JoBlog

My boyfriend is a massive geek, and I organise Cambridge Geek Nights, so when I saw the Codeyear idea from Codecademy, it looked ideal. They offer the chance to learn to code over the course of a year, with lessons e-mailed to you each week to complete online.
Now, I have a bit of a reputation for being able to break programs, finding bugs in games and so on, but I did not expect to come up against a problem in lesson 3 of week 1! The lesson deals with the declaration and setting of variables, firstly showing you the syntax for declaring a variable (var myName;) and then setting it (myName="Jo"). It then asks you to

Try creating a new variable called myFullName with your first and last names.

Typing var myFullName; results in the hugely helpful error message, “Oops, try again”. After some head scratching and some input from David, we found it wanted the response var myFullName = "Jo Anslow";. The fact that you could combine the variable creation and setting into a single line did not occur to me – in fact it is covered in the next lesson, but they require you to apply it before they introduce it.

I think that Codecademy are probably losing quite a few people at this early stage who would give up thinking they couldn’t understand even the simplest lessons – if I didn’t have David in the house, I would probably have quit myself. I shall persevere for the moment, but I’m concerned about what else I’ll find as I continue.

I haven’t been writing on this blog much since we found a medication combination which keeps my depression mostly under control. I’ve now been basically stable for over 3 years on a cocktail of Lithium, Lamotrigine and Buproprion.
It’s quite astounding that the drugs have worked for this long – before this, the longest that one set worked well for was about 3 months. What makes it even more surprising is that in the 6 months from the end of September 2009 to early March 2010, I lost 3 grandparents (one cancer, one old age and one suicide), a uni friend who went under a bus, and my pet cat.
Having said that, the reason I’m back posting again is due to another health problem – maybe related, but probably not.

I had been taking the combined oral contraceptive pill for many years to control heavy and painful periods, and was happy with it. Then the NHS issued a directive that people who suffer migraines with visual disturbances (flashing lights etc) mustn’t take it any longer due to an increased risk of stroke, and I was forced to come off it. I started taking Cerazette (a progesterone only mini-pill). On the one hand it was wonderful. I had no periods at all which was brilliant! But it made me exhausted all the time, and my sex drive was basically nil.
The GP recommended I try the Implanon implant instead – it’s the same drug as Cerazette, but in a lower dose. I tried that for a few months, but the exhaustion and libido didn’t improve, so I had it removed and since 8th March I haven’t been taking any hormone therapies.
The idea was to allow my system to have a couple of normal cycles to see whether the period pain was still a problem. It turns out that it isn’t, but we’ve uncovered a much bigger issue. Ever since the Implanon has been removed, I have felt ill, to a greater or lesser extent. I have headaches most days, anxiety attacks (especially first thing in the morning), my joints are inflamed, nausea attacks which when they hit mean I can’t manage to eat properly, and I’m still constantly exhausted with even less of a sex drive than before if that’s possible!
In addition to all this, I had 5 days in June when I couldn’t see properly – each eye seemed to be working ok on it’s own, but they couldn’t focus together. That was very scary.

I have had a variety of blood tests. I had 2 progesterone readings come back very low on days 21 and 20 of two successive cycles (levels of 2.3 and 2.0 which should be 30 – 80), which suggests a problem with ovulation. But the specialist is not convinced that the readings have been taken on the right days, as I have a longer cycle than 28 days. She is also confused that I still have a regular cycle if I’m not ovulating.
Yesterday I had Estrogen, FSH, LH, Prolactin and Testosterone tests taken, and I’ve got 2 more progesterone levels booked for days 21 and 28 of this cycle. Maybe once those levels come back, we might make some progress.

As those of you who know me will know, I do quite a lot of crafts, and I go through phases of being addicted to different things. Previously I’ve done cross stitch, knitting and hardanger embroidery, and my most recent passion is for crochet.

