Today I lost an old and dear friend. He slipped away in the early hours of this morning and I only heard about it a few minutes ago.
Michael had had pancreatic cancer for some time. He has struggled with pain for much of his life having hurt himself early in his career as a ballet dancer which put paid to his dancing dreams.
This is a man who once danced with Nureyev and spent time with Andy Warhol, yet today one cannot find a picture of him on google so far had he faded from fame and fortune. Michael had faded from my life too, I hadn't seen him in almost 18 months. I thought of him just last week and wondered how he was. Somehow in the rush and madness of running around getting busy with life and everything that goes with it, I had lost my old friend.
Now it is far to late for goodbyes.
RIP Michael Richter
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Sticks and stones might break my bones... but keystrokes can sometimes kill you.
This story really freaked me out today.
I am pretty tech savy but it made me think about how my daughter, aged 2, might concievably have to deal with some things which go far further than sticks and stones in her day to day interactions with her peers and collegues in the future, and I might not have the skillset to help her cope with it.
It made me think about how much I as a parent need to keep up with what is going on in my child's life right from now, and how it is my responsibility, nay, my duty, to make sure that I not give in to technology and shrug my shoulders saying, "this is too higher-grade," the way many parents are doing today.
We are thinking seriously already about when Evangeline is going to get her first computer. At the moment it will probably just be a simple machine without any real network access, more a workstation for herself to keep her away from ours where she can do real damage by accidentally downloading HUGE files or undoing steps I spent hours on in editing photographs (both of which she has done already, did I mention she is only 2?).
Parents of teenagers who are not up to date with the technology being used everyday by their sons and daughters have a daunting task ahead of them.
An I being naieve in thinking that if I keep upo to date from now I even stand a chance of being alright by the time my child is a teenager?
An adult friend was attacked in a similar fashion to that described in the article on cyberbullying about a year ago.... He, at 38, struggled with the same issues and ended up wasting a lot of time and energy fighting an enemy he couldn't see who didn't follow the rules.
This sort of thing is going to get worse before it get's better.
There are all sorts of statistics of suicides which are related to stuff that happens online.
It really makes a mockery of the old song my Mum used to teach me to help me deal with taunts and teasing, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never harm me."
I am pretty tech savy but it made me think about how my daughter, aged 2, might concievably have to deal with some things which go far further than sticks and stones in her day to day interactions with her peers and collegues in the future, and I might not have the skillset to help her cope with it.
It made me think about how much I as a parent need to keep up with what is going on in my child's life right from now, and how it is my responsibility, nay, my duty, to make sure that I not give in to technology and shrug my shoulders saying, "this is too higher-grade," the way many parents are doing today.
We are thinking seriously already about when Evangeline is going to get her first computer. At the moment it will probably just be a simple machine without any real network access, more a workstation for herself to keep her away from ours where she can do real damage by accidentally downloading HUGE files or undoing steps I spent hours on in editing photographs (both of which she has done already, did I mention she is only 2?).
Parents of teenagers who are not up to date with the technology being used everyday by their sons and daughters have a daunting task ahead of them.
An I being naieve in thinking that if I keep upo to date from now I even stand a chance of being alright by the time my child is a teenager?
An adult friend was attacked in a similar fashion to that described in the article on cyberbullying about a year ago.... He, at 38, struggled with the same issues and ended up wasting a lot of time and energy fighting an enemy he couldn't see who didn't follow the rules.
This sort of thing is going to get worse before it get's better.
There are all sorts of statistics of suicides which are related to stuff that happens online.
It really makes a mockery of the old song my Mum used to teach me to help me deal with taunts and teasing, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never harm me."
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
SurveyBasket.co.za a great way to earn extra income online
I joined this market research panel a few months ago and filled in a few surveys but then forgot all about it until a little while ago when I realised I had accumulated enough "baskets" to more than cover my activation fee.
So I activated my account and lo and behold I have already recieved a payout of R120 from them with more due to me at the end of the month.
I recommend this to anyone who is remotely interested in either making money online or just to have people ask you for your opinion.
It can only get better as more people join up therefore making it's panel more attractive to companies wanting research done.
Click: SurveyBasket.co.za to join yourself. Even if you just operate as a free panelist until you have earned enough baskets to make your activation worthwhile. I'm sure you will find it beneficial.
So I activated my account and lo and behold I have already recieved a payout of R120 from them with more due to me at the end of the month.
I recommend this to anyone who is remotely interested in either making money online or just to have people ask you for your opinion.
It can only get better as more people join up therefore making it's panel more attractive to companies wanting research done.
Click: SurveyBasket.co.za to join yourself. Even if you just operate as a free panelist until you have earned enough baskets to make your activation worthwhile. I'm sure you will find it beneficial.
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Your service is only as good as your weakest link
"You are the weakest link, goodbye!" might well have been the comment I made after three staff at an Internet Service Provider served up the most awful service I have recieved to date from any company.
However I am of the opinion that the only way to make things better is to take on issues head on and make sure that those who need to know about problems hear about them.
It is exactly this type of thinking that is behind HelloPeter a local South African site that gives customers a chance to report bad service and compliment companies that are doing a good job.
