THE CHALAZION STORY

It was a bright Saturday on October 2010. I was getting ready to attend one of my best friends' wedding, putting make up on my face and accidentally found a red lump inside the lower lid of my left eye. The size of the lump was small that it was almost not visible from the outside. Although it was small, it still concerned me a lot since it's my eye we're talking about her. The lump did not cause any disturbance. I didn't feel any pain or discomfort whatsoever. I though it would gone by itself, but a week passed and it's still there and still red. So I decided to see a doctor. As I entered the room, the doctor didn't seem to find anything wrong with my eyes so he asked what brought me there. I slid the lower lid of my left eye and he saw the lump. It only took him three seconds to say that it should be removed through a small operation. I said "What?!" I never had any kind of operation whatsoever and the thought of having my eye operated was a complete horror to me.

So asked if there was other way to treat the lump, which was actually a Chalazion. The kind doctor examined the lump closer and once again said that as he couldn't see that the lump had an eye, a regular and non-invasive medication wouldn't work. He must have noticed that my face turned pale once again and asked if I wanted to give it a try anyway. I said yes so he gave me a prescription for a week. I had to take an antibiotic once a day and apply an ointment right to the lump three times a day. Before I left, the doctor said if the lump didn't go away after a week, I had to come back and had it removed. Leaving the doctor's room, I said OK while praying so hard that the lump would disappear so I didn't have to go through any operation.

I did what the doctor said obediently. I never forgot to take the antibiotic, apply the ointment, and hoping the lump would get smaller and eventually gone in a matter of days. A week passed and red eye was gone. However, the lump was still there! It did not even get smaller. So that day, right after work, I gathered my courage and went to the doctor to have the small operation. As soon as I met the doctor and said that my Chalazion was still there, I could see that look on his face saying "Told ya!"

5 Minutes later I was lying down on an operation bed in a small operation room and had a nurse cleaning my left eye. I was supposed to text my brother so he could pick me up as soon as I had the operation, but the nurse led me to the operation room quickly and I didn't had the chance to do it. All of a sudden the doctor entered the room and started the operation procedure. Since it was my eye lid he was operating, even though it was blurry, I could see a small knife and other tools approaching my eye. It was scary and a bit painful. I clenched my teeth out of nervousness and anticipation. The doctor said that there was a lot of blood but it was actually normal. It took only 5 minutes and the doctor said "Ok, we're done!" My left eye was covered with a bandage and the nurse said I could take it off the next morning. I also had to keep on applying the ointment until the scar was completely disappear.

So I walked out of the room like a pirate having my left eye covered with a bandage. Seeing with only an eye and still nervous from the operation, I walked down the stairs very carefully. I was still quite puzzled so I went straight to the toilette looking for a mirror to see how I look like with a bandage over my left eye. It looked and felt weird. The thought of having to go home alone with that condition confused me, but I couldn't wait for my brother to come and pick me up as it would take at least 30 minutes or even more! I couldn't wait that long, I wanted to go home and lie on my bed as soon as possible. So finally I decided to go home alone but I realized that I had to do it very carefully since my vision is reduced by 50% at that point. I walked out of the toilette and almost hit a wall to my left because I couldn't see it. Damn you bandage!

Walking out of the eye clinic, all the nurses and staffs are starring at me. They must be pity me for having no one accompanying me. Crossing the street was my first challenge as soon as I left the eye clinic. I waited until  it was completely empty. I made it! Thank God I only had to take a public transport once so I thought it wouldn't be that difficult. I stopped one and hopped in. As I did, the little boy who was sitting on the front seat with his mom couldn't take his eyes off me..or my bandage. He seemed terrified! LOL

I arrived home safe and sound, and as I had expected, my family was surprised to see me with a bandage on my eye and asked why I hadn't texted or called so that my brother could pick me up. I said it didn't matter. Having the bandage on is very uncomfortable. I couldn't see things clearly, especially when I watched TV. The next morning, I opened it up and was very thrilled to see my eye was perfectly fine and the Chalazion was completely gone!

Chalazion is actually a cyst found in the inside of the eyelid. It is caused by a blocked meibomian gland that leads to inflammation. It is normally painless but may cause discomfort, and in long term may also lead to astigmatism due to the pressure it gives to the cornea. Chalazion is normally found on the upper eyelid since there are more meibomian glands on the area, but mine was on the lower eyelid. Chalazion removal is done by tearing the lump and drain the liquid out of it. It is usually done under local anesthesia.  Below is a video of Chalazion removal operation I picked out from YouTube. Every time I watch it, I just couldn't believe I had gone through such thing. Thank God it only took 5 minutes!

