How are you feeling right now? I am feeling really relieved right now. Yesterday I went for an appointment at the hospital regarding my prostate. My previous blood test had shown enough of a spike for my Doctor to refer me for possible early cancer. I had been for a second blood test to check […]
A Weight off my Mind
Here’s an opportunity to share two things. First some really good news and second some really good advice.
First the Urology consultant told me that my PSA was now low enough for me to be removed from the list for regular appointments! I now just need to have a yearly test and be referred if it spikes again. To say I am happy and relieved is an understatement.
Second, the advice. One of the main reasons we don’t have a national screening programme is that the PSA test can be unreliable for a number of reasons. (Despite this, I still think it’s worth rolling out to every man above the age of 50.) To give the most reliable readings you should implement the following for a week prior to the test
- No ejaculation
- No cycling or horse riding
- Do not test if you suspect or know that you have had a UTI
- You must also tell your doctor if you are taking any hormone treatments or finasteride or dutasteride to deal with enlarged prostate or hair loss. These drugs will lead to an increased PSA reading.
Follow those for a week beforehand and you will have the most accurate possible reading. Oh, and don’t put it off any longer than a year. Make sure you keep an eye on your PSA as the earlier it’s caught the better.
Share a hobby you’ve picked up recently — what got you into it?
Slight caveat here, this is actually a hobby I picked up 497 days ago but it counts as my most recent! You’re probably thinking that’s a very precise measure of the length of time and you would be absolutely right. However, it’s hard to miss as every time I look at my home screen the Duolingo streak is at the top left corner.
I picked up language learning again for a very specific reason, my trip to Austria. I hate being the typical British tourist, expecting my native language to be understood around the world and making no effort to learn at least the basics. In Austria the language spoken is German so I spent about 20 weeks or so trying to cram in as much as I could on Duolingo. To be fair to myself I could get around the city of Salzburg and exchange the basic pleasantries or questions and get us served in a shop or restaurant. I just wish I could have done more.
Now, I could have stuck with one language and just let it be a more academic process, and I did try. The problem was that I didn’t retain the focus because I wasn’t sure if or when I would go to a German speaking country again. I decided to add Japanese to vary things. We are planning a trip to Japan but probably not for another couple of years at least. Japanese, though, is something of a sore point. When I went over there I had a wife and two children as well as a full time job to focus on and the pressure from all sides was intense. I ended up with a very basic and functional level of Japanese which, I found out at the end of my second year, was regarded as an indication of laziness and lack of respect by my colleagues in the schools and head office connected to the JET programme. Nothing could be further from the truth and it meant that I ended up resentful in my third year, staying to earn as much money as possible and pretty much ignoring them. I can’t tell if I want to atone or to stick two fingers up at them metaphorically speaking when I go back! I suspect it’s the latter!
A few weeks back I found myself adding a third language! My daughter announced that I was going to Poland with her, her sister and her brother! We are going to Krakow in October and now Polish has been added to my Duolingo portfolio. It is, without doubt, the most difficult language I have tried to learn so far. The pronunciation is incredibly difficult, as nothing is phonetic in any identifiable way, and the words themselves will not stick in my head at all. I am looking at my current seven week deadline for the trip and thinking that there’s no way I can possibly learn or retain anything useful. If nothing else it’s a very useful insight into a language learning experience for someone who is an EAP teacher!
When I am in charge of the timescale I will be able to learn at a more relaxed pace and I will phase Swedish in sometime next year with a proposed trip in 2028! Wish me luck 🙏
What’s the weirdest coincidence you’ve ever experienced?
I have written before about the human need to impose patterns on the world and our lives. The idea of coincidence is a very good example of this. This tendency to see patterns was an evolutionary advantage to us when we lived in the wild. For example, a tree or bush rustling could be a breeze but it could be a sabre tooth tiger. If we took notice of it and ran, and it turned out to be a breeze, it would not inconvenience us, but if we ignored it and it turned out to be a sabre tooth tiger we would end up dead. So, it made sense to look for patterns in everything and that has stayed with us even if sabre tooth tiger attacks are now much rarer!
A coincidence can be any two unrelated events. In a world of billions of different events every day the potential of two events seeming to be coincidental is actually quite high. The important element is that they appear to be an improbable conjunction of those events. For example, you think of a friend for the first time in a while and they suddenly message you. Your brain immediately connects the two events but ignores the many hundreds of times that you thought of that same friend and they didn’t message you. This connection is seen by your pattern seeking brain as profound and important, a process known as confirmation bias. The psychologist Carl Jung saw this as an expression of your subconscious mind and called this phenomenon synchronicity. To him it simply reflected what was going on in your life and what you considered to be important in some way.
So, next time you see a coincidence, however improbable and therefore significant it may seem, remember that it is your brain playing tricks on you within the random chaos that is everyday life. However, don’t ignore the underlying message as that is what it actually wants you to concentrate on.
As a child I read and thoroughly enjoyed The Hobbit. It was an adventure story with an appealing hero and I was in a period of time where fantasy was my favourite genre. When I got the Lord of the Rings in an omnibus edition at the age of 12, I wasn’t immediately put off by the size of the book, because I knew I’d enjoy it. So, I opened it up, eager to find out what happened to Bilbo after his adventures in The Hobbit. What actually happened was that I was thoroughly bored by the first chapter and I ended up putting it to one side after I had read about 60 pages of a possible 1000 or so!
I was well into my late teens when I tried the book again and this time I felt ready for it. I rationalised my previous inability to get out of the Shire by pointing to the fact that I wasn’t old enough to appreciate the writing. So, once again I opened it up, eager to find out what was going to happen to Bilbo. Yet again I ground to a halt around page 60, once again I failed to get out of the Shire! I ended up never going back to it, and I was sure of my decision after taking my oldest son to see all three films. They bored me for the entirety of the 10 hours they took to watch and I have never returned to Tolkien’s world since. My son became a huge fan of everything to do with Lord of the Rings and I am glad I introduced him to the books and films, but for me my visits to Middle Earth are over. I still think about a book I failed to get through twice, but I really don’t see it as being third time lucky!
Which fictional world would be the most fun to vacation in?
There are two choices for me, the world of Narnia from my childhood reading or the world of Harry Potter that I shared with my children. I instinctively want to go back to the fantasy world of my own childhood as it brought me comfort when I needed it.
Narnia is a world of talking animals which we first encounter in The Magician’s Nephew when Aslan the lion brings it to life. We then revisit it at various points in it’s history finally witnessing it’s end. If I had to choose a time to visit it, I would choose the time of The Horse and His Boy set in Calormen.
Now, to modern eyes the setting with it’s Middle Eastern flavour and the way that those of darker skin are not to be trusted is troubling, perhaps more so because of the revival of such attitudes in mainstream politics across the world. However, it was to C S Lewis, in all likelihood, merely a useful way for the reader to differentiate between good and bad. Anyway, the era of The Horse and His Boy is the time that the Pevensie children have been on their thrones in Cair Paravel for a number of years and are now adults. It is a time of peace and happiness in Narnia itself even if Calormen and Archenland are at war.
Narnia at the time of the book is still a relatively young country and one where the Witch Jadis has been defeated and banished. The talking animals are now free from fear and have the run of the country as equals to the humans that share it. There are once again four seasons as the Witch no longer makes it always Winter and never Christmas. Fauns like Mr Tumnus are once again free to live their lives without threat. It’s not the idyllic setting of the newly created world, but the setting of a world at peace and ready for exploration by the occasional tourist.
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 