However I am of the opinion that the only way to make things better is to take on issues head on and make sure that those who need to know about problems hear about them.
It is exactly this type of thinking that is behind HelloPeter a local South African site that gives customers a chance to report bad service and compliment companies that are doing a good job.
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
They grow up too fast
This past weekend I had occasion to do a photo shoot with a difference. It was done as part of a young lady's 12th birthday party.
While studio parties have in the past been quite with older girls this was the youngest group I had done one for. They were wonderful. All between the age of 12 and 13, all girls, and full of fun. One or two of them took me aside at various times during the afternoon to quiz me on ways to break into the modeling industry, each quite concerned that the others might find out so I was sworn to silence about their inquiries.
The girls dressed up in three outfits, a black outfit, a white outfit and something with lots of "crazy colours" as the invite described it.
They went without make-up (they are only 12 and 13 year olds after all) and they had a blast.
Made me think of what is to come with my own daughter. She is only 2 at the moment, but already a star of the studio strutting and posing like a real little lady when we have here there while we do shoots. But when we actually want her to pose, for a picture with her grandparents, or because we want a new picture of her for family, then she pulls her bottom lip out and sulks and says "No! Stop it!" and runs away.
I cherish this time while she is still little but everyday I see more and more signs of her growing up and I feel quite helpless because it feels like just the other day that she was born and was so little her dummy took up almost her whole face. She still likes the dummy and Henrik is quite worried about it but I assured him that she will most probably not want to take it to her Matric dance one day so we shouldn't waste time worrying about it.
While studio parties have in the past been quite with older girls this was the youngest group I had done one for. They were wonderful. All between the age of 12 and 13, all girls, and full of fun. One or two of them took me aside at various times during the afternoon to quiz me on ways to break into the modeling industry, each quite concerned that the others might find out so I was sworn to silence about their inquiries.
The girls dressed up in three outfits, a black outfit, a white outfit and something with lots of "crazy colours" as the invite described it.
They went without make-up (they are only 12 and 13 year olds after all) and they had a blast.
Made me think of what is to come with my own daughter. She is only 2 at the moment, but already a star of the studio strutting and posing like a real little lady when we have here there while we do shoots. But when we actually want her to pose, for a picture with her grandparents, or because we want a new picture of her for family, then she pulls her bottom lip out and sulks and says "No! Stop it!" and runs away.
I cherish this time while she is still little but everyday I see more and more signs of her growing up and I feel quite helpless because it feels like just the other day that she was born and was so little her dummy took up almost her whole face. She still likes the dummy and Henrik is quite worried about it but I assured him that she will most probably not want to take it to her Matric dance one day so we shouldn't waste time worrying about it.
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
You lose which ever side the coin flips to
I recently spent almost a fortnight in hospital due to some rather faulty thinking which had me obsessing over ways to end my life.
I suffer from Bipolar Affective Disorder or Manic Depressive Illness (the second being a more accurately descriptive and I feel more apt name for the condition).
So far this has been the third time in just over 8 years since my initial diagnose that I have had to be hospitalised.
Each time it has been the depressive side of the disease that has got me to the point where my doctor has felt it best to "put me away" for a time, until she and a team of other experts, can get me back to some semblance of normality.
I have yet to be hospitalised for mania, although I did swing quite dramatically into a manic phase during my first hospitalisation which is how I came to be diagnosed. That time I had just been hospitalised for depression and work related stress. I went in a sad, overworked but "normal" person, and came out a "certified loon".
I like to make light of my condition. It is a coping mechanism for me.
What used to be a diagnoses that pretty much put paid to people's hopes and dreams has now become a condition which is very treatable.
What is important is that patients comply with the treatment, take their meds, attend the sessions with therapists and contact their psychiatrists as soon as they feel a change in their mood towards either of the two extremes.
And there lies the problem.
No one seeks help when they are feeling fabulous, even if everyone else can see that the fabulousness is too fabulous to be real. The fabulous person remains convinced that they are just too fabulous for those around them and everyone else is just jealous of their fabulousness. Add to this the fact that when one is manic one often feels that taking the medication is not necessary (because one is fabulous so why does one need those pills?) or not wanted because the medication takes the fabulousness that one is so enjoying away, and you have a perfectly set scenario for mania to take a hold.
Then there is the other side of the coin. When one is so depressed that one feels the silt on the bottom of the ocean floor is more lively, exciting, worthwhile and interesting than oneself, it is hard to convince oneself to take one's medication. After all, what is the point? It doesn't help anyway... Or at least that is what one is thinking at the time. Remember I mentioned faulty thought processes?
Both sides of the coin have the same result.... lack of patient compliance. And that leads to the slippery slope of mood instability which ultimately leads to disaster.
Then there is the other aspect of the management of Manic Depressive Illness. In fact this aspect is key in the management of all illness but I will limit myself to Manic Depressive Illness as that is what I know about.
MEDICAL AIDS.
The insurance that one pays a lot for each and every month and is supposed to ensure that one is able to receive the treatment one needs. There are almost always shortfalls and limits and nasty surprises when one goes to pick up one's meds from the pharmacy.
