Medication

Over the last four months or so, I have been on a variety of medications prescribed by my neurologist. He suspects that my dizzy spells are migraines, and the medications he has given me are traditionally prescribed as prophylaxis.

I have tried propranolol, Sandomigran, Ispotin, Topamax and now am trying Epilim.

Propranolol helped significantly, but did not entirely rid me off dizziness. As I increased the dose and continued taking it, it helped less. It also lowered my blood pressure so that I was experiencing light-headedness as well.

Sandomigran, a form of anti-histamine, did not help and made me fairly drowsy. I tolerated it for a short time, but it did not help enough to continue taking it.

Isoptin, another anti-hypertensive, again lowered my blood pressure, but helped a small amount.

Topamax was the first of the anti-epileptics that I tried, and I hoped that it may have a stronger effect. The side effects worried me (they are listed as drowsiness, nausea, inability to find words and tingling of lips and fingers), but I started taking them just before Christmas.

Within a few days, I experienced severe nausea, to the point of vomitting. I also had problems waking up in the morning, particularly at the weekend when I knew I didn’t have to get up! I was sleeping for 10 or more hours (unheard of for me) and then eating very little food. I just felt lucky that I wasn’t experiencing the others! It didn’t help the dizziness a huge amount, so I wasn’t concerned about finishing it sooner rather than later.

The pharmacist had told me that the side effects might settle down after a few weeks, so I persevered. Unfortunately it didn’t improve, and my neurologist was then on leave. I contacted two pharmacists and asked their advice about ceasing the medication (I was only on the lowest dose, but felt it best to check), and then asked a registrar at work. They all agreed that although it was of little risk to stop immediately, they advised cutting down to half a tablet per day before ceasing entirely. Even with just half a tablet per day, I felt much better. Since finishing it, although I’m dizzy again, I can get up in the morning as I used to.

Just last week, the neurologist prescribed Epilim, another anti-epileptic, in the hope that the side effects might not be as severe.

I’ve been taking it for just three days, but have no noticed no effects – positive or negative. I’ll just keep my fingers crossed that it may help.

Considering I have had some positive effect from most of these tablets, the neurologist is still quite sure that I am suffering from migraines. I’m a little unsure, but am hopeful that one of the medications will eventually help me without ill-effects. The ear-aches continue.

Two interesting stories…

As someone who visits The Age website often to get local news, I have read many stories about our new Transport Minister and the ever-troubled Myki system. However, just recently, two stories have stuck out as being rather contradictory.

The first announced that Myki may or may not be working on trams and trains by the end of the year. (Our Transport Minister is also off to a great start by discovering that commuters want a punctual and reliable transport network. Simply groundbreaking news! It’s no wonder Kosky failed if she was missing that information.)

Now, keeping in mind that sometime in the next twelve months, we might see Myki on trams and buses. The second story (scroll down a bit for the Myki stuff) announces that over $200,000 has been spent lowering the Myki validators for wheelchair users on the ‘bumblebee’ trams. The trams that we only have for another twelve months before they are sent back to France. By which time, Myki may not even be working on trams. Does anyone else see a problem with this?

It makes me wonder whether a logistics expert should be employed by the Brumby government, to make basic connections between contradicting statements, just days apart. But of course, that would be too sensible.

I’m definitely not someone who follows politics. I have problems remembering names, faces and titles, and to be quite honest, I’d probably just complain too much if I did. However, from what I have since found out about Martin Pakula, I’d say we all have our work cut out for ourselves. He didn’t take public transport until he got the job, he’s been in parliament for a relatively short time with little experience, and by announcing the brand new information such as, “What they want is reliability and punctuality” and, “I think people want a more modern, more comfortable tram these days”, he’s hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer. Good luck to you all fellow Melburnians.

Racism

There is a growing debate over whether attacks in Melbourne have been race-orientated or if they are simply coincidental. The Indian media and a number of bloggers are adament that they are racist and that Indians should ‘get their own back’ on the Aussies (any Aussies, anywhere) by way of revenge. Australian police are playing it down and trying to claim that none of the attacks are racist and all students are safe here. Quite honestly, neither are right and both are exaggerating.

As this Age editorial points out, there are many more murders in India than Australia, and yet there is no outrage at that. There is outrage at a tiny proportion of the murders that happen here, which may or may not coincidentally be Indians, which is also only a tiny proportion of the number of murders that happen in India (even when taking into account the population difference).

