get really mushy about things regarding parents because I have a very strange relationship with mine. I love them, they love me. We both know it. After having left for university we end each call with "I love you, bye." So it's not like we're really lacking, per se. But this is a rather recent thing. As I've grown up and my parents didn't see the need to really be that rigid authority figure anymore they eased up. Also my issues with depression and having my mother attend counseling with me really helped us to bond a bit more and understand each other.
My childhood was a different story though. I grew up thinking that my parents only wanted results from me and didn't really care for me, myself. "I love you"s were near non-existent, hugs were very rare. Socializing with my parents hardly ever happened. Most of my interactions with them were when they were telling me off for being on the computer too much, or staying up too late, or not doing well enough in school. Sure, my relationship with them could have been worse and there are kids out there who go through shit I couldn't even imagine my parents doing every single day of their lives. I'm appreciative of that fact. However, knowing that doesn't stop me from wishing I had had more; wishing that my parents would have put more effort into letting me know what I meant to them; wishing they would have spent more time with me; wishing that I wasn't literally conditioned into tensing up and becoming stressed when my mom or dad approached me because it usually meant they had something negative to say to me; wishing that they'd have shown me that I had value to them as a person and not just what results I could get. Of course, in hind sight I know what their words and actions meant. I can interpret those from a different point of view now. But it won't erase the experience of going through it thinking those things.
So, yeah... I'm a mush.
....Teemo.
At first I'm like, "why the hell would anyone make their e-mail address 'dear.sophie.lee'?" Isn't that something you put in the subject or some shit? Then I'm like, okay this is probably one of those silly romantic google ads like the one about meeting a girl in Paris. Then... I watch the rest. As I watch I get weird cold tingly feelings on my arms. My heart melts a little and the bridge of my nose stings as tears start to form around my eyes. At the end of it I'm sitting open mouthed going "oh... my... god..." then I get startled the fuck out as the intro to YogsCast starts playing after the ad.
If you haven't seen it and want to know what I'm talking about, here it is. Yep. That's what I almost cried to. I'm a mush.
I think I get really mushy about things regarding parents because I have a very strange relationship with mine. I love them, they love me. We both know it. After having left for university we end each call with "I love you, bye." So it's not like we're really lacking, per se. But this is a rather recent thing. As I've grown up and my parents didn't see the need to really be that rigid authority figure anymore they eased up. Also my issues with depression and having my mother attend counseling with me really helped us to bond a bit more and understand each other.
My childhood was a different story though. I grew up thinking that my parents only wanted results from me and didn't really care for me, myself. "I love you"s were near non-existent, hugs were very rare. Socializing with my parents hardly ever happened. Most of my interactions with them were when they were telling me off for being on the computer too much, or staying up too late, or not doing well enough in school. Sure, my relationship with them could have been worse and there are kids out there who go through shit I couldn't even imagine my parents doing every single day of their lives. I'm appreciative of that fact. However, knowing that doesn't stop me from wishing I had had more; wishing that my parents would have put more effort into letting me know what I meant to them; wishing they would have spent more time with me; wishing that I wasn't literally conditioned into tensing up and becoming stressed when my mom or dad approached me because it usually meant they had something negative to say to me; wishing that they'd have shown me that I had value to them as a person and not just what results I could get. Of course, in hind sight I know what their words and actions meant. I can interpret those from a different point of view now. But it won't erase the experience of going through it thinking those things.
So, yeah... I'm a mush.
....Teemo.
Friday, 9 September 2011
Moving In to Residence
I want to record what my move-in day was like so here I go.
Saturday, Sept. 3, 2011
The flight from Vancouver to Toronto was really scary. When we got to Toronto the plane was descending to prepare for landing. While we were going down there was a lot of turbulence – to the point of it getting really scary. Then the plane suddenly pulled sharply up and we were ascending again, this time with even more turbulence. The engines were making really weird and loud noises too. At this point I was scared the airplane was going to crash and thought I just might die there. The turbulence was THAT bad. We flew like that until we broke above the clouds and flew away from Toronto and over Lake Ontario. We flew in circles over Lake Ontario for an hour before turning around and landing in Toronto. Then it took about 30 minutes to land, get to the terminal, and disembark. At this point I thought for sure I had missed the flight to Kingston. Nevertheless I ran out of the airplane, weaving in and out of people to the nearest flight information board... and was immensely relieved to see that the flight to Kingston had been delayed an hour. The flight to Kingston was completely event-less and safe.
