Posts Tagged ‘health’

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Smoker’s Lungs

March 14th, 2011 by Manda | 5 Comments | Filed in Travel

In a city where breathing the polluted air alone is the equivalent of smoking three packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day, I’m pretty surprised I haven’t come down with any lung-related ailments yet.

Beijing, I love you, but fact that I am passively smoking about a zillion packs of cigarettes a week1 has me worried I’ll return to the States with a set of smoker’s lungs!

  1. The air pollution, combined with the amount of secondhand smoke I inhale when going out at night, is most definitely damaging to my lungs in every possible way. [↩]

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Chinese New Year: What I Wanted, What Was Going to Be, and What Will Be

February 3rd, 2011 by Manda | 4 Comments | Filed in Life

What I Wanted: To go to Hong Kong to spend Chinese New Year the right (read: traditional) way: ringing in the Year of the Rabbit with family!

What Was Going to Be: To go to Pingyao on a trip organized by my study abroad program.

What Will Be: Sitting in the hospital, attached to an IV of penicillin to cure my damn sinus infection.

Woe is me. Although I did get to spend Chinese New Year Eve setting off and observing fireworks with friends while we roamed the streets of Beijing, so that’s something.

Happy Year of the Rabbit, everyone!

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Reporting Live from My Friday Night

January 28th, 2011 by Manda | 7 Comments | Filed in Life

It’s 10p.m. on a Friday night. I am a study abroad student in Beijing, China. Ideally, where would I be? Any one of the following would be a good answer to that question:

…in short, any place where I would be able to go out with friends, socialize, drink, and/or dance. Or all of the above.

Instead, what am I doing? I am lying in bed, sick as ever. I seem to have contracted the plague or something, because ever since Monday night I’ve been feeling absolutely awful. Congestion, on/off fever, headaches, and all that yucky stuff. It sucks, because my best friend has also (by pure coincidence) chosen this exact time period to do some traveling for Chinese New Year, leaving me without any caretaker in this cold, dry, windy wintry Beijing weather.

I know, I know. Whine much? I’m just frustrated by the fact that I’ve been sick for the majority of this past week with no sign of getting better. The medicines I got at a local pharmacy have done shit all; I’ve resorted to self-medicating with ibuprofen and Vitamin C. I don’t understand how, even with bed rest, that I’m not feeling the slightest improvement. What gives?

Still, there are worse ways to spend a Friday night than sitting in bed, eating dark chocolate and re-watching Skins (UK version). I could be doing homework, or something equally unappealing after a hard week of studying and test-taking…

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