SILLIEST THING EVER!!

It does not matter how careful we are or how hard we try to keep ourselves well-behaved and act smart, there are always times when we made the silliest mistake ever that we keep it for ourselves. We fear of the judgment people may lay on us if we told them the silly little secret. However, few people choose to tell their friends anyway. It may take a while, but eventually they come clean by letting people know about it.

If you run a Google search on the silliest things people ever did, you will be surprised for what you will discover. There's one who fell through the roof in the corridors at the law court, once wore his trousers inside out, and even there's one who got caught up with his best friend's mom! Well, my story of the silliest thing ever is milder than getting caught making out with a friend's parent, obviously, but it's still really silly, at least for me.

It was a fine day in September last year. I was brushing my teeth in the shower. The thing about me and brushing my teeth is the fact that I always put a lot of effort in doing it. I was told by the dentist that I should not have to brush my teeth too hard or too long as the most important thing is the technique, but I just couldn't get rid of the habit. Back at the scene, I guess I was trying to brush the inside of my upper teeth. I brushed back and forth so hard that all of a sudden the toothbrush slipped and somehow poked my eye! It really hurt because of two things. The poke and the toothpaste. The toothpaste that I used is the common type that has mint in it. The cold and fresh sensation of the mint feels great in your mouth, but trust me, it feels awful when it gets into your eyes! I had to wash my eyes many many times with clean water to get rid of the pain and the white of my eyeball turned red. The pain remained for hours, the red eye stayed for days, but the embarrassment of ever experienced such silly thing lasts forever!

I told my friends about it, and they laughed, of course. LOL

Btw, I checked and found that I'm not the only one who accidentally poked my eye with a toothbrush. Yay!
There's even a guy who did the same thing and made a Facebook group account about it!

WHAT DOESN'T KILL US MAKES US BITTER

The title of this post is a sentence I read from the note of Chuck Lorre at the end of one of my favorite TV series The Big Bang Theory. Chuck Lorre, who is the executive producer of this successful comedy always gives his note at the end of every episode. The notes are about anything that happened to cross his mind by the time he wrote them. This time, that thing is about pain and how it affects us. You see that usually people say that what doesn't kill you makes us better, or in the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." So instead of putting the word "stronger" or "better" at the end f the sentence that I made into the title of this post, Chuck Lorre decides to put the word "bitter." He said in the note that he used to be believe it in order to be both funny and true.


The sentence, which I think is pretty witty, struck my mind. One of my closest friends always say to me that pain is good because it makes you stronger. He is obviously a huge fan of Nietzsche's. But it seemed that I could not connect with the meaning behind the sentence. I know what it means, but I always feel that there is something wrong about it. When I found the word "bitter" at the end of the sentence, I found myself smiling spontaneously and I believe that some sort of an agreement was the reason behind it.


That's it!
What doesn't kill us makes us bitter!

Now I can feel it. I'm finally connected to the sentence like I've never been. The pain I feel makes me bitter. I used to be the kind of person who thinks about things as positive. I see good things in people and in everything. But it turned out that life is not just about a sunny side up. There's rain and storms as well. Being hurt, disappointed, and even betrayed has turned me into a bitter person that almost doesn't believe in sincerity. It may sound a little scary, but that's the truth. Well, I am not entirely bitter,though. I still have those little flakes of positivity and a slight of a happy-go-lucky spirit inside me. I know I won't turn into a full-time bitter person 'cause I always believe that everyone is a part-time angel and a part-time evil. 

GOOGLE CHROME LADY GAGA'S EDGE OF GLORY

Lady Gaga is literally unstoppable. She just cannot take a pause even a bit of a second. Dazzling the world is the thing she's really good at. After shocking the world with her new album, Born This Way, she appeared in a short film made for celebrating her relationship with her loyal fans, the little monsters. This short movie is actually Google Chrome's commercial and it is powered by Gaga's real fans who uploaded videos of themselves singing and dancing to the artist's song, The Edge of Glory.

Even before I watched the film, I have already fallen for the song. I have always love Lady gaga and her powerful voice. This song, I think, features her amazing vocal more than any other songs, not to mention the emotions attached to it. Personally, the song has given me some kind of a boost of power. Knowing the story behind it gave me chills and as I listened to the chorus, it brought tears to my eyes. That's how powerful the song is for me. The Edge of Glory was written before Gaga's grandfather passed away. It was told that Gaga was so moved by the fact that her grandfather looked so glorious and triumphant with the love of his life by his side despite being dying in his deathbed. The edge of glory that is.