On the taxi ride to the hotel, I got talking with the taxi driver and asked him if his company did oversize luggages because I had to buy a fridge the next day. He not only informed me that they did provide that service but that if I wanted a fridge I'd better get to WalMart first thing the next morning. He had just been there that day to pick up a fridge for his kid. When we arrived I gave him a good tip for giving me the information about the fridge (total cost $20... yeah it was a long trip).
At the hotel I got a little nervous because the people in front of me had to show their credit card in order to check in. The sign also said that I must have a credit card to check in. So I got really anxious while waiting, worried that I wouldn't be able to get my room since I don't actually have a credit card. Fortunately they accepted my drivers license and a deposit of $25 (which I got back on check out) instead of a credit card. What was bad about the hotel was that the room I had was intended for people with cars to park their car right outside their room. So it was far away from the front desk. Tired and weary from the flight I had to drag my two suitcases (together weighing 34 kg aka ~75 lb) all the way to the room.
Sunday, Sept. 4, 2011
Next morning I woke up at 6:30 am, got ready, and called a taxi to my residence ($15). I checked in, got my keys, and quickly dropped off my suitcases in my room before heading out again. Taxi again to WalMart ($18). Once there I located the fridge but could see no way for me to get it to the front counter. I asked someone to help me and he called someone on his walkie-talkie and told me to go and wait at the fridges and someone would come. I waited and waited but no one came. So I went and asked someone else. This woman called the front to ask for someone to help me. They said they had one up front that I could just buy there but I declined because that one didn't have a freezer section. I had found the one I wanted and I wanted THAT one. The lady informed me that it was too early in the morning so the people whose job it is to help me weren't there yet. By this point I was pretty angry and decided I'd just do it myself. First I picked up 4 cases of water, detergent, and other stuff I needed, then I got another cart and went to the fridges again but it was quickly obvious that I would never be able to put that thing in the cart by myself. So I just dragged it. I didn't care how ridiculous I looked walking backwards while dragging a fridge across the floor of WalMart. I wanted that fridge and if the people at Walmart were so incompetent I'll do it myself. Then at the counter the cashier asked me how in the world I was going to drag that out of Walmart. I said, "well I had to DRAG it here, I guess I'll drag it out too. I asked TWICE for someone to come help me and they told me that no one was available." So he called someone to bring a cart over (which took 5 minutes)... the kind that just has a base and wheels. He loaded it on and wheeled it out for me as well. He also apologized on behalf of Walmart. So I guess in the end it all comes down to WHO you ask. Funny thing is, he looked young. Maybe around my age. The other people I asked were much older. You'd think the young ones would shirk work–that's the stereotype anyways.
So I call Amey's Taxi and requested a van. The woman was really condescending and arrogant. She asked me in a really annoyed tone, "what do you need a VAN for?" After the walmart ordeal I wasn't in the mood to take any more shit from stupid workers so I replied, "I need to move a FUCKING FRIDGE." She simply said "okay" and hung up. The taxi took a long time but it did come. While I was waiting, the taxi driver who had advised me drove by. He stopped to say, "so I see you got your fridge!" at which point I thanked him again for the advice. The oversize luggage cost extra so the trip back to res was $25. So I spent a total of $78 on taxis that trip. I think I'm going to switch taxi company to Modern Taxi Service in the future instead of Amey's. This wasn't the first time I got a really disrespectful dispatcher from Amey's.
I got one of the residence Dons to watch my fridge while I took the 4 packs of water and other things up to my room. Unfortunately, for the sake of less clutter, they were not allowing people to ride the elevators down. You could only ride the elevators that day if you had luggage to carry up. So I had to run down 7 flights of stairs (twice that day since I went down it before when dropping off the suit cases) to get my fridge. Luckily they had good carts for me to load the fridge on. So I get it to my room, unpack it, move my desk over to make room, and put the fridge in its place. Unfortunately, there's something wrong with this fridge. One of the legs is missing. It's supposed to have two supporting legs in the front so it's even all around, but it's missing one on the right side. At this point, to be completely honest, I don't care. After all that hassle to get this fridge, I am not about to go and exchange the damn thing. So now I have a handicap fridge but it works great so I'm happy. Maybe with the warranty I can get Danby (the fridge company) to send me a leg part. All I know is, I'm not going to move that fridge again for a long time. I was exhausted after all that.
