Little-Wonder.Net

18 September, 2008

Of photography and balloons

03:54:26 | Daily Life, Events | writebacks (5)

Signed up for the Canon Photo Marathon 2008, to be held on the 18th October.

The competition involves three segments - each with different themes lasting about three hours each. Participants would be assigned the theme at the beginning of each segment and they are required to go around, gathering snapshots and submitting their best work at the end of the three hour time frame before being assigned the next theme.

Nifty, huh?

Was initially contemplating whether I should register for it since I wasn’t too sure whether I would have recovered by then. But heck - this is just too good to be missed.

In the meantime, I’d work on polishing up on my techniques and use of lighting with Mojojo (that’s what I named my camera - a Canon Powershot SX100) so that I needn’t wrestle too much with settings and exposures and all that jazz on the actual day itself.

Speaking of which, I am eyeing quite a few DSLR models from Canon as of late. I feel that I’m quite ready to upgrade now, since I’ve progressed quite a fair bit from my former point and shoot with automatic mode phase. Mojojo, with his fair amount of manual functions has been serving me well enough but … I want more!

But of course, it’ll be a while before I actually go out there and get a new one. The prices are hefty, so I gotta’ think carefully.

Hmm.

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Presenting, the girl who loves colourful balloons. Captured last Sunday at my uncle’s 60th birthday celebrations, courtesy of my younger cousin, using Mojojo on … automatic mode.

Yay for balloons.

Much as I swear by the manual mode these days, I can’t seem to trust others to use them properly. Take my younger cousin for example - he only managed to get the above photo after six attempts, the first five using manual mode, and finally, his first success on automatic mode.

He struggled and struggled and after each photo, he’d go … “Eh, Brenda! Why (is the photo) so blurred/dark/grainy, ah?”

But I love the photo anyway.

Mainly because there’s a balloon in it.

It was balloons galore at the event, by the way. Loads and loads of balloons floated around us on the ceiling, in various shapes and sizes and colours. It made me ecstatic, and I wanted to take all of them home with me upon leaving. I eventually took only two in the end since there were a fair amount of kids around and it wouldn’t be fair, right?

There were a couple of balloons that were overly inflated, and ended up taking on a weird shape - elongated at the bottom and veering towards slightly round at the top.

My little nephew happened to be enchanted with one of those elongated balloons and had it tied to his pants such that it followed him everywhere he went, which I found really cute.

Until my smart alec cousin poked me in the side and went … “Eh, why is there a t*sticle following Luke around, ah?”

OMGGAH.

16 September, 2008

Okay, okay. I’m listening. Happy now?

14:43:30 | Thoughts | Comments Off

(Comments disabled because this is going to be another emo-ish, introspective post which I know nobody will bother reading anyway. Purely written for myself, but if you have anything to say - feel free to email.)

Three days ago, I bumped into a fellow school mate J who, after having seen my Twitter updates regarding my condition and expressed concern, also confessed that he too, was in a similar boat.

We ended up standing in the middle of the school concourse, yakking nineteen to dozen about our symptoms, the many doctors we’ve seen, and the tests we’ve gone through, even to the extent of comparing our diagnoses.

What was strange is that we were never close before. It’s nice to know that I have an ally in this, someone whom I can actually speak to who understands completely without me having to explain every single medical term or whatsoever - although of course, it is not good that someone else is sick too.

Apparently, J started off having the same symptoms as me, and even the same diagnosis initially. Unfortunately, in his case - it escalated into something worse.

It made me worried sick. (Both for him, as well as myself - because I cannot rule out the possibility that things might deteriorate for me too, right? But touch wood, of course.)

And here I was, thinking that this whole thing is something minor. I mean, people get giddy spells every now and then - how bad can it get? Plus, I look well most of the time, such that at first glance, it is hard to tell that there is even anything wrong with me.

It was only when friends started jamming the fact into my head that normal people do not get intermittent symptoms for three months, which was when I finally got off my lazy arse to see the doctor for the first time at the beginning of July.

What drove the point home was when my mum confessed that she worries all night that I may not wake up the next morning.

My initial reaction was … “?!?!?”

Then, I eventually realized that my nonchalance is scaring the pants out of everyone.

Mum has been nagging for the past few months that my priorities are all wrong - that I should be putting my health on top of other things, which is a big mismatch with what I am actually doing - putting my work first, being fully immersed in my studies, school and coding for FYP. Yes, I may be actually enjoying my work, but it’s taking its toll on me, she says.

Of course, I’d love to take some time off my work, but I have responsibilities to uphold - so it’s not easy for me to suddenly drop everything and skive for … a week or something.

