[Posted to Xanga 9/2/10]
I started working for the IT helpdesk when this semester started. I'm taking Web Design, Programming II, Visual Application Design, and Statistics. But I like the helpdesk better than any of my classes. I like my job. I work from 8-9:30 and 1:30-3 MWF, and then I stay behind till 5 on most days because I've nothing better to do and we're understaffed for the beginning of the year. All of the freshmen are coming in telling us their iPods and iPhones won't sync because they apparently don't know how to run Software Update. So we run it for them and send them away happy.
I like working with MacBooks. They're well-made and they're pretty. But...
It has come to my attention that whether or not I think they're pretty, the iKnow program is a Bad Thing. Did you know that starting next year, everyone at Freed is REQUIRED (you cannot opt out, ever; I work for IT and I know) to receive a MacBook and an iPod Touch or iPhone from the school? And of course you have to pay for it. And you have to either pay it off fully when you leave or give it back and receive no refund for it. (This year, everyone except seniors is required to participate. Yesterday afternoon a transfer student came in and wanted to opt out because she didn't think she'd be here longer than a couple of semesters. They made her get a MacBook along with the rest of us.)
Yes, Apple is pretty, but why should an entire college campus be required to use their computers or required to pay extra to get one even if they don't use it? Apple is probably the most expensive choice they could have made. And I would have zero objection if it weren't mandatory, but it is. Half the people I know had a computer sufficient for college purposes when they left Walton. I certainly did, although it was a desktop.
The iPod thing is worse. Almost everyone I know had an mp3 player already when they came into college, generally one that was either on a par or almost on a par with the iPod Touch. I had a 30 GB Zune when I came in. That's TWICE as big as the iPods. Oh, and you know how your MacBook and iPod will inevitably depreciate as college goes on? Freed's still going to make you keep paying the full purchase price and more.
The worst is that they insist we need the iPod or iPhone in class to participate. And we don't. I have never seen a teacher, to this day, use the system we have on our iPods in class. I've been taught about it in University Foundations, but there's been no mention of it since.
So, you force us to buy expensive products from you (you can't even buy it straight from Apple yourself, you have to go through Freed, and it remains their property until you pay it off) and then you don't even use the system you set in place, thereby making the iPods and iPhones totally unnecessary?
Not cool.
Also, my opinion on Apple stuff has been gradually developing over the past few months. I've come to the conclusion that while I like their products, while I find them aesthetically gorgeous and very usable, while their operating system has been unrelentingly stable for me, I hate their company. They charge through the nose for their stuff, and they try to entrap their users (I'm talking to you, App Store). Since I have no choice but to receive a MacBook and an iPod, I might as well enjoy them and admire the aesthetic that went into making them. But because I won't stand for the company's nonsense...I have jailbroken my iPod (it's legal now, wooo, I can admit it without caring if Freed notices!) and my MacBook dualboots Ubuntu. Take that, Freed and Apple. Those of you who have a particular dislike of Apple might be amused that they and Freed-Hardeman are in league to squeeze money out of a bunch of college students. Control freaks teaming up with control freaks, right?
In other news, at work yesterday, I was called out to an office to fix a computer that wasn't turning on. The computer in question belonged to a grad teacher (she taught education I think) who had left the office. Her colleague took me to the machine. I brought a loaner with me and began to swap out the hard drives, but the screws on the teacher's computer were being ornery, so I held down the power button as a form of diagnosis, trying to figure out whether it was a video problem only or whether it couldn't get power at all. Guess what? The MacBook booted normally. I told the colleague to tell the grad teacher to hold the button down until the chime. So much fail.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
I'm not alone 'cause the TV's on, yeah...
[Posted to Xanga 8/8/10]
I’m not crazy cause I take the right pills…
So Laura finally gave me something to make me gain weight and sleep that is not trazodone. It’s mirtazapine (Remeron), another antidepressant prescribed for its helpful side effects. I haven’t felt any hungrier than I usually do, nor any more inclined to eat, but it sure as heck knocked me out. About an hour after taking it I was dying for some sleep. I don’t remember what happened after my head hit the pillow. Nothing else that I can remember has knocked me out that thoroughly except for anaesthesia.
I didn’t have a hangover in the morning, but I was miserable for no discernable reason and cried and sat on the floor and was pathetic. It gradually went away as the day went on. It was moving day, and the crying really didn’t help the moving at all. I managed to be packed by 3 PM and started moving stuff over after dinner. Unfortunately, the heat index gets up over 100 most days here in August. I started being thirsty in a way that water wasn’t fixing. So I dragged myself to the grocery store, grabbed a bunch of Powerade bottles, and dragged myself back to my room. Slept for about four hours. When I woke up it was past curfew and I wasn't even half done with the moving. So now I’m finishing my moving, long after the deadline. No one’s moving into my old room and I have the key to the new one, so I don’t think I much care if they complain about me being late. This is what happens when a weak ADHD 17-year-old girl has to move by herself in 100-degree weather, and they can deal with it.
