Acupuncture

Today was an epic day. My Husserl presentation went off pretty well - but there were a lot of blank faces as the professor and I tried in tandem to explain the difference between Noematics and Noetics and their relationship to the Perceptive Noema. I've felt 'off' for several days, and I crashed early this afternoon for a 3 hour nap. I finally forced myself to get up around 5pm, feeling restless because of the hot, muggy weather and my dirty apartment.

I drove over to a Chinese medicine center that I'd scoped out yesterday, bravely went inside, and asked to see the doctor. She was charming and vivacious, and, as is customary, checked my pulse at both wrists before asking me any questions. I felt a little stupid describing my symptoms - migraines and vomiting, triggered mostly by food allergies. (The obvious solution is to avoid the food I'm allergic too, but I keep hoping some alternative method will completely reform my body.) I was worried about my digestive system and liver. Had I done any tests? Um...no. She was about to prescribe some Chinese herbs and send me on my way, but I asked specifically for acupuncture and that seemed to put her at ease. I'll bet a lot of foreigners came in asking to 'try it out', and so she could treat me more as a tourist than a patient. She yelled out to one of her assistants to set me up in back. "Where?" "All over!"

I was waiting in the back room for some time. The nurse was a cute young woman, she seemed to be stalling. I wondered if I was supposed to get undressed, and she didn't know how to ask me. However, the Doctor herself finally came in to treat me herself. I remember doing acupuncture at least once before, perhaps in Malta. I remember the needles being very small and flimsy, and were stuck just a little under the skin. This time was different. The Doctor placed each needle carefully in place and then tapped it deeper with her finger. It was very painful. "You mean, a warm, electric feeling, right? Or a dull throbbing?" She asked me. No, just pain. Sharp, intense, penetrating. I got two needles in each hand, four in my stomach, 1 in each knee and 2 in each foot. Then the assistant heated the needles by waving burning embers over them.

After about two minutes, I felt pretty comfortable. I was a little dizzy, but it could have been the harsh fluorescent light above me or that the room was filled with smoke from the incense. At one point the Doctor came back in. She grabbed each of the needles - I thought she was taking them out - and said 10 more minutes. As she did this, the intense pain came back; pain that spread up my arms and legs from the site of the needle. A few moments later, I was trying to relax by breathing deeply when I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen. I looked down and was surprised to find the needles were still there. After a long while, the Doctor came in and took out all the needles. The whole process took about an hour, and I paid only $3.00, courtesy of my National Health Insurance. I would have been happy to come back in about a month, but she wants to see me again on Saturday.

It had been a hard week, so I drove straight to Tainan's cheapest movie theater where they show films that have already been out for several months. The building used to be a real theater and was converted. It's old and dodgy, a little sleazy, but only $2.00 and I had the whole theater to myself. I watched Denzel Washington's "Deju Vu". Afterwards, I thought about cruising over to the Confucius Temple to do some metal-detecting; but my left hand is still so sore from the acupuncture I can hardly make a fist.