At around 6:30 I tried to go to dinner. I walked all the way to Leonard Cafeteria only to remember that the cafeterias are always closed for Sunday dinners. So from there I walk to burger king. There they gave my Tendergrill burger away to a drive through customer. The new one they made for me was burnt. The fries tasted like cardboard. While I was walking back to res, I passed by Metro (grocery store) so I decided to go in. I bought milk, cereal, and granola bars. The walk home from then on was very tiring. Not only was I carrying a 2L carton of milk, I was already tired from an early morning, suitcase dragging, water pack lifting (4 packs, moved 6 times), dragging a fridge, unpacking a fridge, and moving desk and fridge. So the walk home seemed like an eternity. Then I realized that I forgot my front door key. Meaning I had no way of getting back inside the building. Thankfully, unlike my first year here, my res building has a front desk that always has someone there. I knocked on the door and explained that I forgot my key. I was so glad to get back to my room and just lie down.
I didn't unpack at all that day. I was much too tired.
Saturday, Sept. 3, 2011
The flight from Vancouver to Toronto was really scary. When we got to Toronto the plane was descending to prepare for landing. While we were going down there was a lot of turbulence – to the point of it getting really scary. Then the plane suddenly pulled sharply up and we were ascending again, this time with even more turbulence. The engines were making really weird and loud noises too. At this point I was scared the airplane was going to crash and thought I just might die there. The turbulence was THAT bad. We flew like that until we broke above the clouds and flew away from Toronto and over Lake Ontario. We flew in circles over Lake Ontario for an hour before turning around and landing in Toronto. Then it took about 30 minutes to land, get to the terminal, and disembark. At this point I thought for sure I had missed the flight to Kingston. Nevertheless I ran out of the airplane, weaving in and out of people to the nearest flight information board... and was immensely relieved to see that the flight to Kingston had been delayed an hour. The flight to Kingston was completely event-less and safe.
On the taxi ride to the hotel, I got talking with the taxi driver and asked him if his company did oversize luggages because I had to buy a fridge the next day. He not only informed me that they did provide that service but that if I wanted a fridge I'd better get to WalMart first thing the next morning. He had just been there that day to pick up a fridge for his kid. When we arrived I gave him a good tip for giving me the information about the fridge (total cost $20... yeah it was a long trip).
At the hotel I got a little nervous because the people in front of me had to show their credit card in order to check in. The sign also said that I must have a credit card to check in. So I got really anxious while waiting, worried that I wouldn't be able to get my room since I don't actually have a credit card. Fortunately they accepted my drivers license and a deposit of $25 (which I got back on check out) instead of a credit card. What was bad about the hotel was that the room I had was intended for people with cars to park their car right outside their room. So it was far away from the front desk. Tired and weary from the flight I had to drag my two suitcases (together weighing 34 kg aka ~75 lb) all the way to the room.
Sunday, Sept. 4, 2011
Next morning I woke up at 6:30 am, got ready, and called a taxi to my residence ($15). I checked in, got my keys, and quickly dropped off my suitcases in my room before heading out again. Taxi again to WalMart ($18). Once there I located the fridge but could see no way for me to get it to the front counter. I asked someone to help me and he called someone on his walkie-talkie and told me to go and wait at the fridges and someone would come. I waited and waited but no one came. So I went and asked someone else. This woman called the front to ask for someone to help me. They said they had one up front that I could just buy there but I declined because that one didn't have a freezer section. I had found the one I wanted and I wanted THAT one. The lady informed me that it was too early in the morning so the people whose job it is to help me weren't there yet. By this point I was pretty angry and decided I'd just do it myself. First I picked up 4 cases of water, detergent, and other stuff I needed, then I got another cart and went to the fridges again but it was quickly obvious that I would never be able to put that thing in the cart by myself. So I just dragged it. I didn't care how ridiculous I looked walking backwards while dragging a fridge across the floor of WalMart. I wanted that fridge and if the people at Walmart were so incompetent I'll do it myself. Then at the counter the cashier asked me how in the world I was going to drag that out of Walmart. I said, "well I had to DRAG it here, I guess I'll drag it out too. I asked TWICE for someone to come help me and they told me that no one was available." So he called someone to bring a cart over (which took 5 minutes)... the kind that just has a base and wheels. He loaded it on and wheeled it out for me as well. He also apologized on behalf of Walmart. So I guess in the end it all comes down to WHO you ask. Funny thing is, he looked young. Maybe around my age. The other people I asked were much older. You'd think the young ones would shirk work–that's the stereotype anyways.