I started to learn last August, after spending 2 days sat behind a stall at a craft fair with my friend Inga. I started with snowflakes, and made Christmas tree decorations. And now, I’ve moved onto amigurumi.

Amigurumi, as the name suggests, is a Japanese craze for making small cute dolls, usually crocheted but sometimes knitted. The term is derived from two Japanese words, “ami” meaning crocheted or knitted, and “nuigurumi”, meaning stuffed doll. Not being one for taking these things slowly, I started with possibly not the easiest of choices – an elephant.

The pattern is a free download from Lion Brand yarn. The pattern is freely available, but you do need to register with the Lion Brand site. It’s well worth doing, as they have lots of free patterns available.

I made him in white as that’s what I had from making the snow flakes. And I had some trouble with his trunk, but all in all as a first attempt I am pretty happy with him.

Various things recently have started me thinking about aging. In the last few months, my Grandmother has died of breast cancer, and I have had to have my cat Pepper put to sleep, again probably due to cancer. They were both what you would describe as old – 78 and approx 14 respectively, which doesn’t make it easier, but does at least mean it makes some sort of sense. Around the same time, a friend from University was killed when he was hit by a bus. 22 is not nearly old enough.

At the other end of the scale, I feel like I have had to seriously grow up in the last couple of years. I don’t feel old enough or experienced enough for many of the roads I have started down, or for any of the things that friends of my age are doing (moving to the US, getting married, presenting scientific papers across the world…).

At what age do you stop wanting to be older (like when I was a kid, and the half year on 6 and a half was so important), and start wanting to be younger? I think I’m stuck somewhere in the middle at the moment. I would like to be younger, because then I wouldn’t have to deal with everything which is happening in my adult life, but I would also like to be older, to better deal with the aforementioned happenings.

I’m not sure I really had a direction I was going with this post, or really a point of any kind I was trying to make. I guess I’m just trying to create some kind of order in my thoughts; make some sort of sense of the chaos that is life, which seems to have become just that bit more chaotic in recent times.

I just bought a house
Thankfully the stress seems to have all melted away now that we’ve exchanged, and I’m just excited about moving in (25th September). So now I am starting on the fun of planning the curtains, the carpets, which colour paint, furniture etc… I just hope I don’t drive anybody mad in the mean time!

On Wednesday 10th June I attended the first Cambridge Geek Night. No, I know I’m not a geek, but David was one of the organisers, so I went along to support him. I was also hoping to meet some new people and maybe manage to partially immerse myself in this “geek world” he is a part of. I was not disappointed.
A stronger than expected turnout for the first event was a pleasant surprise, with a variety of people attending. I was also surprised by how welcoming people were in general of a non-geek in their midst; I have found geeks en-masse to be a very daunting prospect on occassion. There were of course some people who were very confused as to why I was there, but I felt no hostility from them, as I have sometimes experienced in the past.
I would also like to extend praise to the main speaker who I think was excellent. Gareth’s talk on Message Queues was interesting and generated a lot of questions from those present. But most of all I was extremely impressed with his ability to pitch his talk at a variety of levels. I had practially no knowledge of the subject prior to the evening, and fully understood almost everything he had to say. However, the rest of the room also seemed to gain a lot from the talk, despite already having far more knowledge on the subject than I did.
I am certainly looking forward to the next event, currently planned for early August.

Links which may be of interest:
Cambridge Geek Nights’ website (currently under construction)
Cambridge Geek Nights’ Blog
Gareth’s Slides on Message Queues

For some time now I have enjoyed making earrings from beads and wire. As well as making things I enjoy wearing, I find it somehow therapeutic to be creating something tangible. Initially, I just made items for myself, then for my friends and family. Recently someone suggested I try selling them to cover my costs and maybe make a bit of money, so with that in mind I have created an Etsy Shop: joanslow.etsy.com

If anyone has any comments as to how I could improve the shop, or how to improve the earrings that I make, they would be very gratefully received.