i had a series of long and depressing dreams last night, it was so unbearable. even the last happy dream was unbearable, because i dreamt that i finished another essay, only to wake up and realize i haven't even started yet. in one very amusing episode, a bloated version of jessica simpson grabbed my ass. i have no idea what to make out of that.


tired of watching lovers swarming all over the city, holding hands, speeding past on motorbikes, sharing umbrellas, carrying each other's bags, wearing matching accessories... i am barred from their world.
posted by melody at 7/31/2005 11:23:00 p.m.

new meds again! surprised? shouldn't be...

finally got myself a neurologist.
now i know why we should envy the rich and famous... if they get sick everyone tries everything to find out what it is... newspapers will report that brad pitt checks into the hospital for a flu and his spokesperson has to issue official statements about what kind of virus he's got. ordinary people like me? have to wait over a month just to get a CT scan. thankfully my mom pulled some strings.

so, yesterday morning was spent speaking with the neurologist, the flu doctor (i dunno what he specializes in), and the very nice lady who bruised my arm while trying to take blood from it. apparantly my blood vessel is very deep set (probably hidden under a lot of fat)... i dun get it tho, i can see it very clearly through my skin. anyway it's bruised all along the vein now. =____=

tmw morning i go for a CT scan. these tests are costing more than i thought they would... the CT scan would've been free but i need to pay extra b/c i'm allergic and need to get a special kind of serum for people who are allergic and have asthma... being sick sucks!!

seeing the neurologist again to get some definitive answers on august 9th, but for now i have a prescription for mestinon - the treatment drug for myasthenia gravis, and a "patient's survival guide for myasthenia gravis". yup. they've pronounced my deeeeath. it's kind of a trial thing, but i took the med yesterday and i managed to keep my eyes open for the entire 2 hours of The Island. which means increasing levels of acetylcholine works, which means my problem probably lies in faulty mechanisms at the neuromuscular junction, which means i probably have myasthenia gravis.

oh... well...
it's kind of upsetting to get a rare disease with so much medical knowledge concerning it... so little that they don't even know the precise cause and cure of it. but at least mine's just ocular, for now. there are a lot of worse things that can happen.
posted by melody at 7/28/2005 04:19:00 p.m.

越是沒有聲音 越想大聲呼喊大聲唱歌 不想被遺漏被忽略
以前習慣的角落 積了塵 坐下去 連打了好幾個噴嚏
牠似乎在嘲笑著我: 你已為你是誰 你已為你可以像他們一樣享受陽光的溫暖嗎
錯了錯了 大錯特錯 你還是安分的待在角落吧 直到默默的死去為止


愛了 厭了 就像用你手 救了廢了要了我的命
算了 算了 夠了 我滿足到不得了
posted by melody at 7/26/2005 04:00:00 p.m.

how stupid do you have to be to burn your butt?
apparently, as stupid as i am.

i got new meds, more familiar meds. it's scary when you look at those meds lists your doctor is making for the pharmacy and you know what they are and what they do... i get sick way too much. i did get one new antibiotic that i didn't recognize though - voren. the packaging is so scary... it's one of those capulets(?), one end is red, one end is transparent, and inside are tiny tiny tiny little white balls of medicene. it'svery scary looking.

same thing with the nerve specialist on saturday - she was telling me that it's not about the eyeball it's about what happens at the neuromuscular junction, and i nodded. she probably just figured i was acknowledging the "not about the eyeball" part, but i really understand what she's talking about, down to how the acetycholine particles stimulate the receptors of the muscles... i think with my major it's better if you don't need to apply your knowledge to real life.

anyway. my life now is a series of doctor's appointments, transfering from one place to another about one illness and another. after getting through about 20 bottles of water and 2 bags of tissue paper (in 2 days), i'm on to mainly chugging cough syrup now. recovery (from anything) seems infinetly far away.
posted by melody at 7/25/2005 10:53:00 p.m.

how sick can i get?

my flu pills have funny marks on them.
they look like curse marks, though in all likelihood it's just the symbol of the medicene company that produces them. still, after being introduced to all those video games like doom3 or resident evil, they become quite sinister looking.

tomorrow i see the internal medicene nerve specialist and hopefully get assigned some dates to go stay in the hospital for a couple of a days for some tests. soon enough i'll hopefully find out if it's myasthenia gravis i've got or something worse, like my eyesight is never going to get better or something. i can't imagine what else it could be though - emotional distress? some kind of weird combination of near and far sightedness that the eye doctor couldn't find? distorted eyeballs from straining them or reading in bed? ai.

