Food and Doctors in Foreign Lands

Being an overseas student is so much more challenging than I had imagined. The language is a huge barrier, but I have managed to survive without much Japanese for a while now. However, there are a few small things that cause me to think twice about living here.

The first major obstacle was food. My taste buds have been assaulted by the food here. At first, I used to just think 'it's nasty', but these days, I don't worry about it so much any more because I've found what works for me and I'm slowly learning which foods are tolerable. I also cook much more often than I used to do back home.

The second, more pressing issue is finding a good doctor. This one has me scared. First, I got food poisoning within my first two weeks here. At this point I was still nervous about taking even the train. Now I had to find a doctor who I could explain my illness to and get better before dying. Eventually I found the school's clinic and a partially English speaking doctor who understood me. The next time I became ill, my luck had changed. The doctor could not understand sinusitis. He thought I just had a cold and so my sinus kept draining until a friend shared his sinus medication with me :) I then developed a dermatological problem. My acne broke out all over my face with bumps so big and painful. By this time I had found the American embassy's website with a list of English speaking doctors, so I simply picked the one closest to me and went. That didn't turn out so well. He gave me a strange treatment plan that may have hurt me more than helped. So I stopped going and tried to find another way around my acne problem. I'm counting down the days to my vacation so that I will be able to go to a competent dermatologist.

Now it's just my luck that now I have a cavity! A cavity serious enough to be causing me pain :( My first thought was 'I wonder if it can wait until I get back home, so I can visit my usual dentist?' However, the fact that it hurts means that it needs immediate attention. The Japanese seem to have such poor oral hygiene that I'm scared of how the dentists treat patients. I'm scared that he will not fill my cavity properly or that he may not know how to explain things to me if an unexpected situation arises. I'm so scared right now. I never thought of issues like these when I thought about going abroad to study. But even if I did, would that have made a difference in whether or not I go abroad? Maybe not, but perhaps I would have prepared myself a bit more, mentally.

Decisions, Decisions...

I read an article last night about the poor standard of living in the first world country called Japan. The article was geared mostly towards the brutal winter most people in Japan suffer through. It made me think of my everyday decisions since the end of autumn 2011. Take for example, I am sitting in my lab, reading and I want to urinate. Normally, this is a no-brainer, I'd simply go to the bathroom. But, in Japan, I create a game tree in my mind to decide my next move.

Need to urinate

                  ---->Go to bathroom ---->walk in freezing cold hallway---take off pants in freezing cold bathroom----->After urinating, wash hand in freezing cold water---> Fingers go numb temporarily--->walk in freezing hallway, shivering to the bone to get back to warm room

               ----->After urinating, don't wash hand, water is too cold-->end up getting stomach bug later from bathroom germs--->Die alone in cold Japan


                         ---->Stay in warm room--->develop urinary tract infection--->visit Japanese doctor, who doesn't understand much english--->Get wrong medication because of language barrier--->Get even more ill--->eventually die sick and cold in Japan.

Oh Japan, why are you so cold? Why don't you have central heating like a proper first world country? Don't you care about the Gaijin from the Caribbean?

Fleeting thoughts on a cold winter night

In the midst of this circus I like to call life, I have developed a smashing desire towards someone outside my normal sphere of probabilities. It's like having a fantasy about one of my professors. It's uncomfortable but thrilling at the same time. No matter where we fall on the food chain, something is always ready to eat us. Therefore, it seems this chain is interlinked. Which puts us all on a similar level - the level of being eaten by a predator!

I have started to think more seriously about what I would like to research in more specific terms. Now I need to delve into the details. And it seems like they were all correct, 'the devil is in the details'. I hope to meet him though, so we can move along progressively with this business of research.