Selling Buttons...or Badges

For the last few weeks I have been working at a street market for a local friend who ones one of the booths. A few hours every weekend I have become the unofficial Button Empress of South Brisbane. Should you ever want a button smeared with wit and cheek, come see me.

Well, South Bank or South Brisbane. I do not know the difference.

The area is a cool and busy area where a lot of restaurants live, and festivals and events occur here throughout the year. There is the artificial beach pool that takes up a large are with a boardwalk shopping area with a New Orleans feeling surrounding it. If beaches are not your thing, there is also a beautiful river walk juxtaposed next to it. There is also this weekend market where I am working that is loaded with local artisan wares, ranging from handmade bratwurst to very lovely fine art and leather belts.

Anyways, the fun thing about working at the booth every weekend is the people watching - just last night a lady came up to me and shouted unreasonably loudly if I had a button that said, "Kiss me I'm single" (to which I had to quietly admit that we did not). I am also getting a better chance to observe a bit of the more subtler nuances in the Australian culture.

The biggest surprise I have had is the reiteration of how all English-speaking folk (or maybe all Western culture) are kind of the same in tastes. I guess I was expecting some odd Australian-only cultural references on button selections...but really, the same kinds of things liked by the public is equally enjoyed in the US. With the exception of a few British shows (and a devotion to Dr. Who unrivaled by any American sub-culture), people here love popular shows like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad...as well as the assorted cool teenage bands like My Chemical Romance (they're still a thing?!). They are all for sale and bought by many. What is so curious to me is how everyone act as if their personal likes and interests are unique. They read some of the buttons as if we have taken time to stalk them and create buttons specifically meant for their eyes. Of course, we would never do that - we have to sell popular things that a whole lot of people like in order to make a profit. Maybe people forget that and think only they have discovered that one special button? Or maybe it is a human need to feel socially accepted, and seeing their interests pressed into buttons validates their belonging to a larger tribe?

I am not sure how I feel about this. And I am still not feeling great about globalization because of this outcome.

But I have misspoken. People call these things badges. Everyone calls them badges. Even the little children who just learned how to talk stumble up to the booth shouting, "BADGES!" I have been calling them buttons all of these years, not realizing that (at least here) I am truly talking about badges. People have faltered when I say "buttons' and I have to quickly correct myself before the buttons badges magically transform into gnomish items used to fasten vests.

Another thing I seem to say strangely while I work is the word "baggies". You know, the things into which you put small merchandise. Whenever I ask if someone wants a baggy, I get met with chuckles before a response. I guess they only think of the word for when referring to drug storage. I mean, similar bags are used for drugs in the US (so I have been told), but they are baggies! They are little bags! In a country determined to reword everything into something cuter and with a "y" ending, I am surprised the term "baggy" is lost on them.

Finally, a term I recently learned is "Calm your farm". I had to ask my Aussie friends about this because it left me baffled. They were amused at the very phrase, too. Who knows, maybe it's not just Australian. It means to chill out...but I keep thinking, are not farms often very calm places? How can you calm them more? But I still liked it a bit...I shall try to integrate this into my daily life.

Medical Hiccups

It's been a while. I've been finishing up my semester and have been pulled away from self reflection and adventure writing. Instead, I've been writing for long assignments that have been coming and going in my life as if through an ever-revolving door that might be spinning a bit too quickly.

But I'm back, for now.

The first story that I can share since coming back from the darkness that is the school library is about medical shenanigans that happened recently.

Let's just start this off by saying I am shocked how much I currently miss the American medical system. Not specifically the amount of money I have to shell out to get care or the mind-numbing loop holes US insurance companies have to back out of payments - of course I don't miss that! What I do miss is knowing exactly where to go should I need some good quality services now-ish.

I should note as a disclaimer that most of these experiences here have been inside the university health services center. That said, it's been a pretty rough go of it for a few weeks.