I’ll leave you to form your own opinions of his article, as it’s an interesting read, but there is one point which I came away with: Australia is perceived as a safe country. There is a low murder and crime rate, comparatively, and health risks are low. Indian students may have little information about culture here other than knowing or being told it is a safe country. If you go to a dangerous country, you would be on your toes everywhere; the opposite seems to have happened here. In India, these student probably use common sense and would stick to well-lit paths, keep valuables out of sight and not draw attention to themselves in ‘high risk areas’; however, now that they believe they are in a safe country, their guard has dropped. Of course, this is not true of all students and I’m sure they’re not all that naïve, but it may be true in a couple of cases.

Just this morning I saw an interesting story on The Age website entitled “Swift jail term for taxi death threat”. With interest, I read on. The first paragraph reads, “A 48-YEAR-OLD man has been jailed for racially abusing and threatening to kill an Indian taxi driver in Ballarat early yesterday”. My first thought was that it may help to mend bridges with India and that justice has been served.

Wrong. It turns out that he has been charged with two counts of unlawful assault, one count of making a threat to kill and one count of intentionally damaging property. Obviously we only have the information given to us, but from my interpretation, I gather that the man has not been jailed for racially abusing an Indian taxi driver, as the first paragraph asserts. There are two counts of unlawful assault, presumably on the unidentified man, then threatening to kill the taxi driver and damaging the vehicle. He has not had charges brought against for him for the racist remarks. This reporting is almost as bad as the Indian news telling students that Australia is a terribly dangerous country and they should avoid it at all costs.

I don’t think that all of the attacks are coincidental, but nor do I think they are all racist. Attacks on taxi drivers could be because people know they will have cash; students on trams and trains will have laptops and phones; a lone person walking through an empty park or dark lane alone at night is an easy target. In many of these situations, it could be an opportunist who attacks and they don’t acknowledge the colour of skin. Of course, as eye witness accounts have been reported, some of these attacks have involved racist remarks or a particular person being targeted. It’s a sad fact, but there is racism everywhere – even in India. They seem to be playing that one down though.

Movies

Last year I had the sort-of-resolution to make more of an effort to watch more movies. I feel that, to some extent, I have succeeded in this. I watched more that I would have if I hadn’t consciously tried to and when I did, I was more attentive to the names of writers, directors and actors. That doesn’t mean that I can remember many now though!

I watched the first (or last) part of the Star Wars trilogy; let’s call it the older part. Some parts were familiar and I know that I’ve seen them before but had little recollection of the story, characters or special effects. After that, I felt that I could go the exhibition at Scienceworks and not feel entirely lost amongst the displays.

I spent many an evening at ACMI, sitting through their Freaky Friday features. They have a great collection of movies, ranging of plain silly (Flesh Gordon) to quite odd (El Topo), and ending with the downright scary (pre-screening of Paranormal Activity as part of Hello Darkness festival). I hope that they continue showing movies throughout next year, as I am exposed to many movies I wouldn’t normally come across. It also gives me an excuse to stop off at Beer Deluxe on the way in or out!

As part of the Melbourne International Film Festival, I saw a Norwegian film called Dead Snow, a delightful Nazi zombie horror. Hopefully I’ll be able to see more movies at that this year, and perhaps at the following ‘MUFF’ (Melbourne Underground Film Festival).

One of the last good movies of the year, that I can remember, was Old Boy. I’ve been a fan of twisted Korean and Japanese movies for a few years now, but only seen a few. This has been recommended time and time again, and I finally saw it. It was fantastic, beautiful and wrong, all at the same time. A couple of friends of mine saw ‘Thirst’ at MIFF last year and came out saying that although it was good, I hadn’t missed out and was missing out by not seeing Old Boy more!

Already this year I have had more movie education. I watched ‘Bad Taste’, Peter Jackson’s first, and was impressed by the terrible accents, beautiful effects and budget-blowing explosion (singular). Loved it. Next was a proper introduction, of sorts, to anime. I’ve seen Spirited Away, and bits of different TV series, but never paid too much attention, and I’m sure if any real anime fans read this then they would shout and scream at me that that isn’t real anime. However, I have been assured that what I watched can be considered ‘real’ – Wicked City. It was dark, adult and very Japanese. I liked it, and could potentially have a new genre to be obsessed with.

As for 2010, I don’t think I’ll make an effort to try anything or do anything. I did quite enjoy writing the list of books and keeping track of what I have read, although I believe there are other websites available for that so I’ll have to find one. I could start one for movies, but then I’d become obsessed with lists and would have to make a resolution next year not to make lists!

