Love to update more but I’ve been sick for a week now.
Came down with the flu last Sunday, had to go home early from work on Tuesday, work from home on Wednesday, then coughing madly till now.
I got some neat photo from the top floor of Microsoft office tower in downtown Bellevue but that will have to wait another night.
Time to find a family doctor…
As promised, my third update to my layout. I’ll be tweaking this in the near future.
Welcome to v2.5 - 想い出は遠くの日々
Since I’ve become a resident of Washington state, I had only 30 days of driving on my Canadian license before I was obliged to retake the driving test here. Now I have an American driver license.
Today, I took the road test… it was a long time ago that I took the road test back in Ontario. In comparison to the G exit test, the test I took today was a joke. There was no highway component, no high congestion traffic areas, and no tricky moves. The maneuvers were the basics except for one thing: backing around a corner. Imagine if you will, you made a right turn, then was asked to do the reverse of that. From my perspective from many years of driving, this is highly unnatural and illegal. But according to the licensing department here, it’s a legal move. Thankfully, I hired a driving instructor beforehand to show me all these technicalities. All in all, I passed my test at 98/100 - I got a -2 from backing around a corner too wide.
That’s the update for this week. I think I’m going to sucker some friends to go watch the forest changing colour on the weekend.
Anyway, I’ve been always thinking about redoing the theme of this blog but never seem to dig up the time or motivation to do it. I’ll try to make it happen this week.
So, I ended up with this cough from a cold that I caught last week. I spent the weekend doing nothing since I lacked the energy to do things.
Anyway, when I returned back to office on Monday, I was still coughing quite a bit. After work, I decided to go see a doctor to treat my simple cough. According to the health provider list from work, most general doctors were located at the hospital near where I lived. Back in Canada, I would not visit the hospital for something that my family doctor would handle easily. But according to my coworkers, it seems to be the best place to find a general doctor.
By the time I got there in the evening, those offices have closed. When I entered the hospital, I asked the reception lady:
Me: So, this sounds sorta stupid but I want to see a doctor about my cough.
Receptionist: Well, all our doctors are gone now. You could go to the emergency ward.
Me: I don’t typically go to the emergency ward for a cough. I’d feel stupid just walking in.
Receptionist: Don’t worry. There are a lot of people who does the same.
Me: Fine, where is the emergency ward?
So after checking in the emergency ward, I discovered the following with regards to American hospitals:
- wait times are really low. It took 1.5 hours to see a doctor.
- all rooms are private, they also have TVs
- 100% of the cost was covered by my employer’s insurance
- 100% of drug cost was also covered
I think I’ll try a different approach next time… I’ll find a local family doctor instead. I’m still slowly learning my new way of life here.
Another two weeks of not blogging… I caught a cold for the greater part of last week and left me rather incapacitated when I got home. I blame my coworkers for spreading the germs.
Today, I spent a thousand bucks to buy tickets to return back to Toronto for Christmas. Fortunately, I got direct flights going and return. Two weeks of holiday are booked off in December. Looking forward to going home.