This is bad enough for any type of illness, but when one mixes it with a condition that has a big problem with patient compliance, the patient is even more inclined to not comply with the prescribed treatments.
This can lead to extra time in hospital and or even death if the patient becomes suicidal due to not taking their medication.
In South Africa the government has a list of conditions that medical aids are obliged by law to cover. This list of conditions is called the Prescribed Minimum Benefits (PMB) list and Bipolar (Manic Depressive illness) is on that list. However medical aids still manage to avoid covering the treatment as prescribed by the doctors by creating lists of formularies listing medicines they will cover but refusing to cover others. Strangely many of the medicines on the formularies are not the ones that doctors prescribe, either because their side effects are too severe, or because they have already tried them on their patients and found them to be ineffective.
When someone who doesn't want to be taking their medication gets given the run around by a big business trying to shirk their responsibility of care it makes it very difficult to convince oneself to preserver and do whatever it takes to make sure one gets one's medication and takes it.
Part of what landed me up in hospital recently was the fact that I simply stopped taking some of my medication because the medical aid didn't want to cover it, and I didn't have the cash to pay for it myself. As I told the pharmacist who was dispensing the medicine along with the bad news about how much it will cost me, "The stress involved in having to find the money to pay for this medicine and fight with the medical aid is probably going to do me more harm than any benefits the medication will provide, so don't bother with it thanks."
Clearly I was wrong.
I suffer from Bipolar Affective Disorder or Manic Depressive Illness (the second being a more accurately descriptive and I feel more apt name for the condition).
So far this has been the third time in just over 8 years since my initial diagnose that I have had to be hospitalised.
Each time it has been the depressive side of the disease that has got me to the point where my doctor has felt it best to "put me away" for a time, until she and a team of other experts, can get me back to some semblance of normality.
I have yet to be hospitalised for mania, although I did swing quite dramatically into a manic phase during my first hospitalisation which is how I came to be diagnosed. That time I had just been hospitalised for depression and work related stress. I went in a sad, overworked but "normal" person, and came out a "certified loon".
I like to make light of my condition. It is a coping mechanism for me.
What used to be a diagnoses that pretty much put paid to people's hopes and dreams has now become a condition which is very treatable.
What is important is that patients comply with the treatment, take their meds, attend the sessions with therapists and contact their psychiatrists as soon as they feel a change in their mood towards either of the two extremes.
And there lies the problem.
No one seeks help when they are feeling fabulous, even if everyone else can see that the fabulousness is too fabulous to be real. The fabulous person remains convinced that they are just too fabulous for those around them and everyone else is just jealous of their fabulousness. Add to this the fact that when one is manic one often feels that taking the medication is not necessary (because one is fabulous so why does one need those pills?) or not wanted because the medication takes the fabulousness that one is so enjoying away, and you have a perfectly set scenario for mania to take a hold.
Then there is the other side of the coin. When one is so depressed that one feels the silt on the bottom of the ocean floor is more lively, exciting, worthwhile and interesting than oneself, it is hard to convince oneself to take one's medication. After all, what is the point? It doesn't help anyway... Or at least that is what one is thinking at the time. Remember I mentioned faulty thought processes?
Both sides of the coin have the same result.... lack of patient compliance. And that leads to the slippery slope of mood instability which ultimately leads to disaster.
Then there is the other aspect of the management of Manic Depressive Illness. In fact this aspect is key in the management of all illness but I will limit myself to Manic Depressive Illness as that is what I know about.
MEDICAL AIDS.
The insurance that one pays a lot for each and every month and is supposed to ensure that one is able to receive the treatment one needs. There are almost always shortfalls and limits and nasty surprises when one goes to pick up one's meds from the pharmacy.
This is bad enough for any type of illness, but when one mixes it with a condition that has a big problem with patient compliance, the patient is even more inclined to not comply with the prescribed treatments.
This can lead to extra time in hospital and or even death if the patient becomes suicidal due to not taking their medication.
In South Africa the government has a list of conditions that medical aids are obliged by law to cover. This list of conditions is called the Prescribed Minimum Benefits (PMB) list and Bipolar (Manic Depressive illness) is on that list. However medical aids still manage to avoid covering the treatment as prescribed by the doctors by creating lists of formularies listing medicines they will cover but refusing to cover others. Strangely many of the medicines on the formularies are not the ones that doctors prescribe, either because their side effects are too severe, or because they have already tried them on their patients and found them to be ineffective.
When someone who doesn't want to be taking their medication gets given the run around by a big business trying to shirk their responsibility of care it makes it very difficult to convince oneself to preserver and do whatever it takes to make sure one gets one's medication and takes it.
Part of what landed me up in hospital recently was the fact that I simply stopped taking some of my medication because the medical aid didn't want to cover it, and I didn't have the cash to pay for it myself. As I told the pharmacist who was dispensing the medicine along with the bad news about how much it will cost me, "The stress involved in having to find the money to pay for this medicine and fight with the medical aid is probably going to do me more harm than any benefits the medication will provide, so don't bother with it thanks."
Clearly I was wrong.
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