After some (time wasting) research I’ve identified some things which may help my concentration

1. Fish Oil – Apparently omega-3 can help with ADD
2. Ginko – This is notorious for its concentration-boosting properties
3. Caffeine – Now this is the slightly worrying bit… I just drank instant coffee so concentrated that it could rouse a tranquilised elephant.
4. Berroca – I remember someone saying that Vit B was good too… or more, lack of vit B was bad.

Apparently 100mg of caffeine is equivalent to 5mg ritalin which; coincidence of all coincidences; is the dosage of ritalin I normally take.
Instant coffee is reported to have 60-100mg of caffeine so I have somewhere between 120 and 200 mg in my system…

Lets hope this works…

Now before you start thinking I’m some typical drug addled youth I do legitimately have ADD and I have been prescribed Ritalin. I went off it 6 months ago for the simple reason that I ran out and its a really big pain in the butt to get some more.

The reason that I ran out is that whilst I was preserved an amount of ritalin that would keep me going every week-day of the year this was exactly the problem. The ‘two month supply’ that was the first two boxes of Ritalin I brought home from the chemist actually lasted me 6 months and by the time I got around to getting a new box the repeat prescription had expired (for controlled substances they chuck them out after 6months)

But 6 months into my ‘lets see if I actually need the stuff’ experiment I have realised that I kinda do. And lets face it – ritalin is way cheaper than caffeine now that its been put on the PBS scheme and its way more effective.

So now I’m sitting trying to study, caffeine racing through my system trying to speed up those little frontal lobe signals so that I regain some executive control (don’t laugh that’s the neurobiology/psychological term) and its not fucking working properly. Any stimulant strictly speaking can help someone with ADD the only problem is caffeine has very uneven results sometimes resulting in a racing pulse, the shakes and a mind that gets stuck in infinite loops.

I have four little Ritalin tablets sitting downstairs and four exams – so these are already assigned. Now all I can do is try my best to concentrate and get onto getting me some more of those little tablets of concentration for next semester.

Last night my computer turned itself on – twice! I was totally tripping out because I’m scared of the dark as it is and something in the dark was making my computer turn itself on. I had to turn on every light in the house before I went over and unplugged it.

The first time it turned itself on was 2-3 min after I turned it off but the second time was a good 15min later.

So weird.

Anyone have any rational explanations before I decide that my computer is possessed.

I’ve always had something against anything related to ipods. Whilst I stand by my opinion of ipods I was totally wrong about itunes. My sister loaded it onto my computer a while ago and it took me ages to get rid of it (which I did without even looking at its features) but today I had to download it in order to get a piece of music which I just had to have and I must say I’m very impressed.

I love the ‘smart’ playlists, as they save me a lot of time. I also like the fact that the songs don’t actually have to be in the itunes folder but can be scattered around my computer (which is their current state)

I’m also rather pleased with the itunes music store in terms of convenience (I just popped across the road to a shell station and got a music card) and ease of use.
On the negative side the music is rather a lot more than I think it should be so I’ll stick to using it only when I cannot find the music elsewhere.