I hardly ever write hand written letters much less need to send something through snail mail these days.  But, sometimes I do need to and when that time comes, I’m always having trouble figuring out which stamp to use.  The first reason is because the cost of first class changes so often it is difficult to keep track of the current amount.  Apparently, the current amount is 44¢.  Okay, easy enough right?  No.

Since I hardly ever need to send snail mail, I don’t usually buy stamps – so I wouldn’t have the most up-to-date one.  And I do know now that if I ever need to buy stamps, it will be the Forever Stamp so that I will never have this problem again.  Okay, so I don’t have the most recent 44¢ stamp but I do have a lot of old stamps.  These stamps came from….who knows where?  Either someone gave it to me or I actually bought it back in the day.  The problem with these stamps is that the USPS for whatever reason, does not put the value of the stamp on there – so I have no idea whether it is from when it only cost 29¢ to mail something or if it is 34¢ or 42¢…you get my drift.

Often times, I end up not even using these stamps because I find one or two forever stamps to use.  But, I don’t want to keep saving these stamps and because the cost is a bit high, I don’t want to completely waste it to double up.  So then I have to either find those small value stamps to make up or go to the post office or find a forever stamp.  Or what I have done before is try and google the value of the stamps I have.

The particular one I wanted to use today was a 2009 Lunar New Year stamp.  With no value printed on, I googled it and found out that it was worth 42¢, which meant that I had to go find a 2¢ stamp.  Luckily I have 2 of those.

Sheesh, what a difficult and inefficient process!  Do you ever have this problem?   Why don’t they just print the value of the stamp on the stamp and make everyone’s lives easier?

I am freaking exhausted.  Sigh.

I hate being the bad guy.

My right shoulder has been hurting for some time now, around 2 months maybe.  It’s the part on my upper back by the shoulder blade.  I think it is RSI (repetitive stress injury).  It hurts the most when I use the mouse.  The pain is dull but present.  A few times it has started to cause this weird sensation down my arm – I want to say tingly but maybe numbing.  At one point, I didn’t even want to use my right arm because it was bothering me so much.  At the same time, I didn’t want to use my left arm because I didn’t want to hurt that shoulder either.  The problem seems to be that my chair is either not high enough or that my keyboard/mouse is not low enough.  At the old work I got a keyboard tray but I left not long after that.  At the new place it took some time for them to get me a tray.  Sometimes it’s annoying because the chair will be able to go high enough but then because of the arm rests, you can’t scoot your chair in.  Sometimes you can remove the arm rests.  Other times, if your chair can go high enough, then your feet stop touching the ground completely which is bad too.

Anyway, it has been bothering me for so long that it started to hurt even when I wasn’t at the computer.  It would hurt when I would drive because my arm had to be extended to the steering wheel.  It would hurt when I would eat for the same reason.  Any type of motion that did not leave my shoulder blade in the relaxed position hurt.  I started to apply icy hot on it at night before I went to sleep but didn’t want to do it during the day because I would stink.  I didn’t even want to use the salon pas at night because those still make you stink in the morning – but I gave up because it was bothering me so much.

Why don’t you go to the doctor?  Well, I want to but I don’t because football season is coming up.  The last thing I want is the doctor to tell me I can’t use my arm or play football.  And another reason is that I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be any help.  They would just tell me to not use the computer, well I can’t because that is basically my job.  So I haven’t gone.  But since the pain still comes and it actually hurt for awhile in the beginning of Ultimate on Sunday, I decided to do it.  Better to fix it now at the beginning of the season than in the middle or the end.

As I suspected, the doctor wasn’t much help.  First off, I was late.  My appointment was at 3:10 and they told me to check in at 3 which was fine.  I had planned to leave the office at 2:45.  Except, I didn’t get to leave the office until 2:50 and I underestimated the amount of time it took to get there, after all, the office is a bit farther from the doc’s office now.  Plus with all the cars and such, I didn’t get there until like 3:12.  I checked in and before I even sat down they called me in.  The nurse scolded me.  (Did you just make your appointment?)  Well, they made it for me this morning.  (You know you are supposed to get here 10-15 minutes before to check in.)  I know, sorry, I had to leave work.  Because I was late and was a squeezed in appointment (they had told me the earliest one was next week and I asked them to check for one sooner), they seemed to rush through my appointment.  I had to put on a gown so the doctor could check my shoulder.  I hate gowns.  Anyway, he came in, I don’t think he even touched the shoulder to identify the pain.  He asked me to rotate my arm a few times.  Asked me to rotate my neck side to side.  Listened to my heart once in the front and once in the back.  And that was that.  Physical therapy he said.  Sounds like bursitis.  We’ll shoot some xrays.  Ok, and that was that.  He didn’t really give any solutions or treatment to anything.  Just told me to go get xrays and call physical therapy in 2 days.

