These are the glasses I chose.

It has been more than once that I've asked myself why I chose these, and why I chose them in this red shade, and why they look so funny in front of my face.

But they're the ones I've chosen, and I shall have to stick by my decision. You'll notice in the photo that they are either a little crooked/wrongly positioned, or my face is crooked/wrongly positioned in general. I'd like to blame it on the glasses, if you don't mind.

Also, there's a bump there on my jaw... as if I had a tooth infection (which I don't... at least not on that side!)... I'd also like to say that the bump is caused by the glasses. Anything funny you see on there, don't doubt it: it can be traced back to the glasses.

ULTRA FRESH NEWS: tomorrow, at 6 am, I start training for a new job. The training will last 5 weeks. Every day, it starts at 6 am. No, I'm not leaving my old job. Nor school. I shall, however, probably be joining a mental hospital quite soon. The verse about doing everything without complaining takes on a whole new meaning and it certainly does seem more challenging now.

So, yeah. That's it.

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of--throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Soren Kierkegaard, the philosopher, wrote that the most painful state of being is remembering the future. Particularly one you can never have.

I could say many things, but I'll settle for "Yeah, me too."

Got the glasses. Found out that my insurance doesn't cover them until November. So I had to pay for them with my credit card, in TEN MONTHLY PAYMENTS, because that's the only way I could do it.

I'm really worried about money right now. Today I found out that Bank of America in Seattle charged my account $30 as the annual fee for my Alaska Airlines bank card. The catch? I don't have an Alaska Airlines card. They did the same thing exactly this time of the year last year, when I was moving from Seattle and coming back to Argentina. They always pick financially stressful times, it seems : )... No worries, though. I bought a phone card and spent about 40 minutes on a long distance call to Seattle. The card they issued and sent to my old address will be trashed, I will get a new one, and the $30 will be credited back to my account tomorrow.

All this I complain about because I'm ungrateful, really. There's no other way to get around it. After all, I did get the glasses, and the card thing worked out after all.

The happy moment today: volunteering at the soup kitchen at church and having the kids pose for me like no one ever has. It was touching, how unused they were to photography, and what an honor they thought it was to get their picture taken. Oh, the things I take for granted.

Check out the kids here. They're beautiful.

So, I'll be wearing glasses from now on.









Today I went to the eye doctor because I'd been having really intense headaches, especially when trying to look at things - which happened, quite obviously, all day long.

He told me that I have an astigmatism, which is an extremely common condition which causes one's vision to be blurry. He said that in order to see a sharp image, I have to squint, and that's what causes my eyes to hurt and my sweet little head to ache. This is not the same as needing reading glasses or being near-sighted or that kind of thing.

So, the doctor said that in order to avoid the headaches, I will have to wear glasses all the time.

My eyes have been my one physical feature that people have always praised, so it hurts to think of hiding them behind glasses. And the glasses I will be getting (well, the frames) have to be the ones that are covered by my insurance, so I'll have to settle for "whatever," and that may not necessarily equal "fashionable."

I searched the www and found a site that allowed people to "try on" their glasses. Wonderful! If only they allowed switching to another model, but they didn't. So I just tried these on. Lucky for me, I was able to see them both in "internet mousy" and in peach/lime. You can see the results. I will (of course) pick a pair in person, tomorrow, and will see what comes of it.

The final photo is one of me at the doctor's office as I waited for my appointment.

See ya.

I got a hair-cut yesterday.



It is loved by many, hated by none. (So far).
This is not a particularly flattering photo, but I like my jaw in it, and it shows that I have very little hair. I like it. What I asked him to do was to give me more of a neck (because I don't have a very long neck) and I think he accomplished the goal. My classmates raved about it yesterday. Good for me.

The glamour days are over.

Whatever that means.