2010

Well the new year here in Melbourne certainly went off with a bang, with thunder and lightning all through the evening and past midnight. A very impressive show.

I’ll just skip back though, as I had some time off work this year, which was quite pleasant. Although I did have to answer a few phone calls and emails during the three days, it wasn’t as bad as I had initially thought, and nothing that couldn’t be solved!

The main reason I was taking time off was that a friend of Jes’ was getting married on 27th December and although it was an evening wedding, I didn’t like to rush getting ready (or recovering!)

It was a beautiful civil ceremony at The Deck at the Prince Hotel in St Kilda. A fairly casual affair, but everyone made an effort, ourselves included. Jes had been asked to take the photos and he obligingly accepted, but then asked me to help out. I was only too happy to help, but mostly just took some casual and back-up shots on my Olympus OM-1N with Ilford HP5 Plus. Most of them were bit hit and miss (as film can be with larger groups – someone always blinks!), but I did manage to get a few keepers.

The next day I spent developing the rolls of film from that wedding, as well as some other outings from previous days. The temperature was warming up though, so after the tap water was too warm, I gave up on that and just tried to keep myself cool in my rapidly heating house!

New Year’s eve dawned hot and sweaty, but a fairly nice day besides. Jes’ friend, Jes and I were going out to shoot the family fireworks at Docklands that evening, hopefully before the storm came in. We had a few cool beers and something to eat then our friend arrived (with two young kids in tow) and we headed down to Docklands while a shelf cloud came in and the wind picked up.

The cool change came through on the way down there, but the storm arrived about an earlier than originally predicted – before the family fireworks. After dithering around a bit about whether I should get my camera out and try and shoot or protect the camera and just watch them, I did get the camera out as soon as they started and shot off about fifty frames or so. Of these, only ten or less are keepers, but it was still worth it. Unfortunately none of us managed to get shots of the frequent lightning down there.

None of our cameras are any the worse for wear with the water, and we spent midnight watching the fireworks from Jes’ balcony. We could see 120 Collins and the reflections of Docklands, all without getting wet (well, any wetter!)

Since the new year, I haven’t been doing too much. I made the snap decision yesterday of getting to buy some things for my approaching trip to Laos and Bangkok. I booked my tickets just before Christmas, seeing a good price. I’m flying out in March for nearly three weeks. Next I’ll start to book flights for Laos from Bangkok, and the accommodation in Bangkok, so I’m not stuck when I arrive!

I picked up a money belt, day pack and sleeping bag, all in a decent sale. The day pack and sleeping bag are both from Pinnacle Outdoors, where I bought my larger bagpack in March last year. The service has been fantastic both times, and this time the prices couldn’t be beaten either! I’ll be heading out again in my lunch break this week to see about a mosquito net and whatever else I have forgotten! I’m hoping to get most of it in the sales, being a tight-arse. There are some good bargains to be had, and thankfully I didn’t hit too many crowds.

Last night I had tickets to see Biffy Clyro at the Hi-Fi Bar, but coincidentally after walking past the venue and not seeing the show listed, I looked it up on the Hi-Fi Bar website and saw that it’s been postponed. Despite being frustrated about it being postponed, I’m frustrated that I didn’t find out until yesterday! I’ve written an email to the Hi-Fi Bar asking why they didn’t at least have a notice up on their door yesterday – if I hadn’t been able to check the website then I would have been standing there at 8pm waiting. Hopefully I can get the refund, but I’m still quite disappointed – I’ve been looking forward to it for months!

Books

Below is a list, in order, of the books I finished reading this year. A proportion read of these were re-reads as opposed to last year, when I made an effort to read new books. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the majority of this list.

1. Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa – Alex Kershaw
2. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
3. The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures – Louis Theroux
4. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
5. Slumdog Millionaire – Vikas Swarup
6. The Burn-out Town Of Miracles – Roy Jacobsen
7. 1984 – George Orwell
8. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
9. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac – Gabrielle Zevin
10. The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova
11. War Trash – Ha Jin
12. Siberia – Ann Halam
13. East of Eden – John Steinbeck
14. Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Me – Pattie Boyd/Pennie Junor
15. A Cork on the Waves – Halina Robinson
16. Dead Until Dark – Charlaine Harris
17. Living Dead In Dallas – Charlaine Harris
18. The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga
19. The Foreshadowing – Marcus Sedgwick
20. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
21. One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest – Ken Kasey
22. Past Imperfect – Julian Fellowes
23. Eats, Shoots and Leaves – Lynne Truss
24. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling
25. Chronicles Vol 1 – Bob Dylan
26. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – JK Rowling
27. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – CS Lewis
28. Alice’s Adventures Through The Looking Glass – CS Lewis
29. The Crow Road – Iain Banks
30. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
31. One For The Money – Janet Evanovich
32. Sly – Rick Feneley
33. Rough Guide to Laos
34. The Autograph Man – Zadie Smith
35. Hannibal – Thomas Harris
36. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami
37. Going West – Maurice Gee