Since my insurance is different before, I was kind of scared about getting the xray and how much it would cost.  I was almost going to decline it but decided would probably be better to just check it.  With the old insurance it would be free, but I thought that this one might cost me $50.  Luckily it was only 10.  So I went to radiology and had to put on another gown.  Ew.   The lady told me to stand back against this one xray machine and then she had positioned this other piece of machine with a light in front of my left shoulder.  I didn’t really know what was in the back, but I thought it was slightly odd that the thing in the front was in front of my left shoulder when my right shoulder was the one that needed to be xrayed.  But I didn’t want to be a smart ass plus I assumed that she knew what she was doing – after all, she is the one in charge.  Then for the 2nd xray she told me to lift up my arm and I lifted up my right arm.  She’s like, no the other arm.  I’m like, it’s my right shoulder.  She’s like, oh.  Confirmed, she fails.  She super fails.  Good thing this wasn’t surgery!!!  So then, instead of saying anything else, she was like, oh I have to take the first one over because your necklace was in the way.  Really?  My necklace was in the way?  Is it true that it can get in the way or did she just want to retake the first one because she messed up and didn’t want to admit it?!  This lady wasn’t very friendly to begin with.  I ended up taking a total of 4 xrays with 1 repeat.  They said they would have the results in 5 days.  FIVE DAYS?!  What if something was wrong???  I highly doubt it, but that seemed kind of odd.  Anyway, I’m not sure what they were looking for in the shoulder anyway to warrant an xray.  Could sometihng really be broken??  Hmm, don’t know, but I doubt it.

So, I’m left with a print out on my doctor’s visit summary on what bursitis is and how to treat it but the doctor didn’t even tell me anything.  I was wondering if they just want my money.  Doctor’s visit here, xray here, physical therapy there.  Really?  There has been no solution to the problem.  You fail.  Or rather, I’m the one that fails because my shoulder still hurts!

I guess I will have to continue the Bible Study post some other time because I really want to write about how my eye has been bothering me…well more like my contact.  I’m not how long it has been going on but it has been very apparent this week that my right contact keeps going blurry.  Every time I blink, it gets blurry so I think I keep making myself not blink.  It’s really annoying because it’s hard to focus at work and it’s hard to read things.  The left one is..ok.  To rule out the fact that it’s not my eyes, I don’t think my eye has been going blurry with my glasses.

So I’m thinking my contact must be dirty?  Could it be the natural dirtiness of things as I’ve had it for a long time?  I mean it gets cleaned every single night!  It’s really bothering me and has made my right eye extremely tired. :(

I just switched my right contact to an older “spare” one and it feels a lot better and things are clear but I really want to figure out what’s wrong with the current one.  Unfortunately the next available appointment for the optometrist is not until the 2nd to last week of July.  Hopefully this spare one holds through or else I will be very unhappy, uncomfortable, and annoyed.

I actually had a lot to write about or rather on my mind that I had wanted to write about, but I am quite tired, so I will only write about my shins.  Wow that was a long sentence…

My right shin hurts.  It has been hurting for awhile now, especially during Ultimate.  I think I have shin splints.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I do.  Even though I haven’t played Ultimate in a few weeks, it still hurts.  I think playing softball doesn’t help.

My shin now hurts when I stand, when I walk, when I drive, and even when I’m not doing anything!  It throbs and hurts.  I don’t think I want to see the doctor, because they will just tell me to stretch, not walk on it, and probably not play sports.  I don’t want to pay money to have them tell me that.  So, I will wait it out a bit longer and see what happens.  M. showed me 3 stretches to do.  I’ll try them out.  Although these stretches sure make my shin hurt. :(

Then again, I don’t want to end up like M. with a stress fracture!!!  And I definitely don’t want to be wearing a boot!! So, hopefully it fixes itself really soon!

