Here's a little song I wrote

Might want to sing it note for note.

Thanks, Mom and Dad ;)

My previous post title is apropos

It turns out it wasn't a black and white issue. I thought it would be one of two possible outcomes; it never occurred to me that there'd be one in the middle.

My heart has recovered...some. My ejection fraction is now 35. An average person's EF is over 55. My doctor says this is good news, but she still recommends the implanted cardioverter-defibrillator. However, the decision is up to me.

Dr. G explained to me that when they implant the ICD, they purposefully put you into V-fib to see if it works. If not, they shock you the old-fashioned way to keep you from dying, and then change the settings.

That kind of bothered me. If I haven't gone into V-fib ever, it seems to me like putting me into it intentionally only increases the chances that it will happen again.

When I got home I read about the procedure to implant the ICD and what recovery is like. Obviously it involves surgery. The surgeon creates a "pocket" under the collarbone, like they do for a pacemaker, and a lead (or three) goes down a vein to the heart. You're not put all the way under, but there is a sedative.

As with any surgery, I imagine there's a chance of death during the procedure.

If I do this, I will have a device stuck in my body that will be noticeable through the skin. Plus I'll have a scar. Plus, they pretty much never remove these things, even if you get better.

If I don't do this, and I ever do go into V-fib, or my heart is otherwise irregular, I won't have anything to save me from sudden cardiac death.

The issue, to my way of thinking, is whether or not I am in grave danger of my heartbeat becoming irregular or stopping. This may just be the heart meds talking, or my complete lack of desire to undergo surgery again...but I don't feel like I am. I think my heart has improved a great deal in the almost six months since I was diagnosed, and I believe it will continue to improve. I think that if I had worked harder to improve my diet and exercise, it would be better than it is...and I think if I work on those areas now, I can help it improve even more.

At this point, I feel like waiting and seeing what happens.

I have an appointment next month with the doctor who does the procedure, then a follow-up with Dr. G in July. By then it will have been eight months since my diagnosis.

Some heart patients apparently wait nine months to see if their heart has recovered, so why not wait that extra month and then have another echo before I undergo life-altering surgery?

That's basically where I am right now. Obviously, I'm going to talk with more people and learn as much as I can, to try and make the most informed choice.

To defib or not to defib

It's been about six months since I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and started on medication. Today's the day I get my heart echoed again to see if it has recovered.

If it hasn't recovered, then it probably won't. This will mean I will have to have a defibrillator implanted in my chest, to restart my heart in case it happens to stop. With medication, I will still feel normal (as I have felt for the past few months), but my heart won't actually be normal.

I am not sure if this is like a pacemaker, meaning I can't be near microwaves and cell phones, or not. I basically put that knowledge off, because I figured there's no sense in worrying about it if it doesn't even happen. Of course, now the not knowing is bothering me.

If my heart has recovered, I will feel normal (as I have for the past few months) and my heart will be normal. Obviously I'm hoping for this outcome.

In other news...

I thought it was impossible, but someone has figured out how to write maru-ma in text!

Really, I figured there should be a way--it's common to put a circle (maru) around a character. But all the KKM websites had it as a graphic, so that led me to believe it was impossible. Glad to know it's not; I can now write Kyou Kara Maou properly in Japanese.

Edit: Unfortunately I can't do it here, since it seems the maru is in UTF-8 and I foolishly set this blog to Shift-JIS back in the day. Someday I want to change it to UTF-8...but when I do I will have to edit all posts that have Japanese text in them >_<

Edit, almost a year later: My blog is now UTF-8, and the Japanese text seems to have transferred perfectly! Yay! Unfortunately the site that used to have the maru-ma on it now does not...

The continuing KKM story

Kyou Kara Maou could have ended with season 2 and I would have been happy. It was a great ending. The purpose of Yuuri becoming the Maou had been fulfilled, and he gained the power to go back and forth between worlds, so you could imagine that his adventures continued, but there was enough resolution that you didn't need to see it.