The lyrics and the melody of the song The Edge of Glory, no to mention the solidity of Lady Gaga's fan base, have captured the attention of Google Chrome and the rest is history. The short film was basically about how Lady Gaga connects to her little monsters, encouraging them to love themselves, and how the little monsters are very expressive, loyal and become an inspiration for the artist. It is such a wonderful relationship and the web is what makes it all possible. The commercial features videos of real fans showing how inspired they are by Lady Gaga, and how Lady Gaga is motivated to keep on moving and creating more and more crazy and inspiring stuff.

I really think that Gaga is the hardest working artist and musician. She puts a lot of effort, thoughts, heart and emotions in her each and every single work. She might be controversial, but she is also extremely talented and those who have seen her performing her songs live simply cannot deny that.

Lady Gaga is a body of work, an unstoppable hard-working artist, and of course, a very proud Mother Monster.

Re-Defining Yourself

While others would say that the search for your true self takes place in your teen years, I lean on to the concept that we are continuously searching for that so-called true self for all of our lifetime. Teenage years are only the beginning of that long journey. The process of defining yourself is something that you would go through for years and years and it only ends when your lungs are out of oxygen to pump. I always believe that people change, and they change for many many times during their lifetime on Earth. You cannot simply expect a cheerful and kind girl to grow into a cheerful and kind woman as well. How people change themselves is highly affected by the things they face in life, their surroundings and how they cope with all of that.

It does not always take a dramatic or life-wrecking tragedy to turn one from white to a complete dark. Bits of little memories can do exactly the same. One does not have to experience a horrifying experience like physical or sexual abuse or a deep lost of a very significant person in his life in order to be completely changed. The little pieces of bitter memories that stay in that dark room in the corner of the brain are obviously capable of making a person turn into someone very different. In other words, those scars are as deadly as a wound from a bullet shot right through the brain. I believe that we choose our own memories, and we may choose different memories to bring up to the surface every time we open that dark little corner room. When we choose the good memories, we become a happier person, and when we choose the bad ones, we are as as hurt as a shot bird or as angry as a furiously roaring lion knowing his area is being trespassed.

No one was born evil, and even if one turns into an evil person, no one is an evil all the time.So don't trust anyone who says that he is a full-time cold blood. Everyone is a part-time evil, part-time angel, swinging like a pendulum. So don't think too hard when it comes to re-defining yourself. It will change again soon. One's character is something that is written with a pencil, not a pen. The best thing we can do is to keep the bad one up for a short time and the good one longer.

They're Made out of Meat !!!

"They're Made out of Meat" is a brilliant and hilarious short story by Terry Bisson who is an American science fiction and fantasy author. In my opinion, this story is the perfect commentary of the fact that we are not alone in this huge universe(s). I have always been attracted to cosmology, and that what makes this story one of my all-time favorites.

Enjoy.. ^_^

They're Made out of Meat

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So ... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

I Miss My Hobby!!!!

I miss my hobby!!

I always love making crafts but work stopped me from doing it. I started this hobby by making paper boxes from wedding invitations years ago. I thought that the paper was cute and I started to cut them and make paper boxes out of those pretty papers. I made the boxes in many different sizes. Some are really small. The technique was very simple yet they turned out really cute actually. After the paper boxes, came the picture frame phase. A picture frame which was a wedding gift inspired me. I tried many different ornaments, but thick papers are always the main material. I continued to make many different kinds of picture frames in many different sizes. Some of my friends loved them. They even asked me to make some for them. There were times when I made picture frames as birthday gifts for some of my friends..and they really liked it.

I tried to make my own pattern printed on the paper that I used to make the frames. I loved the one with words pattern. One of my friend even asked me to make one for her as a gift for her boyfriend (who is now her husband ^_^).. This one was a custom project. The words that are printed to to the frame were the ones that mean a lot for both of them. I was told that they still keep it!! This kind of stories always make me happy and love my hobby even more. The idea of custom gifts has been in my mind for a long time now. I wish someday I can make it come true by having a gift shop that makes custom gifts based on my customers' stories. That would be really exciting!!!

I had sewing phase too, but it did not last long. I made some wallets and other stuff but then I got bored and made other things from different materials. The last material I tried was felt. It is a kind of fabric that is widely used for crafts because it comes in many amazing colors and it is easy to be formed into many different shapes. I tried to make some necklaces from it. It was pretty fun...and I was confident enough to wear them too!! My friends liked it and even asked them to make some felt necklaces for them, but unfortunately I never had the chance to..(sorry..).. Well, here are some of my felt necklaces...