Jam

5 PM: Debit Card Fraud Update

A short update to say that I finally got the refund for the fraudulent transactions on my debit card. It took just over a month and a couple of forms-to-fill-in, but I finally got the £200 back.

7 PM: Debit Card Fraud

I got my monthly bank statement yesterday. Someone has been using my debit card details to top-up their mobile phone. To start there's an actual top-up that I made for £15. I had some trouble with my home phone line for a few days and needed to make some calls on my mobile. My credit was running low so I got a top-up. Next up is a larger debit to the same mobile phone company. I don't make many voice calls so there's obviously something wrong here. I check my mobile. It's got £14.80 credit. Further down the statement are some more debits to the same mobile phone company, and some others to another mobile phone company. In total a lot of money for me to lose from my account.

I can't work out how they got my card details. I'm guessing that I've used my card to pay for something over the phone and the person on the other end was the fraudster. So, apart from getting the debit card cancelled, I'm not sure what else to do.

6 PM: A New Year

It's been a couple of years since I came off Fluoxetine Hydrochloride. Since then I think it would be fair to say that, on the most part, I've been moderately depressed. However, I have looked at my life more clearly, even though this wasn't a pleasant thing to do. Without Fluoxetine, it's been harder not to think about my life, especially in the middle of the night. So I've tried to change my life for the better. I've tried to get CBT for my depression too but waited over a year for this, so will talk about this later.

The first thing I did was get my debt under control. I no longer make the interest payments on my credit card and instead only make a token payment. This means I have more money to live on and my credit card debt is getting smaller in real terms, but nominally stays about the same.

Over the last year or so I've been receiving speech therapy for my stutter. My covert stutter, I should probably say, because at some point in my past, possibly while in school, probably before that, I decided to hide it as much as possible. So I tend to avoid situations where I would stutter. I can now see what I have to do. It's not to avoid stuttering; it's to not care if and when I do stutter.

I've returned to the things I've done in the past. Initially it was learning Japanese, which I think I did for a few reasons: It was something that addressed speech, but didn't involve me having to directly deal with my stutter, it took my mind off my PhD work, it was interesting, and the teachers, and other students were nice people. Lately, I've returned to physics because I've always been interested in how the universe works. Currently I'm slowly studying the mathematics of physics. Eventually I hope to cover the two main theories of modern physics.

Lastly, I've been receiving psychological counselling for my depression. The most effective forms of treatment are, according to the sources I've used, are drugs and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. The CBT I've received has mostly come from a self-help book recommended by the psychologist. This mostly involves thinking about something I don't want to think about and attempting to form an unbiased view on it. It's helped, but not as much as I'd like. The psychologist also recommended I see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist came to the conclusion that I was moderately depressed, and wrote out a prescription for Escitalopram (another SSRI like the Fluoxetine). I thought it best not to start taking these just before Christmas, so instead, I started today.

4 PM: Goodbye G-Blog, Hello L-Journal
Well, I've set up an account. Fiddled with the theme. Added the OV icon. And tried to work out how to add people to the friends list.

7 PM: Sorting out my Life
Well as I can no longer ignore my life, now that I'm no longer on fluoxetine hydrochloride, I've been trying very hard to sort it out. Having direction in my life would be nice but eludes me at the moment. The best I've come up with is to make all the bits more normal even if it doesn't make much sense. So I've been sticking to regular sleeping hours and getting up each morning at the same time. My diet is something I'm still working on, although I'm slowly making changes for the better. I have cut out caffeine and all the bad sugary foods. I still need to be eating more vegetables though and also varying what I eat. I also need to sort out my general health and fitness. I've been able to see a GP about various things despite my surgery's shitty appointment system. I've also been to see a therapist about something I have trouble talking about. No, it's not something involving sex or gophers before you ask. Finally, as it affects all the other components, I need to sort out my money.