Then Kyou Kara Maou R was announced. I figured the producers wanted to tell a stand-alone story, and that was it. But after seeing the OVA, it's obvious that it was made more as a preview for season 3. I'm not sure on the timing, so I don't know if it was made to gauge interest, or to simply serve as an introduction. Episodes 1 and 5 tell a story by themselves, as I mentioned before, but it's not a very robust story. It's a teaser, to show us who Saralegui is without resolving anything.

By the time I saw the last episode of the OVA, the third season had been long announced, so I wasn't bothered by the lack of resolution. So far the KKM producers have done everything right--they've only introduced elements they intended to resolve. I can't wait to see what happens with Sara in season 3.

It's looking like he'll be in episode 85...and he'll possibly dance with Yuuri? This is confusing, since they only met in the OVA, so I don't know if the OVA is supposed to have happened by now, or if they just don't realize they've met before when the OVA happens.

I don't think the OVA has happened yet. Wolfram was so shocked to see Shinou at his temple that I imagine Yuuri hasn't told anyone he's there, but in the OVA everyone knows.

The pace of the OVA is so fast. It's unclear why they were going to Caloria in the first episode. Everyone was together, so the two groups--Murata, Conrad, and Josak, and Yuuri and Wolfram--would have to have already come back together by then. Not only that, but Yuuri and Murata would have to have gone back to Earth; they return at the beginning of the OVA. I really don't think the OVA can be sandwiched into the season 3 timeline anytime soon.

(Episodes 2-4 of R could be stuck in at any point, since they're stand-alone episodes, but I assume they would go either right before or right after 1 and 2.)

I'll be interested to see how this all plays out. I imagine it will be obvious where the OVA goes in the chronology once we get there...although I'm kind of wondering if the OVA, as a preview, was actually an alternate universe version of events that doesn't fit into the timeline at all. That would kind of suck, though.

Episode 85 has already aired. Can't wait to see it.

Yuuri and Wolfram's wedding

Okay, not really.

Is this actually what Yuuri is imagining Wolfram is imagining? Because I would have assumed Wolfram's vision would involve a wedding dress.

Okay, how about this?

I've lived with Apartment Arrangement Option 5 for two weeks now...and I've decided I hate it.

My goal was to create comfortable home bases for me and Sean while expanding seating areas for visitors. What ended up happening was Sean would sit on my couch to play video games or watch DVDs. If you remember, I moved his area to be against the wall. That ended up being fine for using his laptops, but not for just relaxing, so he'd lounge out on the big couch when he wanted to do that. I like sitting next to him, don't get me wrong, but if he feels like stretching out, there's no room for me.

Another problem is that the loveseat, along the wall next to him, became a dumping ground for stuff while serving zero purpose in terms of seating. It turns out it's just awkwardly placed, with no decent views of anything.

Yesterday I came home to find Sean and his dad sitting on my couch, and that made me fully realize how inconvenient the layout is. The couch offers the best view of the TV, so obviously guests would want to sit there...meaning I probably get cut off from my laptop, which I don't really like moving around.

It didn't solve the problems after all; it just shifted them.

I'd been unhappy for days, but that galvanized my need to do something. So I went back to my Photoshop file and messed around some more. A lot more. Until eventually, finally, I came up with Apartment Arrangement Option 10, a revision of Option 5.

See how Sean and I will have our own departmentalized seating areas? But we can both move to the main couch, directly in front of the TV, and snuggle together if we want. It's the best I could do, given our ridiculously narrow living room with its inconvenient doors and bizarro closet jutting into the room.

Sean's agreed to try it, but he said "Not today". ;> So we'll see how this does, here in a couple of days. Wish us luck :>

New living room layout...maybe

Today I spent some time rearranging the second bedroom, which has multiple uses: guest room, office, and general storage facility. I want it to also serve the purpose of a workout room, so I was trying to clear a decent amount of space in front of the television. I was marginally successful; you can see pictures here. (Note that I do someday plan to put the Christmas decorations away...)