I woke up one day with some part of my body swollen and clearly not right a few weeks ago. Being a diligent and impatient New Yorker, I ran to the student health center as soon as it opened and got in with a doctor to check it out. I was put in with a guy who kind of mumbled and swabbed the area for testing and sent me home with low-strength antibiotics and an anti-fungal cream, scheduled to come in the next week for results. Perplexed though I was about having antibiotics and anti-fungal at the same time, yet ever-obedient, I took the medication like a champ for the next few days.

A couple of days later, my swollen self was looking (and feeling) worse. Unfortunately it was the weekend, and I live in a place where none of the medical offices here are open beyond the 9-5 drudgery of the week. My sources tell me that urgent care options have only entered Brisbane in the last year or so. Desperate, I called a home-visit doctor service and waited for four hours until a doctor showed up and quickly decided that my antibiotics were too weak for the infection and that anti-fungal cream was clearly a mistake. He recommended I take a double dose of what was left of the antibiotics. The antibiotic cream the home-visit doctor gave me worked like a charm, and I wondered why I wasn't given that before.

I get back to the university doctor for my results and things start unraveling. First of all, he made an awful lot of comments about the American health system, flipping from why his analysis must be right because he's using American products to why the American system is not up to snuff and why I should be grateful I'm getting medical advice in Australia. This has left me thinking he's got some dark past with some American lady who's left him with many therapy visits to feel better.

I won't get into the details of the ordeal, but let's just say he knowingly gave me an inadequate amount of medicine and told me in a very candid way that the test results indicated that I might have some health problem that would need further investigation (not exactly like I need more health problems in my life). He also told me information about this potential health problem that I know from research is offensively incorrect. To make it worse, I now had a whole week ahead of me to be worried about my health and lament not being able to call my doctors in the US about what was happening to me and get information I can trust....and during finals.

So I requested more in-depth blood tests (which probably should have been his idea) and was leeched of a few vials of blood. Feeling uncomfortable with this doctor, I requested at the front desk to be put with a female doctor next time to talk things through, which seemed to confuse the appointment receptionist. I came out pretty upset and irritated with that doctor. I also found out this guy specializes in Men's Health...so I'm not entirely sure why I was put in the same room with him at all in general.

Yesterday I went back in for the blood tests. The doctor I had originally seen, despite requesting another doctor, was given to me once again and I politely hid my inner rage of having to see him again. The guy, unsurprisingly, took the first half of the 10-minute consultation to stare at the computer screen without addressing me. I requested a print-out of my results so I could share the time in silent contemplation with him, which seemed like a great idea to him. I peered down at my test results to see everything in the clear....I am free of syphilis and Hepatitis and a bunch of other fun things he ordered for testing. Except, he hadn't ordered the initial blood test that was the whole reason my blood was taken. I asked him what happened, and he looked around saying, "Oh, I just assumed they would have tested for that. Oh well, I'll call the lab to see if they've some blood left for testing."

Now I have to email next week for the results I have already been waiting over a week for, from a doctor who seems to lack bedside manor skills in the worst way. And I now have anecdotal evidence that (alongside my experience at NYU) absolutely no student health center in the world will ever be able to adequately serve me and my high-maintenance body correctly

All of this is to say is that, aside from the student health center I have no idea where in Australia I can go get a doctor who can give me the service and support I need to feel healthy and comfortable while I'm here. I don't have the public health insurance option, so most places I'd have to pay for consultations. I don't like the feeling of uneasiness I get when trying to figure out if I can go to doctors here, and who can take care of my special needs well. And also, who will recognize me as in need of Women's Health, not Men's Health. I'll be trying a new clinic next week that is near my home and pay a little bit of money to see if they're a better option for my sad, sad body.

In NYC, I know exactly where to go when I feel unwell and know that I won't have to come into the office three times for one issue, unless it's chronic. I won't even need to come into the office for test results, as they're digitally sent to me. I asked the doctor at the university why things weren't digitized here, and he snarkily said, "Well, if we did that you'd have to pay as much here as you do in the US!"

Don't worry, though - my other upcoming posts will be a lot more cheerful.