So I call Amey's Taxi and requested a van. The woman was really condescending and arrogant. She asked me in a really annoyed tone, "what do you need a VAN for?" After the walmart ordeal I wasn't in the mood to take any more shit from stupid workers so I replied, "I need to move a FUCKING FRIDGE." She simply said "okay" and hung up. The taxi took a long time but it did come. While I was waiting, the taxi driver who had advised me drove by. He stopped to say, "so I see you got your fridge!" at which point I thanked him again for the advice. The oversize luggage cost extra so the trip back to res was $25. So I spent a total of $78 on taxis that trip. I think I'm going to switch taxi company to Modern Taxi Service in the future instead of Amey's. This wasn't the first time I got a really disrespectful dispatcher from Amey's.
I got one of the residence Dons to watch my fridge while I took the 4 packs of water and other things up to my room. Unfortunately, for the sake of less clutter, they were not allowing people to ride the elevators down. You could only ride the elevators that day if you had luggage to carry up. So I had to run down 7 flights of stairs (twice that day since I went down it before when dropping off the suit cases) to get my fridge. Luckily they had good carts for me to load the fridge on. So I get it to my room, unpack it, move my desk over to make room, and put the fridge in its place. Unfortunately, there's something wrong with this fridge. One of the legs is missing. It's supposed to have two supporting legs in the front so it's even all around, but it's missing one on the right side. At this point, to be completely honest, I don't care. After all that hassle to get this fridge, I am not about to go and exchange the damn thing. So now I have a handicap fridge but it works great so I'm happy. Maybe with the warranty I can get Danby (the fridge company) to send me a leg part. All I know is, I'm not going to move that fridge again for a long time. I was exhausted after all that.
At around 6:30 I tried to go to dinner. I walked all the way to Leonard Cafeteria only to remember that the cafeterias are always closed for Sunday dinners. So from there I walk to burger king. There they gave my Tendergrill burger away to a drive through customer. The new one they made for me was burnt. The fries tasted like cardboard. While I was walking back to res, I passed by Metro (grocery store) so I decided to go in. I bought milk, cereal, and granola bars. The walk home from then on was very tiring. Not only was I carrying a 2L carton of milk, I was already tired from an early morning, suitcase dragging, water pack lifting (4 packs, moved 6 times), dragging a fridge, unpacking a fridge, and moving desk and fridge. So the walk home seemed like an eternity. Then I realized that I forgot my front door key. Meaning I had no way of getting back inside the building. Thankfully, unlike my first year here, my res building has a front desk that always has someone there. I knocked on the door and explained that I forgot my key. I was so glad to get back to my room and just lie down.
I didn't unpack at all that day. I was much too tired.
Monday, 29 August 2011
Blogging and Packing
I'm not very good at keeping this blogging thing up, am I? Believe it or not there was a time way back when I used to post in my blog every single day without fail for a whole year (after that year I eased up a bit and went to a post every second day or third... and then grew increasingly infrequent). That was some crazy dedication. Of course I was a lot younger with a lot more blab in me. Most of the posts were about my day at school and shit like that but they still always managed to be very long. Usually averaging a whole word document page. I think what made me give up on the every day thing was my self-irritating tendency to NEED to include everything. I just wouldn't feel right or wouldn't feel comfortable if I left stuff out (which is probably one of my anxiety/OCD problems). So in the end, I just really felt like posting was a burden since it left me with a feeling of unease if I left stuff out.... yet if I didn't it would take me around an hour or more to post it all.