On the other hand…duct tape has proved very, very helpful.
(The above is my dorm card, taped to my hand. There are doors between me and the room I'm moving into that have to be opened with a card.)
I’m not crazy cause I take the right pills…
So Laura finally gave me something to make me gain weight and sleep that is not trazodone. It’s mirtazapine (Remeron), another antidepressant prescribed for its helpful side effects. I haven’t felt any hungrier than I usually do, nor any more inclined to eat, but it sure as heck knocked me out. About an hour after taking it I was dying for some sleep. I don’t remember what happened after my head hit the pillow. Nothing else that I can remember has knocked me out that thoroughly except for anaesthesia.
I didn’t have a hangover in the morning, but I was miserable for no discernable reason and cried and sat on the floor and was pathetic. It gradually went away as the day went on. It was moving day, and the crying really didn’t help the moving at all. I managed to be packed by 3 PM and started moving stuff over after dinner. Unfortunately, the heat index gets up over 100 most days here in August. I started being thirsty in a way that water wasn’t fixing. So I dragged myself to the grocery store, grabbed a bunch of Powerade bottles, and dragged myself back to my room. Slept for about four hours. When I woke up it was past curfew and I wasn't even half done with the moving. So now I’m finishing my moving, long after the deadline. No one’s moving into my old room and I have the key to the new one, so I don’t think I much care if they complain about me being late. This is what happens when a weak ADHD 17-year-old girl has to move by herself in 100-degree weather, and they can deal with it.
On the other hand…duct tape has proved very, very helpful.
(The above is my dorm card, taped to my hand. There are doors between me and the room I'm moving into that have to be opened with a card.)
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Screw you, Strattera.
So a few weeks back...I forget how many...I started Strattera again. Instead of fighting my ADHD, it made me feel disembodied/dissociated. Okay, no big deal, I can handle that. Especially because it goes away or gets less noticeable after a few days of taking Strattera. Then the dosage went up. Bam. Whatever part of my brain thinks about sex was suddenly broken. Truth be told, it's one of my favorite things to think about; I think about it a good deal of the time and enjoy doing so. But on 18 mg of Strattera, it doesn't cross my mind unless somebody mentions it or I force myself to think about it, and either way it isn't as appealing as it was before. I consider that a fundamental change in the structure of my thoughts, and not a pleasant one. It unnerves me that 18 mg of a chemical can take that away from me. But for the sake of waiting it out and getting some stimulants I put up with it. Only three more weeks of this and I'd be off Strattera. Worth it, right? So I waited.
Then the dosage went up again to 25 mg. And what happened? It gave me depression. I took my first raised dose at night before I went to bed. The next day I woke up feeling like I did before they put me on Wellbutrin. Less severe, but unmistakable. I didn't feel like doing anything. I wasn't hungry (had to force myself to eat) or thirsty. I didn't even feel like getting out of bed. Heck, I didn't even really feel like being IN bed. I felt no emotion about the things in my life that tend to make me feel strongly. Towards the end of the day, when it would have been time to take another dose, it started wearing off and I started feeling normal again. I did NOT take the next dose. I'll put up with disembodiment, I'll put up with it screwing with my thoughts, but depression is not something I'll put up with. So I was off Strattera for the next three or four days until my psych appointment. I didn't feel depressed and thinking about sex was the same as it had always been. It was a relief.
And what did my psych do? She put me back on it. Not the 25 mg dose that gave me temporary depression, but the 18 mg dose. She explained that since both the Wellbutrin and the Strattera affect norepinephrine, the raised dosage of Strattera had been enough to more or less edge the Wellbutrin out of the way and take up the receptors. (So I guess we know what would happen if I ever went off my Wellbutrin. Thank God I have it.) And she gave me 28 days' worth of Strattera 18 mg capsules. I went home and later e-mailed her to ask if she still planned to put me on the stimulants if this didn't work. Her response:
"Plan to eval response with 18mg as adjunct with wellbutrin. Plan to do more formal eval for attention/focus at that time. Still doubtful about stimulants because of health, nutrition & mood concerns."
...
You said stimulants were the next course of action...are you going to renege on your word? Part of me wishes I'd just not said anything about it making me depressed and waited it out. As it is, I'm back on it and not only has it made me stop thinking about sex again, it's also more or less screwed up the corresponding physical functions. Remember what I was originally given the Wellbutrin for? The unfortunate side effect of the Zoloft? Well, it's that all over again.
Strattera isn't helping me--it never has. And I seriously doubt it's going to over the next month. I told Laura what it was doing but her response wasn't a very helpful one. I am only putting up with this in the hope that she'll do what she said she would do and use stimulants on me as the next course of action. I see Laura again in early July.