Doing that put me in the rearranging mood, and I decided to start thinking about how I want the living room to look. I found a floor plan of our apartment at the rental company's website and, armed with my trusty tape measure and Photoshop, added in all our furniture. Here's the current layout:

The big purple block is our couch, and the gray boxes in front of it are Sean's area. (Light gray is the floor where he sits; dark gray is the kotatsu.) The red blocks are the loveseat and chair, and the long, darker red rectangle is the coffee table on loan from Brooke. The big black rectangle is the TV, the big black square is the dinner table, and the smaller black boxes are the bar table and its chairs, the media cabinets, and a file cabinet.

It's actually a pretty decent layout, given the awkward utility closet jutting into the room and all the doors I have to work around. I really like the way it looks. However, it's inconvenient in a couple of ways. First, Sean is facing the back wall and not the television. This wasn't really a big deal before, but lately he's taken to sitting in my seat (the loveseat) to play video games on the TV, only to have to move when I get home. Secondly, having Sean's sitting area right in front of the largest couch means a lot of sitting area is wasted. No one who comes over wants to squeeze in and sit behind him, so the couch is limited to perhaps one seat, rather than three or possibly four. I am also somewhat unhappy with the placement of the bar table in the dining room; I kind of like it, but it annoys me that the stools aren't next to it, and it isn't serving its normal purpose.

So for about five hours I've been rearranging colored blocks, trying to discover a better arrangement. Here are the phases I went through:

Phase One: Too Awkward

This kind of works, but the loveseat is facing a chair that is at a 90 degree angle, which is bound to look ridiculous. Meanwhile, the chair is floating in the middle of the flow of traffic.

Phase Two: WAY Too Awkward

I thought maybe putting the TV on the opposite wall would help. It's a neat idea, but ultimately results in a Family Circus-style path through the apartment. I kind of liked the thought of having an artificial hallway leading to the bedroom door, but it's not really practical and possibly unsafe.

Phase Three: Ludicrous

Perhaps, I speculated, giving up on 90 degree angles would do the trick. This is the result. Ultimately the seating problem still exists and most of the seating has a very poor view.

Phase Four: An Accident Waiting to Happen

What if I used the TV as an artificial wall? Well, someone would knock into it, of course...especially given the small passageway between it and the loveseat. I liked the effect this closing-off had on the dining area, but that's about it. There still wasn't a very homey feel, and few decent views. Plus, Sean was probably too far away from the TV.

But then, finally, I came across this arrangement:

I'm not perfectly happy with it, but it feels like this is the best I'm going to be able to do. The TV stays where it currently is, to keep it in sight of most of the room. The loveseat rotates 90 degrees and moves to the corner; Sean slides up next to it, leaving enough room for him to walk around and for people to sit. The full couch becomes my seat, with the coffee table in front of it and plenty of room for others to sit, and then the chair rounds out the room, leaving an open area for the bar table. Sean's file cabinet ends up next to the loveseat and becomes a much-needed end table.

What's nice about this is that the flow of traffic isn't changed; people can walk in a straight line from the front door to the back door, which is optimal with this floor plan. I don't really like how the TV looks right now, but once we get a table for it I think it and the media cabinets will fill out the wall better.

Of course, I haven't actually moved anything yet...I'm so exhausted from thinking about it that I think I'll just relax for now ;)

Social media language study suggestion

I think it would be cool if a bunch of people studying a language would go out and take photos of signs written entirely in that language and upload them somewhere (probably Flickr, people always use Flickr for this sort of thing) and tag them so others can find them. Then we would have a huge group of real-life flash cards that we could use on our computers to familiarize ourselves with the vocabulary found on signs. It could be place names, common warnings, business names, sales, things like that. Basically, the idea is to give vocabulary (and how to write it) relevance.

I put some rather mediocre photos from 2001 up to start.