Stanley O'Shea

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memoir

Related to my book “The snowy Battlefield of Ohio” , or more recent personal stories.

news, memoir

Summer 2026 Update

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Hey guys, I know I haven’t been writing this newsletter for a while, so this will be a solid one. Moving and housing Since two years ago, I’ve been dealing with a difficult landlady, who provided decade(s)-old second-hand electrical appliances that were eye-opening to me in terms of (dys)functionality. I was advised to find a different apartment in the same area. The new place is better in structure, but no better in terms of safety and robustness against horrible weather. More importantly, there was a fire accident, and the landlord was trying to hide it from me. This crude and cruel person tended to gaslight new tenants, just like many landlords in this world. Of course, the broker was also to blame. It took me a lot of trouble to understand why I have been suffering from people in this area: these homeowners, in this apartment complex with a “demolition-relocation” background, were from the less educated area of this city. The broker’s office is also the most remote one in their company, almost bordering the rural area. These people live by very different moral codes. Despite the relapsed leg injury during the recent moving process, I’ve decided to move back to the city area after living in this apartment for only three months. Suburbs here are not like suburbs in America. Lesson learned with clarity. Time to say goodbye. Swimming and challenges At the beginning of the year, I made a wish to go back to the swimming pool, as a new step of my rehab process. It took me weeks to relearn breaststroke, a skill I had acquired in college. Then I signed up for the freestyle lesson. Honestly, I wasn’t satisfied with the coaching here, because the coach doesn’t understand anatomy, let alone fitness training. Each session with him would bring me so much pain in some parts of my body, so I had to see a PT in a different city for treatment, in the name of unlocking the restrictions of my body. I disagree with their old-fashioned pedagogy, because it’s not suitable for adults with overuse injuries here and there. Yes, swimming is great exercise for your health, but learning a new fitness skill at this age was really painstaking. The Silver lining: I had a comedian friend, Matthew Broussard (@mondayponday), who gave me a lot of swimming tips. Meanwhile, I watched the YouTube video by Global Triathlon Network again and again to internalize the movements. I hope to finish the lesson with this coach, and then practice at my own pace in the future. I feel it is much less painful afterward when I swim by myself instead of being pushed to swim in a certain standardized way. There are definitely gains and losses in the process. I don’t think I can recommend freestyle swimming lessons to adults with physical difficulties already. You must have heard people say swimming is gentle on the joints, but you need most of your muscles and joints to be healthy in order to swim effectively. It’s too ideal for most of us approaching middle age, actually. If you are interested in swimming, please find someone who understands fitness anatomy, if not physical therapy. They also need to be psychologically mature enough, with good patience. This seems like a high standard for a coach, but if your body isn’t wholesome, you gotta be picky. Forgot to mention, swimming is really good for the brain and your autonomic nervous system, unless you have pre-existing medical issues. New series and IG reels Adventures with the Medical Ninjas is an urban fantasy & graphic novel series I have been working on. The pictures are generated with generative AI. I try to create a new episode each season as I grow my understanding of the healthcare industry and human society. Episode 08 is a special story between “me”, Patrick, and Gary Woo, head of the IT department. This episode carries more technical than medical flavor. You shouldn’t miss it if you are into engineering and math… and mythology. I put a lot of effort into making the battle graphs for this episode. Part One Part Two Part Three Episode 09 is shorter than usual. It’s a battle between “me” and Llama from the Department of Psychological Medicine. Let me give you a heads-up: the psychological battle is darker than usual. Of course, I got the inspiration from real-life interactions with various clinicians and those in the service industry. Part One Part Two If you remember, I once posted a short series (EP N1, N2, N3 pt.1, N3 pt.2) based on my medical trips to a second-tier city. Dr. Warm is the main clinician in the series. In the past season, I also created a graphic series based on my clinical visits to a PT with needling skills. I borrowed the concept of The Visored from Bleach, although the series is called Medical Ninjas. The stories have been posted on Instagram and TikTok. Below are the links. V1 empathy V2 bow V3 corkscrew V4 lancet V5 pliers You can also see my swimming series and cooking series on Instagram and sometimes TikTok. Please check out my profile pages @stanthefeline. If you wonder why I didn’t post on YouTube this time. I have some sad news to announce. My YouTube channel (@stanthefeline) has been shadow-banned, presumably because their algorithm flagged my AI-manga shorts as AI slop. I tried every way I could think of to rescue my channel, but there was no traffic coming in except toward the old videos. I seem to have a lot of co-victims this time, and this crisis with AI is out of our control. Therefore, I am spending more time on Instagram again, and occasionally share these anime-styled works on TikTok. I share my movie and book reviews on these two platforms too, if you care to look. The feedback is not bad. Sorry Youtube. Maybe someday I’ll create a new channel if I decide to create long-form videos.

