Among the many things that can quickly ruin a restaurant experience, one might be sitting down at the table and discovering an amorphous, unidentified, ominously beige blob stuck to the tine of a fork. As a
part-time dishwasher for a pizza and pasta restaurant, it was my job to be obsessed with blobs on forks. I took dirty dishes from the busboy, rinsed and gave them a cursory scrub, and arranged them in the giant industrial dishwasher. Nothing gave me more of a sense of accomplishment than seeing the dishes come out piping hot and pristine since, coincidentally, I was already obsessed with order and cleanliness in every other aspect of my life.

My long battle against contaminants and disorder can be traced back to the cautionary steps I take in my daily life to protect against the flare-ups of my eczema, a chronic condition I've dealt with since birth that has both health and social ramifications. Greasy fingers will cause little angry red patches to bloom accompanied with an extreme shyness amongst strangers and even the avoidance of my friends. The chlorine of a swimming pool will dry out my skin and cause outbreaks all over my body, which I combat with extraordinary amounts of emollient lotion. During the summer, I wear long-sleeves to limit my exposure to the micro-dust that pollutes the Seoul air. And, to further complicate matters, I have over 40-something genuine allergies, from the fatal peach to itchy-throat cat fur. It's no surprise then that the ideas of order and contamination are always on my mind. My desk at home is free of dust. I reflexively hold my breath in hospitals and on airplanes. My fight against irritants and allergens translates to a habit of orderliness, from literal orderliness to abstract orderliness. Not only in how I categorize lotions to deal with different kinds of irritants and rank each allergen with contingency plans, but also in things like self-designed, color-coded shelves in my school locker and an organized contacts folder for my co-workers at the restaurant. What started as health precautions became a way of life, surroundings characterized
by order.

I've even organized my approach to work. To dispel the occasional boredom of washing dishes, for example, I came up with a plan, typologizing plates; relatively clean, heavily sauced, crusted sauce, and inventing approaches; simple rinse, wipe- down, the clockwise tornado scrub. These somewhat off-beat mental adjustments actually helped me to stay engaged in my work. Of course, being obsessed with order and cleanliness doesn't mean that I will be free of contaminants. I can't live in a glass bubble. I love swimming enough to suffer through the occasional bad eczema flare-up. And, I enjoy my work in the possibly risky world of the food industry. There's no way to overcome my eczema nor cure my allergies, only methods of adaptation, and these so-called limitations have defined me both physically and mentally. But I'm not sour. Instead, I cherish my happiness. I strive for orderliness, but I know it's just as impossible to live a life free of contaminants as it is to live a life without surprises. And while there are definitely things in the world I must avoid, surprises can be especially wonderful because of the
restrictions in my life.

Sometimes, for example, the accidental overexposed photo is more beautiful than the original composition I had in mind. Sometimes, while learning about my food allergies, I encounter some new tasty dish I've never heard of. Similarly, I was surprised by this memoir. At first, what was supposed to be a meticulously planned memoir concerning my work habits has evolved into a more personal examination of the relationship between my medical conditions and orderliness.