Of course, it made for good documenting. I go back and read it fairly often. There's enough posts that I can go to a random date every once in a while and read a post that I'd completely forgotten about: read about my the days I had, the feelings I had (some stupid teenage feelings indeed), etc etc. But anyways, that's why I don't really do much about my day any more. Not to mention that to anyone who is not me, my day is probably of no interest to them. I feel like it was a very good exercise though; I learned a lot in working on that blog. It really did help to develop a writing style for myself and as I go through the posts I can really see the changes in my writing. The first post was completely colloquial then the later posts turned a lot more... literature-like. Since then I've let a lot of colloquial language come back in... but it's amazing looking back at some of my posts written when I was 14; they almost read like an adult wrote them. I'd recommend any aspiring writer to try doing blogging to be honest. It keeps you writing... writing anything at all. In fact, a lot of authors recommend writing anything just regularly to keep in practice.
This isn't what I came here to write about at all. But then the first line just completely distracted me. I guess that's one thing I do love about blogging. Other people may read it but in the end it's for you. You can write about whatever the heck comes to your mind there and then.
Going completely off topic but... packing. Oh dear god packing. I don't even know where to start =/. I've leaving for school on September 3rd, all the way to Kingston, Ontario. So I need to pack but what in the world do I bring? I brought tons of shit last time and a lot of it I never even needed or used. Like I had a box full of books and shit. Never had time to read them. On the other hand I discovered that I hadn't brought enough clothes and shoes. I brought a shit ton of jewelry but never really used them because I'm the weird type of person who always just keeps on the same ones and don't exchange them often. You'd think with all this knowledge it'd be easier but no... Not really. Listing stuff off in my head it seems like I'm not going to take that much at all but I just know that by the time it comes to packing, I'm going to be shoving shit in in every nook and cranny I can find. Remind me why I decided to go so far again? Ugh.
Of course, it made for good documenting. I go back and read it fairly often. There's enough posts that I can go to a random date every once in a while and read a post that I'd completely forgotten about: read about my the days I had, the feelings I had (some stupid teenage feelings indeed), etc etc. But anyways, that's why I don't really do much about my day any more. Not to mention that to anyone who is not me, my day is probably of no interest to them. I feel like it was a very good exercise though; I learned a lot in working on that blog. It really did help to develop a writing style for myself and as I go through the posts I can really see the changes in my writing. The first post was completely colloquial then the later posts turned a lot more... literature-like. Since then I've let a lot of colloquial language come back in... but it's amazing looking back at some of my posts written when I was 14; they almost read like an adult wrote them. I'd recommend any aspiring writer to try doing blogging to be honest. It keeps you writing... writing anything at all. In fact, a lot of authors recommend writing anything just regularly to keep in practice.
This isn't what I came here to write about at all. But then the first line just completely distracted me. I guess that's one thing I do love about blogging. Other people may read it but in the end it's for you. You can write about whatever the heck comes to your mind there and then.
Going completely off topic but... packing. Oh dear god packing. I don't even know where to start =/. I've leaving for school on September 3rd, all the way to Kingston, Ontario. So I need to pack but what in the world do I bring? I brought tons of shit last time and a lot of it I never even needed or used. Like I had a box full of books and shit. Never had time to read them. On the other hand I discovered that I hadn't brought enough clothes and shoes. I brought a shit ton of jewelry but never really used them because I'm the weird type of person who always just keeps on the same ones and don't exchange them often. You'd think with all this knowledge it'd be easier but no... Not really. Listing stuff off in my head it seems like I'm not going to take that much at all but I just know that by the time it comes to packing, I'm going to be shoving shit in in every nook and cranny I can find. Remind me why I decided to go so far again? Ugh.
Monday, 1 August 2011
Worse Is Better
I'm curious to know whether there has ever been a time where better was better. I know, better is always better. So, what AM I talking about? Complaints. Better is never better between complainers. I won't really go into complainers themselves as everyone has some sort of gripe about complainers and being one myself it would be rather hypocritical. We can, however, look into one of the most common complainer's syndrome: Worse is better.
I noticed this very early on in my life that worse seems to always be better when taking part in a complainer's conversation. There's almost a sort of pride about it too. Before we get into that however, let's explain what exactly I mean by "worse is better." I'll simply record my earliest memory of an encounter with this syndrome and that should be self-explanatory. It's elementary school grade 4. I'm in the girl change room as everyone is getting changed into their gym clothes. The little girls are whining about having to partake in physical activity so early in the morning and inevitably comes the first complaint of, "Ugh I'm SO tired. I only had six hours of sleep last night." Immediately they are countered with, "Yeah? Well, I only got four hours." Then another boasts, "Well I didn't sleep at all!" Likely story... but that's beside the point. Boast. It's the perfect word to describe this syndrome. People like to boast when complaining of having the worse situation!
