marientina

Just talked to a close friend who has been evacuated and is already in Texas in the eve of what may be the biggest disaster that ever hit New Orleans. For Tor, it is all the more ironic that this is happening to him, a day before his scheduled move to New Orleans from Chicago. He more than all of us understands the ramifications what may happen when the storm hits the shore tomorrow morning.

Tor is a geoscientist who is on the move from UIC to Tulane. He studies the Mississippi delta. He knows what it looked like millions of years ago and what it could like like again. And adding further to the irony, he is Dutch, which means that he understands what living below sea level can do to a city when a storm hits. Tor and I have been joking about this for years. And suddenly, the joke is no longer that funny. He is in his car in the middle of Texas and he is concerned that if the storm hits, the flooding will kill more people than we can imagine. City officials are hiding the fact that they are preparing hundreds of body bags for the people who will be affected: those who can't leave the city and those who are trapped in flood planes. And the glorious city that is New Orleans could become the creepiest town in the south.

***

We build in flooplanes, we dam-up rivers, we make the impossible happen. We are struggling eternally against nature, so hard that we forget we are part of nature and then we act surprised when disaster strikes. We have even managed to beat the democratic process in which death occurs, with medicine going only to those who can afford it and evacuations possible only by people who can. Is that our nature then, to live at the expense of others? I sure hope not.

I live a little over a mile away from the beach and in a city of earthquakes. Perhaps it is my fatalistic greek upbringing, but I will be the least surprised if I die by tsunami or by being hit over the head by collapsing debris in an earthquake. When I walk on the sand of Venice beach or any beach, I close my eyes and enjoy the sound of the waves. And at the same time, I try to embrace the possibility of losing my life to the water I very much love. Just like my great aunt Fotoula who slipped and fell into the river she adored and crossed every day of her life.

You can't escape the great forces of nature. We do our best to avoid disaster. But so long as we treat nature as the enemy, we will always fail. As the age old saying goes, keeps your friends close and your enemies closer.

Posted by marientina at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As a diligent Thalassemic, I have to stay hydrated and pumped with electrolytes. Here's a recipe with zero fat, almost no sugar, some protein and lots of electrolytes (potassium + sodium):

Two glasses of ice
1 cup 0% fat Greek yogurt (Trader Joe's)
1 teaspoon sel du mer or any other rock salt (this kind of salt is actually lower in sodium)
1 cup of black/blue grapes (in season now, Concord or Kyoshu)
1 glass of water

Throw it all in and press the button! Makes enough for 3-4 people.

Posted by marientina at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow. I have just experienced culture shock in making a tech support call to Greece for internet banking. I was transferring money between accounts for the first time, which requires entering a number to confirm. This number, called a TAN number is a strange concept. When doing internet banking with the National Bank of Greece, one receives a crazy user name they can't change, some numeric password and a dot-matrix printout of hundreds of numbers in a random series in two columns: TAN numbers & Check Numbers. And no instructions.

So I chose my account from a drop down list. And then I chose another account I wanted the money moved to. I entered an amount. And I had to enter an explanation. And I hit "send". All in Greek mind you...And then an input box appeared out of nowhere asking for a TAN number. I used one and was promptly told this number has been used before. I tried another and was told it was not right. I tried another and was told this list was inactive. Hmmm....

I called customer service. At seven cents a minute with my international plan it was a bargain. After a polite automated answering system, a woman picked up the phone. I told her what was going on and she proceeded to scold me for trying to enter TAN numbers multiple times. She knew exactly what numbers I typed. I mistyped one set and that locked up the list which means that a new list has to be regenerated and mailed to the bank. Which means that my mother has to pick up that list with a power of attorney paper. All that so I can transfer the grand amount of $300 into another account.

"Why did you not follow directions?" she asked. "Why did you mistype the TAN numbers?" she asked. "Why did you enter a Check number in one of the attempts?" I put my tail behind my legs and explained to her that I was overseas, that I have never done this before and that I didn't receive any instuctions and just got a faxed sheet from my mother.

"You should have called us immediately if you didn't know what to do".

I proceeded to tell her that she should be more open to people's unusual circumstances. "Sure, no problem" she said. "We'll send you another list. Tell your mother to pick it up.

"Goodbye".

This is why I live in the United States. Land of internet banking for dummies. I have been internet banking since 1997. Never have I been scolded. I have been calling tech support for various things since 1995. Never have I been scolded.

Customer Service does not translate well overseas. Even the cold banking site of Chase now feels like a warm fuzzy place that makes me not feel bad about myself.

Do humans need HCI training for computers or do they need HHI training for treating other humans?

Posted by marientina at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The planet is melting. So next time you fill up your SUV, a little guilt goes a long way.

THE world's largest frozen peat bog is melting. An area stretching for a million square kilometres across the permafrost of western Siberia is turning into a mass of shallow lakes as the ground melts, according to Russian researchers just back from the region.

The sudden melting of a bog the size of France and Germany combined could unleash billions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

read more

Posted by marientina at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

P8030294


Originally uploaded by marientina.

Kudos to those who can guess who these people are.

Posted by marientina at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have a pro Flickr account. World beware.

Posted by marientina at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Right-click to view large.

Posted by marientina at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adding to my database of mental illness movies for the last two months: Trauma ,The Machinist, K-Pax

Meanwhile, my insomnia is growing.

Interestingly enough, I have found this database (a bit outdated) but useful. Almost every movie describes some kind of mental or cognitive disorder. I suppose strangeness is what makes life interesting.

Apparently, bipolar disorder is snubbed from films since schizophrenia is so much more eventful. Manic episodes in bipolar disorder can contain acute paranoia and even insomnia induced hallucinations similar to schizophrenia, which is why so many bipolars are misdiagnosed, including my mother in the early 90's who was turned into a vegetable for several months by a negligent psychiatrist. Add misdiagnosis to social stigma and it is no wonder why so many people with mental illness don't want to ask for help.

p.27 from Surviving Manic Depression:

As early as 1973, a study of patients with mania reported that 60 percent had grandiose delusions, 42 percent had paranoid delusions, and many had both. It is a relatively short leap, after all, from believing that you are the president of the United States to also believing that foreign agents are after you.

Also from the same book, p.298

And during 1999, at the same time that NIMH was funding only 7 research grants on clinical or treatment aspects of manic-depressive illness, it was also funding 7 new grants to study pigeons, 8 new grants to study songbirds, and 4 new grants to study fish. Clearly, something is fundamentally wrong with the priorities of the federal agency, and individuals with manic-depressive illness bear the consequences of these misplaced priorities.

Posted by marientina at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)