magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

I had mentioned previously that Sonali was planning on spending some time in India between finishing her Masters program and starting the next phase of her life (possibly Ph.D studies). She has been blogging about some of her experiences on MySpace, which is not somewhere that I would normally think to look for such things, and so stumbled across the last few weeks worth of entries at once, and it makes my little problems seem terribly insignificant.

She was going to have LASIK eye surgery done while in India, as it's considerably cheaper there. There is a course of antibiotic eyedrops leading up to the surgery itself, which was postponed due to a gauge malfunction on the machine. The next day she developed an infection, eventually diagnosed as a rare allergic reaction to the antibiotics. If the surgery had happened, the infection would have likely caused scar tissue on her eyes and left her blind. As it is, the allergic reaction itself sounds like a real nasty piece of work, and I can only very peripherally imagine what she's going through.

At the very least, she is among her extended family (who are mostly doctors), and so that must offer some degree of comfort. And she's cutting her trip short and returning home next week.

Being largely atheist, prayer doesn't really mean much to me, but I am thinking of her, which I do hope counts for something.

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Also on this Halloween, I witnessed a scary fight on a subway train, was given original comic book artwork of me (as Bruce Banner) turning into the monstrous Hulk, send birthday wishes off to Bret who was born most appropriately on this day, and hung out with Allison. That last one is particularly Halloween-related, but here's a photo of my "costume" from Rome.