Miriam Parkinson

Negative for anything strange.

Kidneys fine. Liver fine. Folate good. Vit b12 levels are extremely good at 909 (anything above 180 is fine) so its definitely not that.

Now I get to go to a neurologist. Fun fun…

US Congress launches probe into virtual economies

Booming virtual economies in online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft have drawn the attention of a U.S. congressional committee, which is investigating how virtual assets and incomes should be taxed.

I know that there is some serious money floating around such virtual communities but this is a little silly. Its still essentially just a game. If they must tax it I would have thought the only sensible way to do it would be to tax you at the point where it becomes real money. Surely it isn’t viable or sensible to try to tax you on the theoretical value of virtual assets.

Well each to their own I guess. Let the accountants have their fun.

Currently it’s uni and the ever present mountain of assessments it brings but from mid-November until early march I’m on holidays. This is all very well but over three months of sitting on your arse isn’t really that fun and I’m unlikely to be able to get a Christmas casual job because I’m going to be off to Sydney in early January for my friend’s wedding and they tend to frown on that sort of thing.

So what on earth shall I do. Any causes I should dedicate myself to?

I have a couple of to-do-eventually’s

• Learn German
• Get back into french and finish Harry Potter et la coupe de feu (spelling may be off)
• sew some pretty summer doodads
• improve my skills in guitar
• Sketch copies of fashion spreads from my magazines (I have no visualization ability so I can’t draw unless I have something to copy. Other than that I’m actually not bad at art)

But in case you hadn’t noticed all of these are rather indoors pursuits and I have a feeling I’d be best off choosing one or two of these and finding something rather more productive to do with the rest of my time.

Any suggestions?

note to Colin: yes I know there is lots of housework I can do but I can hardly spend an entire three months just cleaning. The house simply isn’t that big :-p

I got a blood test on Wednesday and I have a five cm bruise along the vein.

Its currently green.

Eww!

I just completed my first weekly review.

I’ve been pretty successful so far with using pen and paper so what I did for the review is go through everything I had collected this week and either decided to put it down as an action for this week or deferred it to another week by copying it across to a new page of my notebook.
I also went over my projects and added any new actions necessary to those and marked off the completed actions.

I know that my list of actions has a lot of holes in it though but I’m starting to pick them up as I go along. Using the notebook means that I can write them down immediately when I think of them rather than depending on my mind because its absolutely useless for holding that sort of information.

I also intend to implement a tickler file and have a proper inbox etc soon but I am in the process of moving house so there isn’t much point in doing that until I know exactly what my desk will be like there.

When it comes to depression I pretty much wrote the book on it. I was first diagnosed with depression when I was five and in that time I’ve gone through a range of flavours from low level unhappiness with the world to full blown suicidal self-destructive mayhem and everything in between.

According to depression.com the first step to dealing with depression is understanding and I would definitely agree with that. It is much easier to cope with when you recognise your symptoms for what they are.

• constant feelings of sadness, irritability, or tension
• decreased interest or pleasure in usual activities or hobbies
• loss of energy, feeling tired despite lack of activity
• a change in appetite, with significant weight loss or weight gain
• a change in sleeping patterns, such as difficulty sleeping, early morning awakening, or sleeping too much
• restlessness or feeling slowed down
• decreased ability to make decisions or concentrate
• feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, or guilt
• thoughts of suicide or death

(www.depression.com)

If several of these symptoms are experienced over a period of 2 weeks or more then depression is usually diagnosed.

Another related mood disorder is Dysthymia. The primary symptom of dysthymia is a feeling of mild depression over a period of two years or more.

There are many available treatments for depression ranging from various forms of therapy to medication.
From my experience, therapy can work without medication but medication rarely works long term without therapy. Antidepressants are sort of like painkillers. They mask the symptoms but they won’t fix the underlying cause and unfortunately they stop working over time. Your best bet, particularly if you suffer severe depression is therapy.