7 AM: Caffeine
I've given up caffeine. So no coffee, tea, cola or chocolate! It's only a mild drug but I was expecting the headache I normally get when I've run out of coffee or tea. Instead I didn't have any headaches and I'm sure I'm not taking caffeine from another source: I've not taken any headache pills for one thing. I had been thinking about removing caffeine from my diet for a while, so maybe I've been subconsciously cutting down before I actually decided to quit. Over the Easter holidays I had no craving for chocolate, even in egg form. No cravings for tea or coffee either. My mugs of Earl Grey have been replaced by fruit juice and water. Has anyone else had any experience of giving up caffeine?

10 AM: Learning Japanese

A long time ago, before I was on fluoxetine hydrochloride for many years, I was failing to do a PhD in High Energy Physics at Edinburgh University while very depressed. I remember sleeping a lot, not doing much physics, and having various interesting times starting with, being on, and coming off various anti-depressants. Anyway, it was against this background that I was able to do something that took my mind off the extreme stress of slowly fucking up my PhD and my life: By doing a Beginner's and Post-Beginner's course in Japanese at the Institute for Applied Language Studies. During which I didn't feel depressed and therefore passes for "really enjoyed" at the time.

Ten years later and I've come off the Prozac. My thoughts have again returned to suicide, but I'm trying to learn Japanese again. This time starting with written Japanese. The Hiragana I've already done and I'm now on the Katakana, which I'm finding harder; I didn't attempt learning the Katakana while I was at Edinburgh. The Hiragana and Katakana have fifty or so symbols each. The rest of written Japanese (excluding romaji) is Chinese characters called Kanji. There are about two thousand "daily use" Kanji, but some existing strategies for learning these. I'm thinking about one where you learn the meaning of the kanji in your native language first. So 日本語 would simply be "Japanese language". I don't know if I'll ever succeed with this task though.

3 AM: Fridge Defrosted!
It's finished defrosting! Only took a couple of days. The freezer compartment door has been reattached and all ice removed. The ice in the freezer bit came out in one big lump and although one side was fairly solid ice and fairly clear the other was white and had lots of lovely soft crystalline bits. Some of which were impressively hexagonal and large. Most beautiful thing I've seen for a while.

9 AM: Defrosting my Fridge

I should probably defrost my fridge every 6 months or every year or whatever it said in the manual. I didn't. In fact since buying my first and only fridge a few years ago I've defrosted it zero times. Oh well. As I can't shut the door on the fridge any more I'm now forced to defrost it. Bugger. I've found a webpage about how to defrost a fridge. Let's see how far I get.

Step one: Turn off the control or unplug the refrigerator. Remove the frozen food to an insulated cooler or deep freeze.

I'm way ahead of the website here as I've already unplugged the fridge. There was no frozen food so I didn't do that bit.

Step two: Set a pot with about two quarts or liters of boiling water inside the freezer compartment. Close the doors.

Slight problem here: Firstly, the freezer compartment is full of ice so no room for a pot containing boiling water. It's actually more than full of ice and some time ago had consequently prevented the door to the freezer compartment closing. So I removed the door to the freezer compartment. Problem solved. So no closing the door to the freezer compartment. The ice has extended to the fridge door proper too which is why that no longer closes either. So no closing of any doors.

Step three: Wait about 1/2 hour. If frost is still present on the sides of the freezer compartment repeat step two. Remove the pot of water and any pieces of frost left inside the freezer. Empty the removable tray under the freezer box.

1/2 hour might be very optimistic considering I wasn't able to do step 2. My fridge has been defrosting for the past few hours and the door now shuts. I can't see if frost is still present on the sides of the freezer compartment because of all the ice in the way. I suspect there is. There appears to be one piece of "frost" inside that is the exact size and shape of the freezer compartment. Removing this piece of frost isn't an option at the moment. I don't have a removable tray at the moment either, just an unmovable one. I'm sure it'll be removable in the future though. Once the ice has melted.

Hint: Hand held hair dryers work very well on large pieces of frost that are hard to remove.

Can't see it myself. Plus I haven't got a hair dryer so that's out.

Step four: Dry off the freezer box surfaces with an absorbent cloth. Replace frozen food and turn the control back on or plug in the refrigerator.

Probably no sooner than tomorrow. Or the day after.