Jam's Blog

Debit Card Fraud Update

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:44:35 GMT

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.

Debit Card Fraud

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 19:03:12 GMT

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.

A New Year

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:27:28 GMT

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.

Goodbye G-Blog, Hello L-Journal

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 16:20:50 GMT

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.