Thursday, May 23, 2013

Eyes are delicate, yo!

Do you know what isn’t fun? Having a corneal abrasion.

If you have never had the misfortune to have that, you are lucky, and I advise you to be very careful with anything vaguely sharp around your eyeballs, including mascara wands, which was the object of my own misfortune. Also, before I get into this, I promise I won’t post any creepy pictures of how my eyes looked all red, irritated, or puffy, and I won’t show you pictures of corneal abrasions... If you want to know, I leave that to you to look up. I’m just going to rant a little bit for my own amusement, and maybe so you can laugh at or sympathize with my pain and discomfort. (In case you don’t know it yet, by the way, there’s a great term from German to describe the enjoyment that we receive from witnessing or hearing/reading about another person’s pain, and that term is “Schadenfreude.”)

Anyway, the other day, I was doing my makeup as usual, and as I was doing my mascara, I was attempting to use the wand to separate a clump in the outside corner of my lashes, when, next thing I know, I’ve poked myself in the eye, and squeezed my eyes shut tight in defence. Thus, promptly and efficiently smearing wet mascara all over my top and bottom lashes. This seemed to be my biggest problem, once I got over the shock of the poke, I didn’t think I’d really damaged anything, just hurt myself a little and messed up my makeup a lot. I had to take it all off and try again, and I went on with the rest of my day.

About halfway through the day however, my eye started to hurt again, like there was something in it, but there was nothing to be seen, and my eyes were just tearing over and over again, until I didn’t know what was going on, my eye was getting red, and later my lids began getting puffed up. I tried washing out my eye with water, and I managed to bring down some of the swelling with a cold washcloth over my lids, but I ended up going to bed really late, with my eye still hurting, and feeling very worried.

I slept very little all night, and when I did, I woke up in the morning with my eye puffed up even more than before I fell asleep, and I was pretty much freaking out. My mom didn’t seem as worried, which was helpful, and she gave me a cotton pad with some witch hazel (pro tip: witch hazel is bloody amazing for taking down puffiness or inflammation, and it lasts forever!) on it to take down the swelling and began looking online for a walk-in clinic around us that was open on Sunday. There should have been one, but it was closed, so I was forced to go to the hospital. As we sat there, my eye slowly began getting better. After an hour and a half, I was in their “eye exam” room, where I sat for another 3 (Yes, three goddamn hours), while my eye continued to feel better, though it still hurt a fair bit, and I was starting to get a headache.

When a doctor finally appeared, he checked my eye, put a numbing drop in it, then a yellow/orange dye that fills in a corneal abrasion if there is one, and he looked at my eye in the dark under a cool blue light. If you look up corneal abrasion on Google, you can see the cool neon green of a scratch on a dark blue eye, it really isn’t that creepy, and I’m pretty creeped out by eyes. Anyway, he said that was the problem, and it should be better in no more than 48 hours, gave me some eye drops that are “basically Advil,” and I was done.

A few days later now, I finally had the confidence that my eye was alright, and I got to wear makeup again. It’s still a bit light-sensitive, which only makes sense, but I got by without using the drops every 4 hours, and I think I’m almost healed completely.

So, the moral of the story is this: be very careful with your eyes. Scratching your cornea fucking hurts, and your eyes may even puff up and make you scared for your eye’s existence.

Usually I’d ask for your comments, and I do like your comments, but please nothing too focused on your experiences with injured eyes, at least not the gory details... I can be pretty wimpy with that stuff. Thanks for reading!

Thursday, May 2, 2013

My adventures in Anime

I’ve never been a massive fan of anime, unless you count Sailor Moon when I was really little, and then Pokémon and Digimon a little later. By the end of middle school, though, I’d pretty much decided that I hated everything that Anime was… the animation style, the ridiculousness, the lack of realism, the annoying girls’ voices, trying to read subtitles or else putting up with English voice-overs… I had tons of arguments. It was all the same, in my opinion, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

However, over the last few years, because of my boyfriend, I’ve watched a few, and not hated every minute of it. Although Brit, my best friend, had tried and failed to get me to watch anime, David has been a lot more picky about the anime he tries to get me to like, and the first one was a great choice.