At least I’m sitting up and taking notice now, which is a good start, I suppose. Sometimes, it takes people around to make you wake up and realize that things aren’t as peachy as it seems. (All this while, I was in cloud cuckoo land, whining about my symptoms, but thinking at the same time that it’d go away on its own.)

And I promise that if things do not improve further, I’d get up and see the cardiologist again on my own accord - without my mum having to continuously prod my backside with a stick.

I don’t know whether I am overreacting or whether the people around me are overreacting because even my cardiologist seems pretty nonchalant (or maybe he’s jaded already since he has seen worse cases).

Oh, and regarding exercise - J warned me to really take it sloooooooow because I may end up escalating matters if I’m not careful.

Towards the end of our conversation, J asked me - ” So how are you feeling about it?”

I think I must have shot him a pretty puzzled expression because he suddenly stopped to re-clarify his question - “How are you taking all this?”

To be frank, I haven’t really thought about it. (Maybe because I’ve been in cloud cuckoo land all this while, and honestly - I still think that it’s nothing too serious that warrants me worrying about it 24/7, so I try not to think too much about it.)

Even now, I don’t feel … anything different. Perhaps it’s because I’m coming down with various chronic ailments over the past three years that made me jaded and immune to all these already - development of chronic urticaria and asthma in 2005, followed by more and more allergies between 2005 - early 2007, and some weird immune system thingy nearing the end of last year. So, adding on a persistent sinus tachycardia to that list doesn’t seem to make a difference to me.

I’ve no time to sit around and emo anyway.

I’ve a life to live.

And work to do.

Err … oops. Did that just slip out?

13 September, 2008

Sinus tachycardia

12:38:29 | Daily Life | writebacks (3)

Being attached to a mobile ECG monitor for almost a day really feels like crap. But it’s over now so … yay!

Basically, it involved having five wires (with electrodes at the end) being attached all over my torso, and secured in place with so much surgical tape that I felt as stiff as a … piece of metal. All the wires were connected to a monitor which was kept in a pouch secured around my waist.

There was also this blue button on the monitor which I was supposed to press each time I experienced my usual symptoms, and I think I ended up punching the button a total of about ten times.

Can’t shower for a day, which was really quite unbearable for a clean freak like me.

I couldn’t sleep either. Practically squirmed the entire night because the surgical tape made my skin feel really itchy and by the time I woke up, the sensation was similar to having ants crawling all over me. Ack.

Naturally, I felt like I could hug the nurse who removed all the wires for me this morning. She’s a very nice one too, unlike the b*tchy one who attached all the wires for me yesterday. She kept me distracted by talking to me about everything under the sun because well, having tape ripped off isn’t very pleasant as well, isn’t it?

After waiting for about half an hour or so, I was called back to the clinic for a review.

And man, the graphs and whatnot that the little device managed to output was … damn bloody interesting.

Basically, it was like a graph showing the changes in my heart rate ever since 2pm yesterday (when I got the wires attached) until about 10am today (when I got the wires removed).

Plus, the doctor could even tell what time I went to bed because my heart rate started decreasing (and became really stable) at around 3-ish in the morning. It was like … ooooh! I began dozing off around this time and began to regain consciousness at around this time! How absolutely cool is that?!?

I’ll scan the graphs in when I receive them in the mail next week. Hahaha, I just found it really fascinating. (Although I’m not sure whether everyone else will think so.)

Oh, and yes - the results.

No abnormal heart rhythms, which was really good news to me because it means that it’s highly unlikely that I’ll die of cardiac arrests or faint due to missed/extra heart beats or whatnot.

My heart rate’s on the high side though, a condition termed inappropriate (persistent) sinus tachycardia (although my case seems more like the specific version, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), both of which is neither excessively serious nor dangerous, but causes discomfort (due to heart palpitations) and potential fainting spells.

Again, no medications. I just have to live with it because it’s correlated with my chronic low blood pressure as well. So, it seems like this period of consistent giddy/fainting spells is not going to see its end yet. :(

The doctor told me to gradually start exercising again though, because it might help me recover. (I completely stopped my usual walking habits and all strenuous activity since mid-June when the symptoms started.) So … I guess I’d start by slowly increasing my walking distance (providing I don’t start feeling faint) and perhaps move on to roller blading and cycling again and see how it goes. If there’s improvement, then good. Otherwise, I think I’m screwed.

(MITHI - WE CAN GO TO SOUTHERN RIDGES TO EXPLORE SOON!)

Like, finally.