It is as if having the worst situation gives them the right to complain. All others have lost their right to complain as there's someone in their midst who has "suffered worse." I think there are a variety of people with this syndrome and it's not triggered by the same thing with everyone. Some people want the sympathy, some people want the spotlight, and some people are just reminded at that time that they have a similar and maybe worse situation and now would be a good time to complain about it. The last one is a common denominator of any group of complainers. The reason I don't deem it the primary reason for this syndrome is that the syndrome has a gradation.
"Worse is better" most often works from least to most. Somehow it's not the kid who got "no sleep at all" who pipes up first, it's the kid who got six hours.... and then the four hours, then finally the no sleep kid. Wouldn't you think that the person with the worst would be the first to speak up as they're "suffering" through the worst of it? I guess the only explanation is the comment I made earlier: "likely story." Stretching the truth. Those kids probably all got around 6 - 7 hours of sleep if not more. They just want to complain! And why do they want to complain? Refer to the list I gave earlier of the syndrome triggers: sympathy and attention. It's rather interesting the lengths people go to for those two things.
I speak a bit derisively of the people who have the "worse is better" syndrome but I have to admit that sometimes I fall victim to it too. It's hard to resist pitching in with the complaints when people around you are bleating theirs. Being a fairly big complainer myself I find it especially hard. That is why I have such respect for people who can sympathize or empathize and stop there. You know, the people who listen and show they understand your "suffering" and try to make you feel better with positive comments or what not. Or maybe you don't know... those people are hard to come by.
I noticed this very early on in my life that worse seems to always be better when taking part in a complainer's conversation. There's almost a sort of pride about it too. Before we get into that however, let's explain what exactly I mean by "worse is better." I'll simply record my earliest memory of an encounter with this syndrome and that should be self-explanatory. It's elementary school grade 4. I'm in the girl change room as everyone is getting changed into their gym clothes. The little girls are whining about having to partake in physical activity so early in the morning and inevitably comes the first complaint of, "Ugh I'm SO tired. I only had six hours of sleep last night." Immediately they are countered with, "Yeah? Well, I only got four hours." Then another boasts, "Well I didn't sleep at all!" Likely story... but that's beside the point. Boast. It's the perfect word to describe this syndrome. People like to boast when complaining of having the worse situation!
It is as if having the worst situation gives them the right to complain. All others have lost their right to complain as there's someone in their midst who has "suffered worse." I think there are a variety of people with this syndrome and it's not triggered by the same thing with everyone. Some people want the sympathy, some people want the spotlight, and some people are just reminded at that time that they have a similar and maybe worse situation and now would be a good time to complain about it. The last one is a common denominator of any group of complainers. The reason I don't deem it the primary reason for this syndrome is that the syndrome has a gradation.
"Worse is better" most often works from least to most. Somehow it's not the kid who got "no sleep at all" who pipes up first, it's the kid who got six hours.... and then the four hours, then finally the no sleep kid. Wouldn't you think that the person with the worst would be the first to speak up as they're "suffering" through the worst of it? I guess the only explanation is the comment I made earlier: "likely story." Stretching the truth. Those kids probably all got around 6 - 7 hours of sleep if not more. They just want to complain! And why do they want to complain? Refer to the list I gave earlier of the syndrome triggers: sympathy and attention. It's rather interesting the lengths people go to for those two things.
I speak a bit derisively of the people who have the "worse is better" syndrome but I have to admit that sometimes I fall victim to it too. It's hard to resist pitching in with the complaints when people around you are bleating theirs. Being a fairly big complainer myself I find it especially hard. That is why I have such respect for people who can sympathize or empathize and stop there. You know, the people who listen and show they understand your "suffering" and try to make you feel better with positive comments or what not. Or maybe you don't know... those people are hard to come by.
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Acupuncture
I've been getting acupuncture treatment lately and I've got to say: it is one of the weirdest medicinal practices out there. Some people are inclined to think that acupuncture does not work and is just a bunch of Asian hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo; however, my acupuncturist pointed out that if it really was a bunch of shit then it would have died out a long time ago. As it stands, acupuncture goes back a very very long time (the specifics of which I am not too bothered about as to wikipedia it).