As far as I'm concerned her "mood concerns" are fairly baseless...I think my mood is at a much, much higher risk if she leaves me in this desperate state where I'm angering the people around me and increasingly hating myself for these problems. Yes, okay, whatever, the stimulants aren't some magic cure-all. But they have a very good success rate, and I need SOMETHING to work, and soon.
Her nutrition concerns...are probably fairly sensible. I'm aware that I don't weigh much. Last weighing I was 121 including clothes, cell phone, and iPod, so that probably puts me at about 118 pounds. But dammit, if I have to eat a box of donuts every day for the week before I see her next to bring my weight up, I will do that. I really don't have that much of an appetite and I'm in weight training now so I'm actually using up energy. So I suppose it makes sense that she wants me to eat more. But stress has a tendency to make me eat less. Meh.
...and her health concerns, those I can't argue with, and that's what scares me. Yes, my heart rate went up on Zoloft. Yes, I had tachycardia for a while. Yes, my heart is sensitive to some medicines. But I've never been on stimulants (other than caffeine, and that doesn't count), and statistically, very very few people without preexisting heart conditions have a bad cardiac response to these meds (and the clinic VERIFIED that I don't have an actual problem with my heart; it was just the meds that I was taking at the time). Surely the risk is not too great for her to put me on the lowest possible dose for one day and then take me off of it if my heart does something bad. I don't actually know what the risk is, I just know that I'm scared and I really really need something to work.
...sigh.
Then the dosage went up again to 25 mg. And what happened? It gave me depression. I took my first raised dose at night before I went to bed. The next day I woke up feeling like I did before they put me on Wellbutrin. Less severe, but unmistakable. I didn't feel like doing anything. I wasn't hungry (had to force myself to eat) or thirsty. I didn't even feel like getting out of bed. Heck, I didn't even really feel like being IN bed. I felt no emotion about the things in my life that tend to make me feel strongly. Towards the end of the day, when it would have been time to take another dose, it started wearing off and I started feeling normal again. I did NOT take the next dose. I'll put up with disembodiment, I'll put up with it screwing with my thoughts, but depression is not something I'll put up with. So I was off Strattera for the next three or four days until my psych appointment. I didn't feel depressed and thinking about sex was the same as it had always been. It was a relief.
And what did my psych do? She put me back on it. Not the 25 mg dose that gave me temporary depression, but the 18 mg dose. She explained that since both the Wellbutrin and the Strattera affect norepinephrine, the raised dosage of Strattera had been enough to more or less edge the Wellbutrin out of the way and take up the receptors. (So I guess we know what would happen if I ever went off my Wellbutrin. Thank God I have it.) And she gave me 28 days' worth of Strattera 18 mg capsules. I went home and later e-mailed her to ask if she still planned to put me on the stimulants if this didn't work. Her response:
"Plan to eval response with 18mg as adjunct with wellbutrin. Plan to do more formal eval for attention/focus at that time. Still doubtful about stimulants because of health, nutrition & mood concerns."
...
You said stimulants were the next course of action...are you going to renege on your word? Part of me wishes I'd just not said anything about it making me depressed and waited it out. As it is, I'm back on it and not only has it made me stop thinking about sex again, it's also more or less screwed up the corresponding physical functions. Remember what I was originally given the Wellbutrin for? The unfortunate side effect of the Zoloft? Well, it's that all over again.
Strattera isn't helping me--it never has. And I seriously doubt it's going to over the next month. I told Laura what it was doing but her response wasn't a very helpful one. I am only putting up with this in the hope that she'll do what she said she would do and use stimulants on me as the next course of action. I see Laura again in early July.
As far as I'm concerned her "mood concerns" are fairly baseless...I think my mood is at a much, much higher risk if she leaves me in this desperate state where I'm angering the people around me and increasingly hating myself for these problems. Yes, okay, whatever, the stimulants aren't some magic cure-all. But they have a very good success rate, and I need SOMETHING to work, and soon.
Her nutrition concerns...are probably fairly sensible. I'm aware that I don't weigh much. Last weighing I was 121 including clothes, cell phone, and iPod, so that probably puts me at about 118 pounds. But dammit, if I have to eat a box of donuts every day for the week before I see her next to bring my weight up, I will do that. I really don't have that much of an appetite and I'm in weight training now so I'm actually using up energy. So I suppose it makes sense that she wants me to eat more. But stress has a tendency to make me eat less. Meh.
...and her health concerns, those I can't argue with, and that's what scares me. Yes, my heart rate went up on Zoloft. Yes, I had tachycardia for a while. Yes, my heart is sensitive to some medicines. But I've never been on stimulants (other than caffeine, and that doesn't count), and statistically, very very few people without preexisting heart conditions have a bad cardiac response to these meds (and the clinic VERIFIED that I don't have an actual problem with my heart; it was just the meds that I was taking at the time). Surely the risk is not too great for her to put me on the lowest possible dose for one day and then take me off of it if my heart does something bad. I don't actually know what the risk is, I just know that I'm scared and I really really need something to work.
...sigh.
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