A delicious flat white using some Jamaican Blue Mountain beans that arrived unexpectedly today.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Insomnia
Rather embarrassingly it's been a fair while since I've visited the site, let alone blogged. I'm afraid a certain 140-character orientated micro-blogging upstart has lured me away from my first love. It's amazing what a bout of insomnia can inspire though...fidelity!
The corollary to insomnia in the modern world is the app store - a labyrinthine collection of the sublime and trivial. It's through the app store that I stumbled upon the Blogger app and this latest blog entry is courtesy of the newly downloaded gem.
A similar (albeit thankfully rare) bout of insomnia in a pre-iPhone, pre-app store, pre-blogger world may have rendered me bleary eyed and incomprehensible yet this most recent encounter with the world of the wide-eyed has been strangely satisfying!
The corollary to insomnia in the modern world is the app store - a labyrinthine collection of the sublime and trivial. It's through the app store that I stumbled upon the Blogger app and this latest blog entry is courtesy of the newly downloaded gem.
A similar (albeit thankfully rare) bout of insomnia in a pre-iPhone, pre-app store, pre-blogger world may have rendered me bleary eyed and incomprehensible yet this most recent encounter with the world of the wide-eyed has been strangely satisfying!
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Depression - lost in translation
I've developed an unhealthy obsession with trying to compile a list of words/phrases in South East Asian languages that helps capture the essence of depression. A previous post on Begum Syndrome, touched on language and cultural barriers to interpreting and understanding complex symptom clusters and subsequently conveying a presumed diagnosis of low mood.
Drawing on my East African Asian heritage I discovered that the term often used in my community to describe depression is munjaro - a Swahili word which translates as cobweb - perhaps perfectly capturing the clouded perception and thinking that can take hold with clinical depression. However, in its original usage it was probably applied more to long term psychosis rather than the more subtle but equally pervasive depression.
If the Queen spoke Gujarati she might describe depression as manshik udashinta which I suspect may correlate with it's Urdu equivalent udasi (sadness) which doesn't really hit the spot.
Tellingly, the Royal College of Psychiatrists' patient info leaflet on depression (in Urdu) merely transliterates depression.
Has anyone had any success in coining an appropriate phrase? Which other languages pose a similar challenge?
[First posted here at doc2doc]
Drawing on my East African Asian heritage I discovered that the term often used in my community to describe depression is munjaro - a Swahili word which translates as cobweb - perhaps perfectly capturing the clouded perception and thinking that can take hold with clinical depression. However, in its original usage it was probably applied more to long term psychosis rather than the more subtle but equally pervasive depression.
If the Queen spoke Gujarati she might describe depression as manshik udashinta which I suspect may correlate with it's Urdu equivalent udasi (sadness) which doesn't really hit the spot.
Tellingly, the Royal College of Psychiatrists' patient info leaflet on depression (in Urdu) merely transliterates depression.
Has anyone had any success in coining an appropriate phrase? Which other languages pose a similar challenge?
[First posted here at doc2doc]
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Even more delicious
If, like me, you use del.icio.us to record your online reading while you work and your appraisal is approaching, you're probably wondering what's the best way to export your learning record into your appraisal portfolio. This entry will show you how to generate a neat, dated, pdf of all that browsing you do that so often goes unrecognised! Read on here.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
ALT
Tired All The Time since returning from Afghanistan
Running late because of a codebase error
Difficulty expressing myself in English
Difficulty understanding his English
Walking away clutching a form for some blood tests
Baseline bloods should reveal anything serious
Reading a letter from my doctor. In English.
A raised ALT and γGT – come and see me at your earliest convenience
Walking away clutching a form for more blood tests
I didn’t realise he’d lost his son
Another letter from my doctor. In English.
Have you ever used drugs? Any tattoos?
I can’t believe I’m crying
I can’t believe he’s dying
By Tauseef Mehrali
Top 300 entries for the 2010 International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine
Running late because of a codebase error
Difficulty expressing myself in English
Difficulty understanding his English
Walking away clutching a form for some blood tests
Baseline bloods should reveal anything serious
Reading a letter from my doctor. In English.
A raised ALT and γGT – come and see me at your earliest convenience
Walking away clutching a form for more blood tests
I didn’t realise he’d lost his son
Another letter from my doctor. In English.
Have you ever used drugs? Any tattoos?
I can’t believe I’m crying
I can’t believe he’s dying
By Tauseef Mehrali
Top 300 entries for the 2010 International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
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