This acupuncturist is actually a church friend of my mother's (this church is entirely Korean by the way). She often holds church meetings in our house (with tons of bratty kids who come with these church fellows but that is another story all together) and he and his wife come over often as well. I'm not sure when they moved here but apparently (I learned later) business has been going poorly what with the economy and all and he had loads of debt from the immigration. Now I'm sure westerners born and bred here wouldn't know this first hand but I'm sure they can still understand how very difficult it is to come to a new country, where your mastery of the language is just passable, and to make a living there. One can also imagine just how expensive it all is. This burden is one that all these Korean immigrants can relate to and so create a common ground upon which people can bond other than the fact that they're from the same country (which in and of itself is a strong "bonder" for Koreans anyways, harboring, as they do, very strong nationalistic qualities).
My parents held not only this bond and the "church fellow" bond with this acupuncturist but also held his skills in high respect as problems they had been suffering from for so long started to dissipate. My aunt was over couple months ago and she in very poor health... with treatment from this acupuncturist though she went home feeling much better. This guy had a level of skill that was very rarely seen. Thus impressed my mother decided that he was deserving of some advertising and started spouting off recommendations to everyone she knew. Somehow, while I wasn't looking, my mother had turned into a socialite and had tons of people to recommend his services to. Thanks to my mother's fervent advertising to all of her friends and their family, his business is now booming and he's busier than he's ever been. Which I think he thoroughly deserves.
I didn't really mean to linger on the above story so much but hey, I did warn that my posts are rather long (and often needlessly so) at the beginning of this blog. Anyways, that is how I came to be treated by this doctor for free. Yep. Free. Not only that but my parents both still are regular paying customers so I guess he figured that between the two set of circumstances he'd treat me for free. I can't say that I particularly LIKE to go and get needles jabbed in me... but I can certainly see that it is doing me a load of good.
I had horrible back pain and shoulder pain. When I lay in bed at night I have trouble lying on my back because this dull/numbing pain starts to grow right on my spine and I'm forced to turn to my side. It's not gone away entirely (I've been plagued by it much too long for couple weeks of treatment to chase it away) but it's certainly gotten better, so much so that some nights it doesn't hurt anymore. My lower back pain has greatly reduced and my mood has much elevated. The eczema I get on my face after washing it with plain soap (I've been forced to use Cetaphil – a very very gentle cleanser) has disappeared as well. My parents both exclaim at how colour has been restored to my skin. Apparently I used to sport a rather grey-ish ill-looking pallor on my face which has now been replaced with a healthy sort of glow. Not only is it acupuncture but I'm also drinking a medicinal tea which is supposed to work along with the acupuncture. I think stuff like muscle pain easing I can greatly attribute to the needles and the other stuff to the medicinal tea, though I do still believe they intertwine somewhat.
Though one might think that because he is treating me for the pains in my back, he would stick the needles there. Not at all. He attributes the problems I have with my body on my general lack of Chi. Though I didn't quite put it in those terms I've always somewhat known that. I'm a runt. My body is weak. The needles he puts on my arms and legs/feet are for energy, the six needles he puts just above my left knee are for my heart, the one he puts in the crease of my nose on my right side is for my mood energy. It goes on and I can't remember all of it. Especially as he goes through them in Korean and my proficiency is not so great as to really store the information received in that language very well. Oh and apparently, the ankles are crucial to your shoulders. Who would have thought? But he spends a lot of time stretching out my ankles (yes this guy doesn't just do needles, he also massages where needed and stretches where needed) and when he is done he feels my shoulders and I can feel that they have softened up since before the treatment. It is quite amazing and baffling. Ankles to shoulders? Trust me, I don't get it either. But if it works, it works, right? It's not like it was a placebo effect either as the first time he didn't even tell me what stretching the ankles did.
As I've said though, this guy is really really good at acupuncture. A lot better than some other people out there. My mother goes as far as to say that he has a born gift for it. I wish I could recommend acupuncture for everyone if all acupuncturists had the skill of this guy or better (not saying he's the best in the world but at least he gets some results)... but if you do find yourself having some muscle pain, it might not be a bad idea to try out acupuncture. I know it is foreign and strange to a lot of westerners as of yet but try it, who knows what might come of it?
