I have a better top loading washing machine. I know how to clean the lint catcher on this one. And let's face it, side loading for a thing with water? It creates a need for door locking that creates stress. Brand new too! Still has the warrantee papers in it. My toilet is better too. Not one of those "smart" tankless toilets that you can't fix when they go wrong. I know I'll get a few witnesses to THAT! Tanks, but no tankless.
I also have TV here and at 2 today I'm going to watch the Kia Tigers playing a pre-season game in another empty stadium. It's weird watching baseball this year so far. Players don't know what to do to celebrate. No high fives, no butt patting, no hugging. They're coming up with new social distancing methods of celebration. Weird but fun.
I got a free microwave and have already used it. It's nice to have. It opens up more food options. Most unhealthy, but new, and that's nice. My fridge is better designed so even though it's smaller by a bit, I think it'll hold just as much or maybe more. It's got the awesome ice area too. With the weather already getting hot, I'll use that a LOT. And the stove is a gas range. Not the gimmicky modern touch electric burner that turns itself on if you put something on the burner and sometimes doesn't read your fingers when you WANT it to turn on. And speaking of electronic gimmicks, I have normal outlets, not the ones with the protruding buttons to shut them off. My old apartment had those right at couch or chair level so if you moved, you might hear a beep and suddenly a light, or your computer, that was plugged into the outlet, would shut off. And sometimes you wouldn't hear the beep. With my laptop, it didn't shut off. It just changed to battery power. So 4 hours later it would run out of power. Very annoying.
I don't sleep in the living room so I have more room in the living room. My bedroom, instead of being a sauna of uncirculated air with a three-foot high ceiling that you had to get to via suicide staircase, is nice. It has a better desk and I can use my computer in my bedroom OR just haul it out to the living room if I want.
The bathroom is not as good. There isn't as much storage for towels, TP, and bathroom goods. Plus the water from a shower pretty much soaks the entire floor, whereas in my old place the shower was enclosed, though I never shut the door because for a person of my size, that was not easy. But I like the adjustable shower in the new apartment. Showers are nice. And I didn't think this would be the case, but the water pressure is just as good. In fact the first time I turned on the faucet in the sink was to brush my teeth and I blasted the toothpaste right off my toothbrush. You have to be careful.
I didn't think I'd be saying THIS either but I'm even closer to work living here! And that's really nice. I pay 120,000 won less a month. That's gonna be a savings of about 1650 bucks a year. I am on the second floor instead of the 3rd so I haven't used the elevator yet. Don't think I will. I haven't heard, or smelled smoke, from my neighbours yet. I think I just have the parking garage below so I won't disturb anyone if I thump. I listened to music pretty loud the first night I was here. I shut it down at 11. No complaints.
No complaints from me either. ...about my apartment. There IS one thing that has bugged me a little bit this week. It's an old pet peeve of mine, or a specific example of it. I've been sent the following meme by a handful of friends:
Have you seen this one, have you heard about this? I like the humour. I have really enjoyed a LOT of Covid humour! People are getting very creative. But this one bugged me. I think it's the beginning. No, it's not the glaring mistake using the word "is" instead of "this." Although, if the person really WERE smart enough to be trying to educate people on mask wearing, something that even experts are still debating, you'd expect them to take the time and care to do at least one edit, no?
I think the thing that bothers me with this one is the tone of superiority. Like this person is trying to educate the ignorant masses. And, sorry to the handful of friends who posted this, it makes the posting party seem a little arrogant by re-posting this arrogant meme. I doubt the person who created this meme was an expert, but even if he/she IS an expert, we know that the experts don't know. Two of my Facebook friends posted this in the last few days. Now, this is not a good article. In fact the beginning and end contradict each other. The headline, which is all a lot of people will actually read, is about the WHO flip-flopping again on mask usage. And if you recall, I said this will likely be like butter or eggs: bad for you, then good for you, then bad for you. Well now it's bad for you. But no sooner did the writer finish this article than it was now, according to the CDC, GOOD for you again.
If you read the two articles, not just the headlines, you can begin to understand what the "experts" are up against. How would one go about scientifically studying and gauging the confidence that comes with mask wearing? And how on earth can we get an accurate measure of how many of us use the masks correctly? The big one for me is mentioned in the second article: how much more often do we touch our faces when we wear our masks? I wear mine when I go out and usually I go out to places I need to get to by bus or subway holding onto the steel bars that hundreds of other people have grabbed the same day. And when I get to the grocery store by bus or subway, pushing the grocery cart that who knows how long it's been since it was disinfected? All the while adjusting my mask and touching my face at LEAST 10 times as often as I would otherwise. This absolutely increases my chances of contracting the virus, which, because I can only spread it if I've got it, increases my chances of being that one person in 10,000 who has Corona and doesn't know it yet.