health, memoir

Adventures with the Medical Ninjas – Episode N1 Dr. Cold and His White Guns

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(Last visit from one month ago) (one month later) Me: Dr. Cold, the ointment infused with chakra you put on last time was amazing — my left side doesn’t hurt anymore. I probably don’t need your “Water-Style plus Metal-Style” treatment. Just give me more ointment infused with chakra.Dr. Cold: Is that so? Then we’ll do one session of “Air-Style” on the right side.I thought to myself: Finally — but somehow it all feels a little too easy.He said: Let’s prescribe a few more oral meds.Me: Oh, no — I barely took the last mind-soothing powder. The mind-lifting pill helped a bit, but I later realized my lesion is actually higher up; it isn’t really an illusion spell. Besides, those ingredients are toxic; you can’t take much. AI says at most 20 days.He said: Toxic? Who said that?Me (thinking): ChatGPT checked it — it said it’s highly toxic.He said: That dose is tiny, it’s fine.I thought to myself: Are you ignorant or pretending to be? (At the Pharmacy) Me: Finally found it—didn’t know there’s such a tiny pharmacy on this floor. I even went all the way to the lobby on the first floor.The pharmacists: People requested to have one here. Going up and down is too much trouble. But we do have fewer types of medicine here.Me: Then why did I get my prescription from the first floor last time?The pharmacists: The doctor can choose that in the prescribing system.Me: You really have so few medicines here. Downstairs they have smart pharmacies—AI plus conveyor belts deliver meds straight to the pharmacist. They can sit all day without getting up.The pharmacists: You know that smart equipment costs millions, right?Me: Yeah, even all your salaries combined for a few years wouldn’t reach that.The pharmacists: Haha, exactly. We’re the more cost-effective option. (In the treatment room) He said: Sit up straight. I’m going to summon my ranged weapons. Watch closely — these are called mind-penetrating guns. Start telling me when you feel anything. Me: Ahhhh — your guns look 3D-printed, like those insoles sold online.He: No way. This is ancestral. I’m the ninth-generation heir. The guns look the same, but each generation uses different bullets. The bullets are high-density chakra — invisible to human eyes but birds can see them.Me: Ahhh…ahhh…ahhh…He: Moreover, these bullets can penetrate soft tissue and act directly on neurons in your brain — cranial nerves, spinal nerves, sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves — a full 3D approach to remove hallucinations.I thought to myself: Wow — that sounds like precision pseudoscience, just like the insole industry, according to ChatGPT.He said: Forgot to say — each gun contains 2,000 rounds, and the human body can handle at most 4,000 rounds a day. We’ve already used up one gun; you must hold on for the rest of the bullets. Don’t avoid it; don’t move.Me: You know how to run a business — you shot me with two guns at once and used them up in two minutes. I bet each round costs a lot.He said: I don’t usually do this special procedure — it wastes my chakra and takes time. If it weren’t for your long medical history, I’d just prescribe several boxes of mind-soothing powder and mind-lifting pill. Take them for months and you’d be fine. You young people don’t appreciate what you have — you get medicine and don’t even take it. In our day, not a single grain of rice was left, let alone medicine.Me: Ah…ah…ahhh…ah…ahhh…ahHe: Are you sending Morse code?Me: You noticed that. I learned that from the movie Parasite.He: Since you’re already here, begging won’t help. Okay, this session’s over. Hurry off the bed — I’ve got the next patient. Me: Your guns look scary but it didn’t hurt that much. Last year Dr. Good upstairs told me never to try the mind-penetrating guns — it’d be excruciating.He: Haha — can you trust him? He’s famous in this hospital for attacking other departments’ procedures.Me: Right, he even told me Dr. Dreamer’s patients sneaked over to his ward in the morning for treatment. Now I think maybe he fished those patients when he did rounds at Dr. Dreamer’s place — like handing out flyers.I thought to myself: Just like a Taiwanese scholar Bo Yang wrote — these people love infighting. When the Japanese came, a few turned traitor to save their families and harmed those around them.Me: By the way, what chakra are the Air-Style bullets made of?He: Water and Earth. I can’t tell you more — otherwise we won’t finish today’s patients.I turned and saw the wall full of bullet holes.Me: Wow — so many. Must have accumulated for years. Has that machine ever been calibrated?He lifted the gun: Shut up and get out. I thought to myself: How can people swallow that toxic mind-lifting pill? He says mix it with food — does that really reduce toxicity? He’s so blindly optimistic — is the medicine just a placebo? But now I know the ingredient is toxic; even if it’s a placebo, it’s a placebo that makes me more anxious.Me: Dr. Cold, how about next time I send you a red packet and you stop prescribing mind-soothing powder and mind-lifting pill?He said: What? A red packet? You’re trying to poison me! I truly wish you well — I want you to recover.Me: I appreciate your kindness. ???? さようなら (farewell)~ Full video on Youtube (music copyright belongs to the singer-songwriter) This is a creative project inspired by the traditions of Eastern shonen manga and Western comics and cinematic storytelling.All characters, abilities, and world elements are original creations.Any similarities to existing works are coincidental or intended as respectful homage, without any claim of ownership or affiliation.

