In the spring of 2018, before leaving Mongolia for Türkiye, I had lasik surgery. It cost me just $1,200 for BOTH eyes which were nearsighted (my prescription was -4.25 for one eye, -3.75 for the other at the time of surgery) and astigmatism had begun in one eye. For the first time since I was in middle school I was able to wake in the morning and see clearly across the room without putting lenses…
I have lived in three apartments across my time in Türkiye. For the first four years I lived in a one-bedroom apartment located in the school’s Lojman (“worker’s residence”) which is located close to our campus and houses some of the foreign educators. That apartment was good–it had a large great room with a balcony facing into the afternoon/evening sun. Ziggy and I were happy there for those four years. The bedroom was tiny and…
Another year is upon on us! This amazes me when I think that nearly a quarter of a century has passed since the unnecessary craziness that surrounded the Y2K rollover. I worked for Hewlett Packard in that time and volunteered to work that night when everyone feared that bank servers would crash and the world would be a mess. I worked because the pay was double time. I made great money on a night when…