So what do you do when a friend militantly and completely convinced by this thoroughly unscientific meme, posts it while saying they are pissed off at people who just don't obey or understand or share the same knowledge (dare I say wisdom) that they have received from people who still don't know what they're talking about? I tried humour. You know, fight fire with fire, just in case they weren't completely sold on the argument's veracity and perfect illustration of why we should wear masks. Like, "Yes, this DOES make it simple. Not accurate, but simple." Or "Who wants to walk around all day in urine-soaked pants? Ewww!" Even "Wearing pants makes me touch my junk more often and nobody wants to look at that. I say free Willy or the female equivalent of Willy... Wanda?"
But people who embraced the humour in the above meme, somehow failed to react the same way to mine, which lead me to the conclusion that they actually ARE placing some faith in the wisdom of this meme. This goes back to another of my peeves: Why don't we do our own research? We have more time now during quarantine. We have a world of knowledge on the internet. Why do we still place our faith in people we assume are smarter than us and have done the research for us? People we don't even know sometimes. Do we have THAT little confidence in our own intellect? Or are we just too lazy/tired to do our own research? Who made this meme? If you totally believe it, what about it makes you believe it? Is it the superior tone? Is it that you were previously convinced? Is it the humour that makes you think the creator was smarter than you? I too believe really funny people are almost always really smart and vice versa. I didn't know the answers to these questions. So you know what I did? I did some research.
Of course I can't find the answers to the mysteries about this that are giving the experts fits. But there was knowledge available to me that would help me wrap my brain around this situation a little better. These numbers are ALL inaccurate. But they will give me, I thought, a better idea of our situation than I had at the time. So I crunched them. I took the world population of 7.8 billion, used the estimate that it would be at the very outside, two weeks before someone with Covid 19 who doesn't know it will break down and get tested. It follows that the main reason we wear the masks to protect other people is the possibility that we might be one of these so called, "stealth carriers." Then I checked the current numbers, again fairly wild estimations but a bit better than nothing, of how many new Corona cases there had been in the previous two weeks. That number was about 100,000. GOOD! Easier for my calculations. So all I had to do to find out how many people there might be walking around with the virus unbeknownst was find out what percentage of the world population actually are diagnosed with it every week. Of course, this will give us much too large a number since the majority of people get tested long before the two-week point. Some get tested before they have any symptoms at all. The number I got was 0.000013% of the world population.
In other words, if you are walking around IN THE WORLD, and you meet 10,000 people today, 1.3 of them will be one of those stealth carriers. In the U.S., which has almost 1/3 of the Covid cases right now, your odds will be increased. In Korea, where we just had a day with NO new cases, odds would significantly decrease. I live in Korea and am not worried about coming into dangerous contact with a carrier at all. I wash my hands and hardly ever go out so I'm not that worried that I might have the virus. Also, Koreans have been behaving well in this crisis. Social distancing, hand washing, testing, etc. So I don't worry much at all about whether I would get infected if I just went out without my mask. But I don't do that. Why not? Well, it IS better socially to wear the mask. I don't want to be publicly berated or silently despised by Koreans any more than I already am. But there's also THIS.
We are, once again, at the mercy of the lunatics. The people that are responsible for those warnings on strollers to remove babies before folding. Or the windshield cover warnings to remove before driving. THIS is why we wear our masks right now, I think. Because if we didn't, one asshole could infect a LOT of people, and they'll infect two friends, and they'll infect two friends, and so on, and so on...
So the real question is, are the increased odds of contracting the virus that come with wearing masks enough to offset the dangers that come from not wearing them? Without the nutjobs in the world, I'd probably say yes. It could be safer to NOT wear the masks. But because of those psychos, it's probably still a good idea. As you know if you are a regular reader, I HATE when someone tells me something is for my own protection. Because very often there's an ulterior motive. But, I think I'll still wear my mask. Korea has done well with this virus but I've learned from MANY years in this country that there are lots of whackjobs here. I've read stories of random poisonings in recent news, so it happens. And there have been people who knew they were infected but went to church anyway hoping the Lord would be their protection.
Anyhoo, the verdict is, better safe than a victim of some unhinged jagoff. It's unnerving when our safety is dependent upon the general public because the general public includes morons! But here we are. I'll keep wearing my mask and maybe we all should. The sacrifices we make for the few!
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