Went to a bar/pizza place downtown on Friday.  I really didn’t know why we had to go to a bar to meet up because if we’re just enjoying each other’s company, we can just go to a restaurant.  But I guess that’s what people like to do..go to bars.  My coworker drove with me..and I told him that I just wanted to eat and go home.  I didn’t want to stay and bar hop or go clubbing or anything.  He assured me we would just eat dinner.  So then our other friends got there and they brought along people.  They drank a lot of beer.  I was pretty much done with the place after about 2 hours.  But my ride kept ordering more and more beer.  And this other guy was really drunk.  It was loud in there.  Crowded.  I really didn’t like it.  Random people.  Loud, obnoxious people and discussions of things that I deem inappropriate.  Random guys talking to us and sitting with us.  I really felt so uncomfortable there.  I wanted to go home so bad but my ride was having a good time.  Plus I didn’t really want to talk to the friends of the friends either.  I don’t like talking to people, especially at bars.  Sigh.  I don’t know why people think its fun to go there.  I guess its really to meet people, because if you want to drink you can drink at home.  Gah.  Bars suck.  It was fun for the first hour or two…then it was just lagging on and not fun at all. :(

What a disappointing meal…

Hungry after my basketball game, I ventured off to get some boba and decided to get some chinese food at Shanghai Cafe next door.  Chow mein sounded pretty good so that’s what I ordered – chicken chow mein to be exact.  The lady was like, “chow mein? or you want lo mein?”  “Chow Mein – the crispy kind,” I said.  She said, “ok, it will be on the side.”  “Ok.”  The place was empty as usual and I was thinking that I should come here more often after my bball games to support these small businesses.  After waiting for 10 minutes, I got my food and went home.  It smelled great and I could not wait to eat it.  I got home and took out a plate so that I could put the noodles on and then dump the meat and veggies over it.

To my disappointment…whatever they thought was chow mein is NOT chow mein.  Crunchy little things are NOT chow mein!  THIS IS NOT CHOW MEIN (ironically this picture was found on a site that describes this as chow mein):

I don’t even know what that is.  That’s not even chinese food.  It’s random crunch stuff that does not taste good.  Where were my noodles?!??!  Sadly, I just at the topping.  I tried to put some of the meat and veggies on top of that crunchy stuff, it was not the same.  :(

I will never again order chow mein from that place.  Chinese people should know what chow mein is!  I certainly hope that non-chinese people don’t think that what they serve is called chow mein.  FAIL!

Chow mein looks more like this:

Ok, I know it’s not Christmas yet, but its extremely interesting to me that people go around saying “happy holidays” instead of “merry christmas” to each other because they want to be “pc” and not “offend” anyone.  While I’m quite aware that not everyone celebrates Christmas, it seems a little odd that people think its better to just say happy holidays.  Maybe its just me and I celebrate xmas so I have this slight tendency to think its okay to say merry xmas.  Anyway, the reason people get the 25th off of work/school is because its Christmas not because its just a random day off.  It’s a holiday for everyone!  Not only those who celebrate it.  So I think its okay and I think people should say Merry Christmas to each other instead of holidays.  The fact that it is “happy holidays” seems to be a marketing scheme that brilliant people have come up with to suck us all in.  “Happy Holidays” is about buying gifts for each other (not saying I don’t buy gifts), but “Merry Christmas” is about Jesus.  We should be able to say Merry Christmas to each other and if you don’t celebrate it, fine, you don’t have to respond.  Do you see people saying “oh, i just bought a holiday tree?”  No, it’s called a Christmas tree and I’m sure many people who don’t celebrate Christmas (for Jesus), celebrate it for the consumerism side.  I mean, I think it’s great that people take this time to spend with their families and all.  And they should.  I just think its really really interesting with the whole being pc thing.  Sorry my thoughts on this are very scattered.  Yeah, so let me know the next time you hear someone say they are going to buy a “holiday” tree instead of a Christmas one.  Maybe at that point, saying happy holidays will be a little better.

when people touch my monitor…

when people treat me like i am their secretary..