In the Balance

So life has been a balancing act today...

I got up at 11AM in order to eat some breakfast before my doctor's appointment at 12:30PM. This appointment is supposed to let the ERGO health insurance company know my risk type. After several weeks of paperful bureaucracy, they will let me purchase a form of insurance from them so I can get my residency. I don't like that a health insurance company has my legality in this country by the balls...

But I look up where this place is online, and I'm fairly certain is very close to where the ERGO office was - the shopping center of town. So I give myself 20 minutes to get over there, considering I'm not sure exactly where this place is. But it's in Turu 2 (building #2 on Turu st), and office 17 has my doctor. I start walking. I get to the shopping center. Where the hell are these offices? Where the HELL IS THIS BUILDING?!?!

Every building usually has its number on it somewhere. Except these buildings are huge shopping malls, so finding the number can be difficult. And this area of town is not numbered in a senseful manner. RIDICULOUS. So I can't find a damn thing. I ask multiple people, they have no idea where Turu 2 is.

I call the office, and the secretary answers in Estonian and obviously doesn't speak English, as she connects me to a line then after it rings for about 45 seconds tells me something in Estonian and hangs up. I assume it was something very polite like, "Sorry, he's not available try again in an hour or so." Instead it sounds like a "F*** you, Colin Johnson!" But I call back for the 4th time, and try in Russian. She tells me its in Tasku on the 4th floor.

Tasku is a shopping mall... why are doctors in a shopping mall? Whatever. I walk there. I go up to the 4th floor. There's a cinema... I go into Hotel Dorpat's conference rooms on the 4th floor thinking there are offices somewhere. Finally I find a human being and they say it's behind the cinema. Behind the cinema?

If you walk to the left of the ticket office, past the sushi restaurant, then go down a narrow hallway, you come to a medical center. There's over 60 doctors offices back there. SWEET JEEBIES!! I have searched for 40 minutes for a HUGE medical center (and I think one of the only ones in Tartu) that's behind a cinema and there's NO ADVERTISING WHATSOEVER FOR THIS PLACE!!! UGH!!!

So I'm 20 minutes late for my appointment. I go and knock on the door of the doctor's office, which is right in the waiting room, so all the Estonians are watching this peculiar, long-haired American knock on a doctor's door. I talk to the secretary. This doctor doesn't work Monday mornings. He'll be in within an hour - AKA: when I have class. I wait. He shows up. He says there was an error and he asked the insurance company to contact me. They didn't. So now I'm meeting him tomorrow afternoon. Nice doctor. Insurance company continues to be the carrier of my legal balls.

Then I went to class. Not interesting. Got into a heated argument between the one Russian in the class and the reasons for agricultural failure in the USSR. Wow. Useless. Ugh. This class might be the end of me, honestly. I just hope it gets better... fast.

But summer and winter continue to battle it out. It was sunny this morning, then the clouds took over, it snowed lightly a little, but the sun came back out. So I got to run with the sun. And the sun helped to make the snow way tougher, so my run was actually enjoyable today!! And the ice is slick, which means it's melting! Yay!

FALSE. Weather forecasts say it'll drop to -13C over the weekend (8F). Unfortunately, this week I am running more kilometers/miles than I ever have before in my life. And I get to do it in the coldest weather of my life. WHAT?!?! Come on weather!!! Please!!! Have mercy/pity/class/love/heart!!!

Then I said goodbye to Palo, a grad student from Slovakia who has finished his research... while being sick with pneumonia for 5 weeks. He's kind of amazing, really. And then I cooked myself some spaghetti, and I'm officially amazing at it now. It was soooo good tonight. Mmmm...

That's been my day. Ugh. Not good, not bad. In the balance...