Allergies

I have allergies. Symptoms include: horrendously itchy nose, runny-stuffy nose, watery puppydog eyes, wet cough, headache, misery. Does anyong have any advice about allergies? No idea how to find out what’s causing them exactly, or how to stop this torture.

 

looks like a diaper on my face
looks like a diaper on my face

I know part of the problem was that I was living in a filthy hotel. My employer provides free housing, but only in this creaky, decrepit hotel–the one with the condom in the bathroom and the ancient dust seeping out of every nook and cranny. And the sewage in the bathroom came out of the drain in rank waves of chocolate brown.

Oh, and according to one of my students, the hotel’s haunted with the ghost of a girl who committed suicide.

I moved out of that hotel today, to one right next to the beach! This place has a gorgeous ocean view, and the bathroom does not stink! However, in the bedroom area there is a strong must going on–antique wood style. My allergies have not yet abated! I also have to pay a portion of the cost of this hotel, because it is a little more expensive than the previous big nasty. Considering moving into an even better, cleaner place. We’ll see how my allergies do…and how expensive another location would be.

It’s so exhausting to bounce around all of my stuff like this. And I’m not crazy about the idea of living in a hotel for six months. It’s like living out of a suitcase, and I definitely have to downsize the amount of stuff I have in order to make this lifestyle feasible.

I know a lot of people glorify the simple life, and would probably be chill with living out of a suitcase for six months. The things you own end up owning you and all of that. But me personally, I like a nice extensive wardrobe, and I like to feel comfortable in my home wherever that may be. A lot of people I’ve met traveling would consider my love of things and stuff a weakness. But I disagree. Obviously things don’t make you a better person, but they’re still awesome!  Clothes! Perfume! Electronic gadgets! Accessories! They’re like my little friends! What’s so bad about that? Sometimes people (especially people who travel a lot) use ideals like “minimalism” and the “simple life” as a crutch to make sense of their lives, and it comes off as a bit phoney to me.  Rejecting material goods seems like an easy way out, and a really black-and-white way to make sense of the world. You can’t just get rid of all your stuff and move to another country and suddenly become wise and free. Life’s more complicated than that.

Ok dismounting soapbox.

I’m also getting a little bummed out by the language barrier here. Vietnamese is a tonal language, which basically means it’s impossible to pronounce anything. I went to the post office today to mail some of my winter clothes home and had a really tough time, then ended up getting lost and walking for miles through black blossoming clouds of motorbike-exhaust apocalypse-dust.


birdie

 

Comments

Re: ALLERGIES

Looks like a dark cloud follows you where ever you go.

Re: ALLERGIES

Looks like you're obsessed with me.