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  • It’s all about the eyes

    I have worn glasses since the age of about 10. My first pair was a huge, round, brown pair that took up half my face and literally made me look like an owl. I also had really thick, heavy glass lenses; I wore them for about two or three years and by the time I changed frames, my head had grown so much the legs stuck out at an angle like this: Untitled

    Then I progressed onto a much less frumpy oval purple pair, followed by a gunmetal grey pair and the funky patterned pair I wear today (Pictured below). I started wearing contacts at the beginning of 2007, just before starting uni at the ripe old age of 18. Contacts were one of those things my parents never entertained the thought of, like dating and driving. I would have been really gutted if contacts hadn’t worked out, to be honest, but luckily I took to them pretty well – better than I ever could have imagined.

    39871628_col_100_angle

    I wore contacts pretty much exclusively that year and the next, but in late 08 I started having problems. I’m pretty sure it was dry eye and possibly a minor infection. Gritty, dry, sore eyes, a lens that wouldn’t move with my eye ball, always my left eye, and usually began around 2pm (like clockwork). That’s when i bit the bullet, got my eyes tested and finally upgraded my glasses. By the end of the summer I was regularly wearing contacts again, but now instead of wearing my glasses once or twice a month it’s more like half the time.

    Krystal at GMBMFB wrote a post about how LASIK completely changed her life. I’ve never thought Lasik was for me; from what I’ve heard it’s really only suitable for those with mildly bad eyes, in which case, NOT worth it for me (I’m at -6 or thereabouts, so pretty freakin’ blind). Although maybe in the future it’s something I should find out more about…when I have money to play with. (But honestly, if I had money to burn, there are so many more things I’d do with it first, namely travel!)

    But it would be nice to wake up and be able to see. I can’t actually imagine what that would be like. I have to admit, I’m used to being shortsighted; I can’t remember any other way of living. I’m used to moving around the house in a blur in the mornings (and late at nights) before washing my face and generally humanising myself before work. And…bear with me…the frequent swapping up between glasses and contacts is frustrating, hair-wise. I have a side fringe…sometimes. Sometimes it hides itself away. When I wear contacts, I really need a fringe to cover up my huge forehead and soften up my face. With glasses, I DON’T want my fringe because it gets in the way. (And my forehead is less noticeable because my strong frames dominate my face). It’s hard to find a flattering style that works both ways.

    I know, it’s a small thing…but I’m somewhat obsessive-compulsive over little annoyances like that!

  • Argh!

    No work for the boy at all this week. He’s already been at home Monday and Tuesday. Fuck the economy.

    It’s one thing being the breadwinner; another entirely to be the sole earner.

    I’ve asked him to ring a couple of temp places tomorrow, but really don’t know how feasible that will be given he needs work ASAP, like, tomorrow, and there’ll no doubt be paperwork and HR bullshit to get through first which can take days.

    Now for the good news.

    I really should have gone through our work benefits before buying my glasses. I found out we have a subsidy for glasses (up to $150, which would mean almost a third of the total cost for mine) and eye tests…well, not really, since I’d read that before and technically kinda knew. but that was a long time ago! And in the year and a half since being here, that little perk slipped my mind.

    Now I just need to find out how to go about applying, if I still can. Any money I can get would be icing; $475 is still a lot less than $600 or $700, but that’s not exactly small change now is it? Tried looking throuhg Lotus Notes at work in the policies and procedures section which had a handy yet rather useless overview of our entitlements, and no application form. Same for the intranet, which was basically the same thing but online. I probably should have done this BEFOREHAND. there’s something about gettin gmanager approval before getting your eye test (49 would have basically covered the whole exam) but then it went on to say something about “if it is determined glasses are required…”, so maybe that’s just for those who don’t currently wear specs?

    Then something about the prescription needing to specifically say that glasses are requried for working at a computer, and an original receipt. Hmm. My eye prescription is freakin awful (willing to bet nobody at work has worse vision than me). Do i really need that? Anyone who knows anything about eye prescriptions could tell you that I can’t do squat without glasses or contacts on; can’t function, can’t leave the house safely, can’t even read for crying out loud, unless the book is practically touching my nose. Or Google would surely confirm that.

    Anywho guess I need to talk to admin about qualifying for that, and how to go about applying! Forms and more bloody forms, I bet.