Even if you have never watched or liked anime, you should watch Death Note.

L-Ryuk-And-Light-Death-Note-WallpaperImage from ranpict.com

It is definitely an anime in many stereotypical ways, but the animation feels little more sophisticated, and it is also intensely interesting. Rather than trying to explain it to you without spoiling it in case you want to give it a try, here’s a summary from Wikipedia:

“The main character is Light Yagami, a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook, the "Death Note", dropped on Earth by a shinigami (a god of death) named Ryuk. The Death Note grants its user the ability to kill anyone whose name and face they know, by writing the name in the notebook while picturing their face. The series centers around Light's attempt to create and rule a world "cleansed of evil" as "God" using the notebook, and the efforts of a detective known as L to stop him.”

Another one that wasn’t bad, even if I didn’t love it, was Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann… which I had to Google just so I could spell it right. Usually I just call it Gurren Laggan.

Image from Turtlespiralcastle.blogspot.ca

Aside from one character, who was barely a character, and couldn’t speak  to everyone else (his name is Boota), I never really fell in love with the characters or the story.

Image from Animestocks.com

Even despite the brightly colourful, highly stylized animation style, and over-the-top characters and voice actors, the basis of the story that this anime tells is definitely an interesting one. Basically, it’s a dystopian story with giant robots people fight in, and space, and not everyone is human. Lots of it is impossible, and unbelievable, but it doesn’t kill the appeal of this anime

I’ve watched a little of another two of David’s favourite anime, which are Ghost in the Shell, and Ergo Proxy.

Image from Nerdreactor.com

I couldn’t really get into Ghost in the Shell; it’s a dystopian again (my boyfriend really likes dystopians, and has for a long time), but its pretty ugly and I just never got into the story or learned to care for anyone in it. I might watch the rest one day…

Image from Occultperception.wordpress.com

Ergo proxy was a much more realistic animation style, though still very anime-esque. The colours are more muted, and the story was interesting. Another dystopian (yeah, yeah), but this time I cared about a few of the characters and the world really grabbed my interest. Apparently the quality goes down later in the anime, but I never got there. I wanted to, but we haven’t got around to it for some reason that I don’t understand.

Finally, I just finished the one and only season of a new-ish anime called Maoyuu Maou Yuusha (another one I had to Google. I just can’t get the handle of Japanese words or names for some reason).

Image from Alive3333.blogspot.ca

The animation is nothing special, but the story and the characters are really engaging. It’s a fantasy/historical-fiction anime, and is interestingly based around the idea of macro-economics. Its like anime with a large side of history and social studies lessons, which I find really fascinating. The only problem I had with this anime is the (non)ending. This better get another season or more, since there is very clearly a lot more story to tell, as it ends right as it seems that shit is about to go down. I was not impressed that I spent that many episodes falling in love with characters and the world to possibly never find out what happens to them all.

The source for this anime is a “Light Novel,” which is apparently written somewhat like a play. There are also manga of the story, but from what I’ve found, I can’t see a way to get an English translation of these so that I can get the end of the story! I’m pretty upset.

Oh, I almost forgot, there’s also Bleach, which you have probably heard of if you know anime, or anyone who knows anime, since it’s old and long and very popular.

Image from Wikipedia

I recently started reading the manga with David, and it’s pretty interesting, though very daunting, since there are sooooooo many chapters and volumes! Still, and interesting concept, though I’m sure I could never watch the anime version, which, from the bit I’ve seen, epitomizes all I used to hate about anime. It’s kinda funny, in this case, that I like the manga so far! But I guess it lets me make up my own voices and such, so maybe it’s not so surprising.

Anyway, I think that’s all I wanted to share for now. I’m sorry it’s been so long since I last posted. I’m trying very hard to get back into posting both here and on My Glittery Obsessions.

Thanks for reading! =)

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