only 36.9 degrees according to the thermometer but i'm feeling incredibly feverish. tonight is going to be a tough night to get through... i can either turn on the air con and make my throat hurt more and sneeze a lot more, or i can open the window and let my skin allergies go nuts from the humidity. neither sounds particularly appealing.

and i've been dying to go swimming for a week now.
would i even get to go to malaysia? indonesia, even?

i dun think i can even finish my essays on time.
i haven't been able to do squat lately cuz i keep on seeing double.
posted by melody at 7/23/2005 01:30:00 a.m.

hurray for professor christine parkin!!!!

she keeps cutting assignments without being requested.
the best part is, she cut "troilus and cresseida" and "anthony and cleopatra", the only two plays on the syllabus that i haven't read yet.
that means i only have 4 more essays to write instead of 5. and i'm halfway through one of them anyway. i can hardly believe it, i keep on flipping through my text and counting over and over again.

and she's not making me go back to vancouver to take the exam!!
i can either write it in taiwan (i guess around august 6th), or she can inquire for me whether it's possible for me to take it back in vancouver at the end of summer. she rocks.

but now i have to decide if i want to delay my exam. HMM.
it's so tempting, but i know i'll procrasinate until the last minute again.
oh well who gives. i am going to research my vacation options now. WHAHAHAHA

laura wants to go take a trip around taiwan, and it's been suggested i drive... hmm... but i'm t-t-t-terrified of driving in taiwan... >____< and i'll be the DRIVER for the ENTIRE trip. it's especially depressing when no one else in the car knows how to drive, cuz they have no idea what's going on, they just talk really loudly or all fall asleep with no sympathy whatsoever. ai~

mmm i'm dizzy, i might be guzzling too much caffeine lately in an effort to finish my work because i'm generally too distraught during the day to write anything. and then i spend more than an hour lying awake in bed trying to fall asleep.

yesterday when i was all dizzy and seeing spots and ready for bed, i saw a giant cockaroach. i haven't seen one in this apartment for years. i tried to squash it with my slipper, but it got away, and RAN INTO MY ROOM and DISAPPEARED. i had to go sleep with my mom, and she snores. now i'm afraid that it's still in my room, perhaps crawling around my trunk, leaving gross cockaroach germs on my clothes and products... (yeah i live out of a trunk). EWWWW.

funny conversations tonight, especially those with claire about the "legendary trio" making me miss first year of junior high.
come to think of it i had a lot of fun that year... i was getting really good grades without trying, i was very outgoing and friends with everybody, our class had this hilarious rivalry with the class next to us (and it was fun bc we beat them in everything), perhaps most of all looking forward to breaks spent on the balcony... then i got yanked away. now? now...
posted by melody at 7/15/2005 01:20:00 a.m.

i tried to be perfect
but nothing was worth it
i don't believe it makes me real
i thought it'd be easy
but no one believes me
i meant all the things i said

if you believe it's in my soul
i'd say all the words that i know
just to see if it would show
that i'm trying to let you know
that i'm better off on my own

this place is so empty
my thoughts are so tempting
i don't know how it got so bad
sometimes it's so crazy
that nothing can save me
but it's the only thing that i have

i tried to be perfect
it just wasn't worth it
nothing could ever be so wrong
it's hard to believe me
it never gets easy
i guess i knew that all along

if you believe it's in my soul
i'd say all the words that i know
just to see if it would show
that i'm trying to let you know
that i'm better off on my own

posted by melody at 7/14/2005 04:35:00 p.m.

死也放不了手

那就去死吧

死是唯一的解答
posted by melody at 7/14/2005 04:34:00 p.m.