That said, whilst I have had therapy on and off over my life, it’s not really the answer for me. At a certain stage you come to terms with the fact that you’re going to have down periods and you learn to cope with them.

So here are my solutions.

• Exercise – the endorphins do wonders and going for a good long cardio session really helps you clear your head.
• Learn to recognise depressive thought patterns and climb out of the hole before you’re in too deep. If you find yourself being pessimistic about life try to shake it off. Do something you really enjoy and remove yourself from whatever is stressing you out. This is one major skill that therapy can teach you.
• Keep a journal if you are so inclined. Personally I’m not. I’m just not a fan of journals but if you’re feeling overwhelmed with life then try to express your emotions through creativity. Write poetry, paint, anything. It can really help if you create and see a physical manifestation of your emotions.
• Play loud music… Well it helps me anyways…
• Talk to someone you trust about it. Talking about your fears and anxieties helps to put them into perspective. That’s basically what therapy is about and whilst therapists are highly skilled in pointing you in the right direction it doesn’t take a therapist to listen.
• Indulge yourself in a little escapism. Trashy novels and video games have their place.
• Do something childish. Even better, if you have young relatives hang out with them. It’s almost impossible to stay miserable when you’re chasing them around with a bucket on your head.

Obviously there are plenty of other things that can help but this is what helps me.

Finally a disclaimer: I’m not a shrink I’m just a garden variety sufferer of depression with some helpful handy hints. If you think you have depression please see your doctor blah blah blah etc etc

I broke my left big toenail in half on my right heal…

Stupid uncoordinated…

It really hurt! And its all bloody… Eww!

After Cam’s success with a Moleskine I’m going to have a go at doing all my capturing, projects and actions in a notebook and then using my T5 for calender, dated to-dos and digital reference material such as contact details and lecture notes.
I’m not yet ready to go out and specifically buy anything particularly pretty for the purpose because I’m not sure whether it will work yet so I’m using an A5 Spirax notebook I bought a while ago and never got around to using.

I have a tab 2/3 of the way though for the projects section of the notebook where I will have 1 or 2 pages per project where I can note down major milestones and next actions and the back couple of pages is for my someday/maybe list. The front section is simply for capture and I’ll put the weeks next actions on a large postit note inside the front cover.

The only thing I’m worried about is that I’ll get hopelessly behind on the whole process bit and won’t keep up to date on the weekly reviews. Productivity Buddy anyone??? Keeping in mind though that I’m shy (yes I know that everyone who met me at the TPN dinner will laugh at this because they have conveniently forgotten about the shy mousy girl at the beginning of the evening) so any correspondence will have to start with email until I’m confident enough to try skype.

1. Stress. Sometimes when I get really stressed out I try to pretend the problem doesn’t exist.
2. Inadequate preparation. Large tasks need to be broken down into smaller ones. If you don’t have all the information necessary to do something it won’t get done.
3. Depression. Kinda obvious really. All that don’t care vibe doesn’t exactly help with productivity.
4. ADD. Major problem for me. I think maybe the easiest solution is to get back on my meds and declutter my environment. Removing distractions always helps. For anyone who suspects they might have ADD try having 100mg (about a cup of coffee) of caffeine. Its roughly equivalent to 5mg (standard dose) of Ritalin so if this helps you stop procrastinating then ADD might be worth investigating.

I think some of the easier solutions would be to get some exercise or meditate. Discussing options with someone else can help you make decisions and get started on projects. Keep a log of what you actually spend your time doing and what you achieve – keeps you honest and can be good to refer back to. Work out what motivates you – everyone has something – and refer to it when you feel yourself falling behind. If you are one of those people who derive satisfaction from crossing things off lists then feel free to make those lists. Perhaps have a notebook with a couple of pages per project (depending on the size) and keep an updated list of every action associated with it.

Finally if you are just totally not in the mood to do anything. Try not to feel too guilty about it. There’s no point in doing nothing if you won’t enjoy it. Just don’t make a habit of it

Errrm. Nuff Said