Gooble Gobble

This is as close as I’ve ever come to a self portrait. It’s not anatomically correct, and no, I don’t have tentacles sticking out of me, but my goodness am I worried about my thyroid.

I’ve never done a self-portrait before, especially in the style of drawing that I do. A part of it is that I’m not really a big fan of my face. I find it narcissistic. And I don’t think so much of myself to the extent that I couldn’t afford narcissism. Another part is that a lot of what I write in my works is more personal and probably says more than a portrait would. A picture does not tell a thousand words. Pictures lie. Diaries however, while they may not be 100% truth, they show that particular person’s truth.

And speaking of my fears.

What a difference an article makes.

 

A Year of Health Scare

Last year, around the same time today, I got diagnosed with an enlarged thyroid. The doctors don’t quite know what to make of it and they said they would just put me under observation. “Come back in a year.” It’s been a year. I’ll see what’s going on this afternoon, fingers crossed.

After my diagnosis last year, I learned a couple of things. One is that my family has a history of it. My sister has an enlarged thyroid and she’s managing it with drugs. My mom had issues with her thyroid as well. I forgot all about it, but I do remember worrying about her having goiter when I was younger. In any case, according to test results, my hormone levels are fine so there’s really not much cause for concern for now.

The other thing I learned is that there’s a tendency for some Korean doctors to exaggerate the need for surgery when it comes to thyroid problems. Patients end up getting their thyroids removed, using drugs to manage their hormone levels, and harming themselves more in the long run. I guess it leads to more business for surgeons, pharmaceutical companies, and hospitals. So yeah, as immoral as it may seem, I have to exercise a bit of caveat emptor when it comes to medical diagnoses in this country.

It will be my mom’s birthday in a couple of days. Last year was horrible for me. It was started by the news regarding my health, and it just went downhill from there, one thing after another. God, I hope this year would be better.

Update: More tests, more bills. Despite the doctor’s reassurances, I feel more grim. Paying hospital bills hurts, but the waiting just adds more to the pain.

 

Healthy But Short Life

I don’t put too much stock on palm reading or any sort of fortune telling at all, but during drinks, a palm reader looked at my hands and told me that I’ll have a healthy life… a short and healthy life.

See, I haven’t been the healthiest kid growing up. I was always sick with something… a skinny, asthmatic kid. This must be the root of my weak and cowardly nature. Anyway, I’m much better now. I’m not as skinny. Heck, there are parts of me that my wife would even call fat. My body basically forgot it had asthma, and the only thing that worries me is a somewhat enlarged thyroid and a slightly high blood pressure. The thyroid’s a genetic thing, and I just have to watch it. As for my blood pressure, it’s the burgers I’ve been having on a somewhat regular basis. I’m going to have to watch that, too. I work out, I take my vitamins, and I brush my teeth religiously. Healthy life.

Too bad that according to this palm reading; it’ll probably end soon in a fatal accident.

But is a short life really any worse than a long one? I guess it depends on a person’s lifestyle, or what exactly they’re doing with that life. But really, a short life is far worse for the people the dead leave behind. I don’t think the dead ever think that their lives are far too short. At least, that’s what I assume. When I pass away and become privy to the secrets of the universe, I don’t think I’ll mourn much for my short life. I’ll mourn for the living I leave behind, but not for dead old me. I like to imagine that there are grander truths after death, and that all of this living is inconsequential compared to the “life” afterwards. It sounds very Catholic of me. At least that’s what I prefer to think. It’s Catholic, not morbid.

All this talk of life and short lives remind me of Rufus Wainwright who wrote, “Life is the longest death in California.” The song is not my favorite, but it’s my favorite line he’s ever written.

Life truly is the longest death.

Ideas Cages Fired by Former Beatle

I dreamt Sir Paul McCartney fired me for failing to properly proofread a book. That book being the encyclopedia, specifically the book under M. Granted, I assume I must’ve learned quite about from topics under A to M, but I woke up quite the sting, being fired by a knight and former Beatle.

2014 so far: I lost one of my clients because his company will no longer pay for my services. He admits that my services are far too costly to be coming out of his pocket so that was it. Just like that, I’m $400 a month poorer. Doctors also found that my right thyroid is a bit enlarged, so I’m being observed for hyperthyroidism or malignant cysts. So far, the bloodwork says everything is normal, but my cholesterol is a bit high. Ugh, not a great year. Though I’m not really at my most optimistic since I update my Website on Mondays.

IDEA: If this has been done before, let me know. Viewer/player/reader receives an envelope containing three articles: a newspaper article, an initial autopsy, and an interview from a witness. Five questions about the information follows. Getting four questions right leads to another envelope with more information (maybe another report from a different precinct, a detective agency, etc.). This leads to five more questions, etc. where the difficulty is raised and the person is not just asked to repeat facts but to piece together information. Getting questions wrong and not getting the next envelope leads to the wrong person getting arrested and the perpetrator getting away. The last question is who did it and what happened.

I’m thinking of cases similar to the Elisa Lam case, where a Canadian student was found drowned in a hotel water tank with no evidence of foul play and with footage of her talking to an invisible stranger in the hotel elevator.

So far, the idea sounds like a fun thing to do in a classroom. Students get together in groups, gets to discuss the facts, then answer the questions. They get them right, then they move on, etc. I’m wondering if there’s a way that would make the chore of answering questions a little more fun so that the viewer/player/reader doesn’t have to be confined in a classroom. The Letters of John and Abigail Adams (http://www.amazon.com/The-Letters-John-Abigail-Adams/dp/0142437115) sounds like a good template… perhaps mixed with a bit of Choose Your Own Adventure, but I don’t know how that would all work.

Just trying to find a way to write creatively and perhaps turn that idea into a product.