LASEK: 1 Month Reflections

Hey folks! 4 weeks later and my eyes are back to normal in every way I've noticed. No. That's a lie. BETTER than normal (considering what "normal" used to mean for the past 24 years). A few things:

1. I did go through glasses withdrawal. Aside from the joking comments I'd made on FB and to family about the phantom weight of the glasses on my nose and such, I've actually had to get used to my face without my glasses. They had become so apart of me, that I was feeling ugly without them for a while. They were an accessory that made me more interesting (I feel), but also a security blanket of sorts. I felt I could hide behind them and best of all..... I didn't' have to wear make-up. Don't get me wrong, make-up's cool and fun sometimes, but I only wore it when I wore contacts. In fact, I *always* wore make-up when I wore contacts, so once I was glasses-free and was allowed to wear eye make-up (two weeks ago) I had a dilemma. I don't want to wear make-up every day. Even more so I don't want to feel like I *need* to wear make-up every day. So... that was a tumultuous 2 weeks, being okay with my face in all its glory.... all its naked, blemished, glasses-free, make-up-less glory.... I'm almost there.
2. I still find myself reaching up to adjust my phantom glasses, but I think now it's because I have to wear sunglasses every time I go outside during the day.
3. I was trying to get things to fit on one of the small shelves in my bathroom and realised my giant bottle of contact solution was still sittting there taking up space. Needless to say, everything fits now!!

In all my nakedness.

Link to Dream Eye Clinic in Gangnam, South Korea.

Musical Winters

So I'm a bit of a dork and I try to have fun in my classes, cuz I figure if I have fun, the kids will too! So I've decided to play a Good Morning song and a Goodbye song for every class for the next 2 weeks during Winter Camp. The hope is that the kids will like the music and seeing me sing and be silly and will want to learn the songs too and will appreciate the routine of it.

For your viewing pleasure and entertainment, my good morning and goodbye songs:






(now that's a  sexy face right there)

Itaewon

Short post just to say that as much as I appreciate the wealth of foreign goodies (and offering of plus size clothing) to be found there, I'm really not a fan. The attitudes are more coarse, people seem to go out of their way to ignore each other (is that how it is back home? I've forgotten, but I feel it's not like that), I generally feel uncomfortable there, plus they charge tax. If I wanted to pay tax I'd have stayed in Canada.

Carry on.

It's About Food

Have you ever seen this before?

Sure you have!! It's a table covered with delicious dishes!! What you don't realize (and what I'm about to show you) is that this table.....

Slides onto another table!!!

I just thought was really cool and worth sharing.

That is all.

Record Breaker! LASEK Update

I went in to Dream Eye Centre (click the name!) for my 2-week check up and had my vision tested. Mr. Choo said, "This must be some kind of record." My left eyes is now at 20/20 and my right eye is at 20/17 or 16. That's BETTER than 20/20!!! In only 2 weeks! Both he and Dr. Lee were expecting that my vision would take longer to improve since I started with such a high degree of near-sightedness and astigmatism. But, as Mr. Choo said, "Your eyes were so bad, but..... they are very strong!" That's me!

So my vision is now at 110%!! A friend and I have this joke that I'm here in Korea as a government spy, so naturally when I had the surgery done, one of his first questions was, "So... do you have x-ray vision yet?" The way things are going (since my vision will continue to improve), it just may happen!! Hahaha the eye itself is still a bit weak (the membrane cells that is), but a couple more weeks and I should be good to go I hope. Now I can finally wear eye make-up again and can wash my face properly and wash my hair!!

The song that's been running through my mind since I got the news is "Magic" by B.o.B. featuring Rivers Cuomo.

♪♫ I've got the maaagic in me!! I've got the magic magic maaaaagic aaawooooo!!! ♪♫

STING!

That's right. I said Sting!

Jen, Steve and I made the everlasting journey to Olympic Park to see Sting in concert. Oh man did it take forever or WHAT! Almost 3 hours each way (6 hours of travel total). That being said, I'm so glad I went!! I wasn't a huge Sting fan before, but I was really impressed. What a great show! What a fantastic musician! Never off beat. Never off pitch. And some really original time signatures!! Wow!! And the Korean Symphonic Orchestra just made it even more magical. I bought a t-shirt before the concert and I'm glad I did!! Enjoy a few pictures!

Englishman in New York

Harmonica!



Playing a guitar-like instrument.

The bow after the 2nd encore I think. (There were 3)

WOO!

I have more pictures on Facebook. You can view the public link for that album here!

Cool after-story: We had to catch taxis home from Sanbon station because we'd missed the last train to Ansan station. I ended up cabbing it alone because of logistics. Couldn't catch a taxi, then I realised there was a line for taxis and that's why none of them were stopping for me. Doh! Then a drunk Korean ajashi (older man) who had been watching me and making fun of me asks me in Korean "Where are you going?" and let me cut in front of him in the line. THEN he asks again and I tell him Siheung. he flags down a taxi (mind you it was one of the more expensive ones) and got me in there, even though there were like 6 or 7 ppl ahead of me in line. He was probably able to, because it was more expensive and no one wanted to take it hahah. Anyway I get in and h takes me home and we have a fun conversation in Konglish (Korean/English) and I even  learned a couple new words!! It was cool. I ended up paying 24,000won (should taken up that one taxi driver who offered to only charge 20,000) for th emore expensive taxi, plus he made me pay for the tall charge. Oh well. I got home and had an enjoyable cab ride along the way. When you think about it though, $24 for a taxi ride of that distance is really good by Canadian standards!! hehe. Okay the end!

The Switch

I started blogging about my journey here in the R.O.K. (Republic of Korea) over at Xanga, but have decided to switch over to Blogger for various reasons. Ain't no thing but a chicken wing. You can read about the first 5 months of my stay here (link!). For those who were following me on Xanga, be sure to bookmark this page! Hope you enjoy.

Peace!