Myki

Years late and billions over budget, the Myki ticketing system was finally – sort of – launched yesterday. People in Melbourne can either travel out to other towns that have it already (Geelong, Bendigo etc), or can now register for a card online. Bear in mind, you won’t receive it for seven days though. Also, when you receive it, the top-up machine at your local train station might already be vandalised beyond use.

I only recently found out that they have decided to only have a changeover period of approximately six months before discontinuing the Metcard. I can understand that the contract relating to the Metcard is already well overdue thanks to the latecoming Myki system, but I’m shocked at how quickly they are planning this transition, especially considering the Myki system is nowhere near fully functioning yet!

The Myki cards can be used on trains (if they’ll work), but not on trams and buses. For me, this means I’ll still have to carry around a few different tickets. In the mean time, I will keep purchasing the monthly Metcards, as at least they work, to an extent.

I lived near London and although never had one, was introduced to and familiar with the Oyster card system. It’s a similar ‘touch on touch off’ card which can be topped up with credit. However, years later, you can still purchase the traditional Metcard equivelant – which is plain common sense. Granted, not something we usually associate with the Poms, but it makes things much easier for people who might not travel there often and could lose the Oyster card or the older population who are uncomfortable with the technology.

It seems odd to me that London, with their huge transport system managed to bring this out. No doubt there were teething problems, as well as delays and budget problems – it’s still organised by politicians so it goes without saying – but if such a huge city managed to do it, why is Melbourne having such a problem?

I’m sure there are answers relating to arrogance and ignorance of politicians here, but the mind still boggles. When they said that Myki would be launched by the end of the year, I don’t think that anyone believed them, but there was no need to try and prove us wrong by launching one-third of a problematic system which most of us still can’t use immediately.

Christmas Time

Just like every year, Christmas has snuck up on us all. A few weeks ago we had our first Christmas party, which was dinner with the admin girls and the IT boys. Altogether there were eight of us, including our colleague who went on maternity leave in July. It was great to see her again, and I think she was just as glad to get away from the house!

On a Friday evening after work we went into the city to a place call Gaylord, an Indian restaurant in Chinatown. I’ve been there a few times and it’s been great, so I suggested it for our small group dinner and it was welcomed by most – and those that didn’t, didn’t say anything until it was too late! So that we could try different things, we each ordered a curry and shared, with rice, roti and garlic naan. The lamb saag, butter chicken and a prawn curry were the favourites of the evening. It was very enjoyable, mostly because it’s a relaxed atmosphere where you can be noisy and have a good time.

After dinner, my manager suggested we go to a cocktail bar she likes, called 1806. I’m not a big cocktail drinker – I enjoy a martini and a margarita sometimes, but mostly, they’re too sickly and too expensive! This place had a good atmosphere, pleasant and knowledgeable wait-staff and was quite quiet. We stayed for a few drinks (I enjoyed the martinis) before we both called it a night and headed out into the rain.

The next Christmas party was a lunch organised by the heads of the department. A larger group, of about 20 people, fit into the large and stylish Hu Tong Dumpling House in Market Lane. I hadn’t been there, but a colleague recommended it, and I was happy to try real dumplings as opposed to those as Shanghai Dumpling House! Sharing a banquet meal and some wine (for those that weren’t lab staff), we were able to try a variety of dumplings and meat dishes – including a Sichuan style chicken dish with plenty of chilli. All in all, it was an enjoyable meal, and because it was reasonably priced, I’ll probably be returning.

The last Christmas party was last night, and that was for the whole of the department. Altogether about 60 people has RSVP’d in the positive, but only about 50 went. It was held in the Fad Gallery in Corrs Lane, also in Chinatown (sense a theme here?)