.................

apparently i came back during the most expensive time of the year...
if i had left after july 15th, it would've been 300 bucks cheaper...
posted by melody at 7/12/2005 12:51:00 a.m.

i went off the antibiotics after saturday and my body has just gone beserk.

i'm so, soooo allergic.
i've been getting these allergy spots that are kinda like poisonous mosquito bites that don't go away. they get red and swollen and turn hard, and they usually leave dark pigment for months or years after they go away. i also got allergic to a actual mosquito bite. i must have, because it's not normal for a regular bite to decide that it wants to expand to a diameter of 5cm overnight. and become ridiculously swollen and red and itchy and painful, and HOT. the temperature of the entire lump is raised. my allergic conjuncvitis isn't getting better even though i've been religiously administering the eyedrops, and my lips are frequently irregular shaped and spilt from the allergies. thank god the lips part isn't so bad yet. i'm definetely going to see the doctor tomorrow, even though i'm way behind on my studying schedule.

yeah, i'm on vacation and i'm horribly sick and stressed and i have a freaking studying schedule that goes something like read one shakespeare play per day and write an 8-12 page essay every three days.


aside from those, the very fabric of my being is being torn apart. literally.
i don't know how much longer i can repress it, i don't know how much longer i can remain sane.


am i really capable of murder?
don't push me.
posted by melody at 7/12/2005 12:34:00 a.m.

money money money money money money money

my exam date is surprisingly august 8th instead of the usual mid-august date.
aside from having to change my ticket, speed up my essay writing (by a lot), it poses so many travel problems...

it wouldn't be that big of a deal to go back to vancouver for just 3 days to take the exam and then come back to taiwan again, except my mom has a curiously strong urge to go travelling. that's a lot of money to be spending on travelling in one summer. i know i spent lots more last summer, but... i dunno. i don't enjoy spending money anymore. maybe it's because inevitably people are always fighting and arguing over money, i just wish i didn't have to worry about it.

there are a lot of expenses i could arguably do away with. for example, i don't really need a parkade pass ($710). i don't REALLY need a car, even, so that does away with the insurance fee and the maintenance fees and gas money and car wash money. i don't need to have cable tv, or if i do i could do with basic cable. i could go on a very basic cell phone plan... i could get rid of my internet account and continue to steal crappy wireless connections. i could take a student loan, study harder and try to get a scholarship. i could cook more. eat salad for dinner, it'd be for my own good really. i could do all of these things. but can i, really? i think i'm too spoiled. all these things feel like necessities, or basics. but really they are all luxuries, aren't they? a car, entertainment, dining out... this isn't really a student's life.

arghhhhh. 6 more essays to go and less tahn 25 days left.
i don't think i can possibly do this.
posted by melody at 7/10/2005 12:04:00 a.m.

hurrah, i'm not blind (yet)!!

a week in a somewhat rural city with no internet...

some highlights:
aching teeth, turning purple, holes in mouth, unstoppable bleeding, poisonous bites, breakfast at 8, overloading on antibiotics and painkillers, procrasination, purple yams, humongous puppy, delicious coffee, one dollar pudding milk tea, and the blue, blue ocean.

i managed to have a good time, actually.
it would've been much better if i didn't have to get two teeth plucked out and a stack of shakespeare to finish, perhaps. but it wasn't so bad...


now, about my eyes...

i started developing this pattern where my eyelids become heavy and it becomes increasingly hard to focus them when i'm tired. it's alright in the morning when i just wake up, but it gets much worse in the afternoon and at night, until by bedtime i am haunted by double vision. after establishing that my eyesight itself was fine with the eye doctor, i was transfered to an internal medicene doctor who was a specialist in nerves, because my symptoms sounded like myasthenia gravis, this disease that involves faulty overproduction of anti-achetycholine antibodies... what happens is your muscles get weaker and weaker. it usually affects the eye area, then in about 40% of cases it starts affecting your swallowing mechanisms and then your breathing mechanisms, and then any of the muscles in your limbs and torso. in the worst case scenario you become completely weak and have to breathe on an artificial inhaler. or you could die.

anyway... after listing the scary facts...
the doctor and i decided to observe for a week what happens if i kept a normal sleeping schedule, because we suspected that the lazy eye had more to do with me sleeping so irregularly for so long. if it doesn't get better, i'm supposed to go stay in the hospital for a couple days for some testing... some medicene testing, scans, blood tests, and something about electrifying my nerves. that last one totally freaked me out.

so i tried the regular sleeping thing... it worked, for a while... my eyesight is still not that great... takes an effort to focus my eyes. it's kinda distressing, but it's been getting better. so should i go get my nerves electrified...?

the thing is, they don't really have a "cure" for the disease, just treatments...
unless they put me on meds, i'm just supposed to try to relax and keep emotional balance, and not get myself too tired.

that sounds... totally possible.....
if i quit school and jump off a cliff or something...
posted by melody at 7/09/2005 04:40:00 p.m.