This acupuncturist is actually a church friend of my mother's (this church is entirely Korean by the way). She often holds church meetings in our house (with tons of bratty kids who come with these church fellows but that is another story all together) and he and his wife come over often as well. I'm not sure when they moved here but apparently (I learned later) business has been going poorly what with the economy and all and he had loads of debt from the immigration. Now I'm sure westerners born and bred here wouldn't know this first hand but I'm sure they can still understand how very difficult it is to come to a new country, where your mastery of the language is just passable, and to make a living there. One can also imagine just how expensive it all is. This burden is one that all these Korean immigrants can relate to and so create a common ground upon which people can bond other than the fact that they're from the same country (which in and of itself is a strong "bonder" for Koreans anyways, harboring, as they do, very strong nationalistic qualities).
My parents held not only this bond and the "church fellow" bond with this acupuncturist but also held his skills in high respect as problems they had been suffering from for so long started to dissipate. My aunt was over couple months ago and she in very poor health... with treatment from this acupuncturist though she went home feeling much better. This guy had a level of skill that was very rarely seen. Thus impressed my mother decided that he was deserving of some advertising and started spouting off recommendations to everyone she knew. Somehow, while I wasn't looking, my mother had turned into a socialite and had tons of people to recommend his services to. Thanks to my mother's fervent advertising to all of her friends and their family, his business is now booming and he's busier than he's ever been. Which I think he thoroughly deserves.
I didn't really mean to linger on the above story so much but hey, I did warn that my posts are rather long (and often needlessly so) at the beginning of this blog. Anyways, that is how I came to be treated by this doctor for free. Yep. Free. Not only that but my parents both still are regular paying customers so I guess he figured that between the two set of circumstances he'd treat me for free. I can't say that I particularly LIKE to go and get needles jabbed in me... but I can certainly see that it is doing me a load of good.
I had horrible back pain and shoulder pain. When I lay in bed at night I have trouble lying on my back because this dull/numbing pain starts to grow right on my spine and I'm forced to turn to my side. It's not gone away entirely (I've been plagued by it much too long for couple weeks of treatment to chase it away) but it's certainly gotten better, so much so that some nights it doesn't hurt anymore. My lower back pain has greatly reduced and my mood has much elevated. The eczema I get on my face after washing it with plain soap (I've been forced to use Cetaphil – a very very gentle cleanser) has disappeared as well. My parents both exclaim at how colour has been restored to my skin. Apparently I used to sport a rather grey-ish ill-looking pallor on my face which has now been replaced with a healthy sort of glow. Not only is it acupuncture but I'm also drinking a medicinal tea which is supposed to work along with the acupuncture. I think stuff like muscle pain easing I can greatly attribute to the needles and the other stuff to the medicinal tea, though I do still believe they intertwine somewhat.
Though one might think that because he is treating me for the pains in my back, he would stick the needles there. Not at all. He attributes the problems I have with my body on my general lack of Chi. Though I didn't quite put it in those terms I've always somewhat known that. I'm a runt. My body is weak. The needles he puts on my arms and legs/feet are for energy, the six needles he puts just above my left knee are for my heart, the one he puts in the crease of my nose on my right side is for my mood energy. It goes on and I can't remember all of it. Especially as he goes through them in Korean and my proficiency is not so great as to really store the information received in that language very well. Oh and apparently, the ankles are crucial to your shoulders. Who would have thought? But he spends a lot of time stretching out my ankles (yes this guy doesn't just do needles, he also massages where needed and stretches where needed) and when he is done he feels my shoulders and I can feel that they have softened up since before the treatment. It is quite amazing and baffling. Ankles to shoulders? Trust me, I don't get it either. But if it works, it works, right? It's not like it was a placebo effect either as the first time he didn't even tell me what stretching the ankles did.
As I've said though, this guy is really really good at acupuncture. A lot better than some other people out there. My mother goes as far as to say that he has a born gift for it. I wish I could recommend acupuncture for everyone if all acupuncturists had the skill of this guy or better (not saying he's the best in the world but at least he gets some results)... but if you do find yourself having some muscle pain, it might not be a bad idea to try out acupuncture. I know it is foreign and strange to a lot of westerners as of yet but try it, who knows what might come of it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)