As I know that just two doors down there is a delicious Sichuan restaurant, I tried to round up some people to come to dinner with me beforehand. Due to forgotten lunch parties and family illness, only one person actually came, but it was no less enjoyable. We shared the potato threads and tofu with leek (he is vegetarian, and those dishes are delicious), which filled us up nicely before we headed back to the party venue.

The Fad Gallery is an interesting place, with a variety of artwork throughout upstairs and downstairs. We had the upstairs are to ourselves (after last year where we shared a room with another group) and a bar too.

The music was supplied by ourselves, and games were played, with prizes, and then was the time to dance the night away. I headed off early, not feeling so great (the dizziness isn’t help by noise, alcohol and dark rooms), but I must say it was a good night. I managed to take a couple of hundred photos, as requested by the manager, which might be ready to go on the network on Monday. I decided to keep it simple with digital, and try out my new lens, the 28mm f/1.8. It’s fantastic, wide enough for confined spaces, without distorting. The speed was very useful in the dark bar too.

In the week coming up, we have our work Kris Kringle party, and then that’s about it until New Year. I’m looking forward to a quiet Christmas and a short break until the New Year.

Common Sense

Now that it’s summer and the government still aren’t investing enough into public transport (see, it wasn’t all Connex), I’m beginning to get used to the three-carriage trains during rush hour. For those that don’t know, it’s half the length of usual train on our system.

Today was no exception, so as we piled into the train, I was lucky enough to get a seat with it’s (slightly more) rigidly allocated personal space (as opposed to standing). As I approached my stop, Royal Park, I stood up and began to move toward the door. As I said excuse me to a larger lady in my way, she said that she would be getting off too. I accepted this, took hold of the seat in front of me and followed her off the train.

As we left the now less crowded train, there were still people standing in the doorway that were necessary to push past in order to get off. The lady I was following commented how silly they were, and I responded that there was just no common sense, they could have moved down the aisle.

She agreed with me.

As we both left Royal Park station, I veered in one direction toward the path, which runs through the golf course and keeps me (relatively) safe from stray golf balls. She however, headed straight through the golf course, onto the green where a group of young men were putting. We both headed in the same direction; I kept to the path, safe and shaded, while she continued to walk past another group of young men, this time driving a long distance. At once stage I noted that they had to wait for her to pass to avoid injury.

This behaviour of someone who just agreed that people needed more common sense.

In other news, nationwide Internet censorship is on it’s way into parliament. If I was more knowledgable of such matters and could write a controversial post disagreeing with it, I would. Instead, I’ll just to the basic facts that it will inconvenience many, cause more problems than it solves and will be all-round frustrating. Go politicians, go!

Juicy juicy green grass

Tonight I finally fulfilled my childhood wish of seeing Peter Combe in concert.

He’s been doing some shows this year aimed at people in their early 20s who grew up with his music as kids, and they’ve been very popular, with most selling out (and me missing all until now). This show, being so close to Christmas, obviously included some of Christmas hits. Although I’m usually quite negative about Christmas songs, I’ve concluded that his aren’t so bad! Or perhaps it’s the memories associated with them from when Christmas was still fun.

The setlist also included most of his hits – Juicy Juicy Green Grass, Toffee Apple and Newspaper Mamma, as well as many more. The crowd sung along loud and proud to all of them. Of course, I’m too dignified for that, so I sat at one of the conveniently placed tables at the side and tapped my foot in time. Being at the Corner Hotel, I was shocked to see that they had set up some small tables and chairs to one side – although quite impressed. Although the venue was fairly full (not quite sold out), people sitting were still left with a decent view of the stage.

The band were mostly new, apart from Phil Cunneen, who I think is the keyboardist from the video I used to watch when I was little (from the late 80s). Two of three backup singers were Combes, and one, according to Google, is his daughter. Some of the band were from Adelaide, and everyone was fantastic. The songs were all done just as I remember them (although with Christmas edges in the case of a few). It all came together very well.

The support act was the comedian/musician The Bedroom Philosopher, who apparently enjoys making fun of Melbourne stereotypes. Of course, that’s easily done, but he does it in an entertaining and musical way. He’s currently doing a residency at the Toff in Town, and I’ll definitely keep an eye out for him at next years comedy festival.

Usually between acts there is some background music playing, which nobody pays too much attention to. This time however, they played old TV show themes – including The Smurfs, Gilligan’s Island and The Addam’s Family. This kept the crowd entertained as a group near me choreographed dances to match each one. It was a pleasant change to the usual background music, and matched the crowd perfectly.