small battles won every day.
written: 4:46 p.m. on Monday, Mar. 10, 2008

Islamic Law was a complete disaster. I quite literally was unable to comprehend the question and my answer was basically a regurgitation of what the prof said in class. Great. It was so incredibly difficult to write because I felt like I was just condescending the chapters from the prof's book (which, of course, he assigned for us to read) without any analysis whatsoever, and you have no idea how hard it was to do that. Writing every single word was like squeezing the blood out of my body, drop by drop. UTTERLY HORRENDOUS.

On the plus side, I'm glad it's over. I slept at 11.45 last night with 4018 words and woke up at 8 this morning to cut it down to 4000 and I submitted it at around 8.45. Have I mentioned I'm glad it's over? I'm so glad it's over.

My SMS memory seems to be perpetually over 95% full. Why oh why did Sony Ericsson remove the 'reply and delete' function from their phones?!

In other news, I'm officially obsessed with David Cook. I listen to his original songs multiple times a day. I can even sing them now. And of course, I have favourites: "Makeover" is amazing, as is "Don't Say a Word". I almost wish he weren't on American freaking Idol because past contestants hardly ever truly make it (unless you're Kelly Clarkson, and I suppose Carrie Underwood, but I violently dislike her), but if he weren't on American Idol I would never have heard of him. See, it's totally a catch-22. And I think he might just make runner-up because all my favourites have made second place, except Taylor Hicks who WON!!! But then I wasn't really that into Taylor, not the same way I was into Bo Bice and Blake Lewis. But none of them can match my David obsession. I think he's absolutely amazing, as in I can listen to him sing all day long and not get tired of it, and it also helps that he does the kind of music that I genuinely love. And I honestly didn't think he was exceptionally good-looking, just kind of cute, sometimes even quite gross-looking, until he 1) shaved; 2) did something, whatever it was, to his hair that finally worked; and 3) wore a plain black/dark grey t-shirt that hid his flaws. The result:



OMG HOT. What wonders a razor does for a guy, truly. Though I must say that he could afford to drink less beer and, you know, work out. The belly is rather unhot.

But I really don't give a shit how fat he is as long as he continues to sing to me in that amazing voice of his. I can't wait for Wednesday, bwahahaha. I read some of his Xanga posts that someone posted online before American freaking Idol made him shut down his online stuff, and not only is he damn funny, he's also extremely literate! I just cannot stress enough how much I dig a guy who capitalises properly, spells properly (though he spelled 'weird' wrongly and had a redundant apostrophe for 'its') and has the ability to construct a grammatically-correct sentence. It's just so fundamental to a person's existence that I cannot comprehend how people can get by in life with bad grammar, or how people can tolerate bad grammar.

Okay, fine, it's just me.

Anyway, on to other stuff. So last Friday I saw a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, recommended by my mom's friend's friend's husband who also had Bell's Palsy and got better on Chinese medicine. I was all prepared to ingest the most disgusting and bitter and vile substance on the planet just to get my face back, and indeed the medicine I was given, a packet of weird-looking plants and whatever else that my mom lovingly boiled for me, was absolutely disgusting. I think I have a pretty high threshold for bitterness, what with my fear of sugar and all things fattening. I drink coffee and tea and herbal tea and whatever else as is, no sugar added. But the medicine, oh my god. It wasn't just bitter; it had this strange aftertaste that almost triggered my gag reflex. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't really that gross, and at times I found myself thinking that it wasn't that gross, but the truth is? It really was that gross.

In any case, drinking the medicine made my entire body go all ache-y and painful, so I stopped drinking it after two days. I'm not even sure if it was an allergic reaction, because as far as I know, I'm not allergic to anything, just bad grammar. And ex-boyfriends. But anyway. I had no rashes - my skin looked perfectly normal. But when I lightly touched, for instance, my arm, it hurt, like it was very, very sore. And that sensation was shared among my entire freaking body, such that even sleeping was painful. The only parts of my body that didn't hurt were my face, strangely enough, my feet, and my palms.

No matter how you cut it, that was really too great a price to pay to get my face back. I was willing to put up with the gross medicine, but I was not willing to put up with the sore, aching body. So I have four packets of Chinese medicine lying around in the kitchen, translating, therefore, to $44 wasted. The things we do for beauty and vanity!

But I'm not too bummed out about the disagreement between my body and the Chinese medicine though. Why? Because my nerves seem to be taking pity on me and are dutifully regenerating (or whatever) themselves. I mentioned a twitching eyelid in the previous entry - it's still twitching. And the eye can close! Like OMG no way. The smile isn't back yet and there's no sign of the dimple in the left cheek (which slightly worries me, but hey) but I don't look nearly as much as a gargoyle as I did before when I try to smile. In fact, I can kind of smile, though of course it's nothing like what it was in its former (but will be coming back) glory.

I still can't really blink though, which is really annoying. The most inconvenient aspect of the Bell's Palsy is really how it affects the eye. I've never realised how essential an action blinking is, until now. My eye keeps getting blurry because of all the accumulated moisture that I can't blink away, and it makes reading really difficult and tiring. It was almost painful doing my Islamic law exam over the weekend; all the reading, staring at my laptop, and the blurred vision in one eye made the process more painful than it should have been. And of course, the twitching eyelid which was rather distracting. Thankfully it stopped shortly after I posted the last entry.

Bell's Palsy also makes me incredibly thirsty for some strange reason, so I've been drinking a hell lot of water, and naturally peeing a lot. It's actually damn irritating at night because I'd keep drinking water, forgetting that I'd be sleeping in like, 10 minutes, and sometimes in the middle of the night I'd wake up with a freaking full bladder and we all know how annoying it is to get up to pee when you really want to sleep. Worse still, I'd be trying to pee out as much as I can before I sleep even though I'd just drank the water, and why the hell am I talking about peeing? Nevermind.

So anyway, I'm happy that my eye is closing and that my cheek can actually, gasp, move. I noticed that the Bell's Palsy corner of my mouth actually looks more seductive and sultry than the normal side. It has this small upward curl that I find quite cute. But it's probably gonna go away as the palsy goes. How tragic, right?

Lastly, just in case anyone missed it the first time, I flove David Cook. He's officially my fourth husband. Or is he my fifth? I can't keep track of all my husbands. Whatever it is, he's my husband. And I love him, beer belly and all. Hahaha.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010