memoir

Texas school shooter, Indiana good Samaritan, and raid of the ants

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The police force in Uvalde Texas failed to confront the shooter in time, leaving the kids and the teachers in the elementary school to the cruelty of the shooter. A civilian in the Indiana shopping mall killed the shooter before the police did, and was referred to as “Good Samaritan” as a result. This ironic contrast reminds me of my experience when I was working for my former employer, a public research university in California. One day, when I entered the office, I found lots of ants on the carpet and some climbing onto my desk, one after another. I initially suspected that some magical electromagnetic field in the office attracted them. This entire team of ants came through the office door. I traced the origin and found out they were from outside the side door of the building. Unable to get rid of them by myself, I reported this to the admin office. They immediately notified the university, and several hours later, a special task force arrived at our building. They sprayed some liquid outside the building, hoping to disrupt the ants. The next day, the ants were still here and even more rampant. I only had one coworker in the office, Dr. Shapiro. Seeing me fretting about the ants, he told the boss Mr. Osman calmly, “Slim has a very strong reaction to ants.” I didn’t respond, because I knew clearly that his indifference was based on the fact that the ants weren’t on his desk. I reported to the admin office again, and the special task force appeared again. They sprayed even more liquid this time, here and there. I truly hoped it could work. That was a Friday. The next Monday, when I arrived at the office, I saw the ants had migrated onto Dr. Shapiro’s desk. He had left his unfinished coffee on the desk and therefore the ants were attracted by the chemicals. I took a picture of his cup and emailed it to him as well as Mr. Osman, saying, “Everybody be careful! Don’t leave any liquid in your office overnight. We are raided by the ants!” Dr. Shapiro arrived and saw what was happening on his desk. “Oh my god. How can I work with all these ants here? The spray didn’t work?” I shrugged with no facial expression. Obviously, I couldn’t rely on the institution anymore. I texted my landlord and asked him what I should do about the ants, since he knew how to take care of everything in his house. He played the uncle image for me during my stay in his house, to some extent, and I could tell he was far more capable than my Y chromosome provider. Minutes later, the landlord texted me back and told me to buy a special drug (liquid form) from ACE. I bought it during the lunch break. There were 2 small cups in a box, so I placed one cup inside our office and the other cup in the corridor to the building’s side door. The next morning, we saw corpses of ants lying on the carpet, from the building’s side door all the way up to Dr. Shapiro’s desk. (Mr. Osman, a self-proclaimed environmentalist, shouldn’t be very excited about this scene…) This box of drug cost me 6 bucks plus tax. Problem solved for good. I brought the receipt to the admin office. Of course, I got reimbursed almost immediately. It was just 6 bucks plus tax. The department manager was there too, and she saw everything. I was treated with respect by her until the day I left that painful job under Mr. Osman. When you work for an institution, you get institutionalized. I once said this jokingly, and people laughed very hard. Where and when did I learn that word? From The Shawshank Redemption, in my sophomore year in college. The lecturer teaching the Creative Writing course required us to watch this movie. If you have any thoughts, please comment on the webpage directly, as I can be very slow in reading emails. If you like this article, please share and subscribe to the newsletter ON THIS WEBSITE.