The nurse was persistent. She reminded me of a Scottish terrier,
which once it finds what it’s looking for, growls at it and
refuses to let go. “Trust me, it’s in your own interests. Every
man should come to see us at least once a year.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it.”
That was like a red rag to a bull. “No, don’t THINK about it.
Just do it.”
Then she hit me with a guilt trip. “You should think yourself
lucky. Many men would be glad of this opportunity! I’ll put you
down for Thursday morning at 9.15.”
There was no arguing with that . . .
So what was all the fuss about? Well, I hadn’t attended my
doctor’s surgery for over a year, so they thought it was time I
was reined in. They run a ‘Well Man’s Clinic’ these days and
they’re very proud of it.
When I got there the nurse was still shaking her head and
‘tut-tutting’ like a mother hen. Again she hit me with her
irrefutable logic. “You put your car in for a check every year,
don’t you? So what’s more important, your body or your car?”
And believe it or not, the ‘overhaul’ was really quite simple.
She asked a few questions, ticked a few boxes, did some routine
tests like checking my blood pressure, then - ouch! - took a
sample of blood from a vein in my left arm.
Not a word of sympathy! I got the distinct impression she’d had
all she could take from men who never think about their health,
but who create a fuss when they walk through the clinic door.
“This will be divided into smaller samples,’” she said
matter-of-factly, “then sent off for analysis.”
The next part really impressed me. The nurse reeled off a whole
list of things that would be tested from that one blood sample:
thyroid activity, glucose levels, PSA level (which measures
prostate activity), cholesterol level, blood count . . . and so
on.
So far, so good. A few days later I was summoned back to the
surgery for the results. I must admit, that day I was more than
a little worried and had to force myself to keep the
appointment. But I came away walking on air!
The results were normal. My blood pressure was as it should be,
there was no sign of diabetes or high cholesterol. All fears had
been groundless. I felt great.
Yet when I reached home, my heart was heavy.
You see, my own Dad died over ten years ago. His was a slow and
painful death from prostate cancer. It deeply affected us all,
but more especially his grandchildren, who adored him.
I’ll never forget the sad look on the face of the consultant as
he told my mother: “If only we’d caught this sooner… It
needn’t have come to this, you know.”
If only, if only …
If only there had been a ‘Well Man’s Clinic’ in my Dad’s day. If
only he’d had the sense to have a medical check up every so
often.
But who am I to criticise? My Dad was a typical man of his
generation: - ignore health problems and they’ll go away!
So what was my excuse? Despite my Dad’s experience, despite the
fact that I want to be here for my own family, for the children
I teach and the ones I write my books for, I had to be
practically dragged, kicking and screaming, for a routine
check-up. Apparently I’m not alone. It would appear there are
millions of men around the globe who HAVE clinics and check- ups
readily available, but who won’t go for a simple ‘physical’.
They’ll wait until problems are far advanced - and in many cases
too far advanced!
Believe me, it feels great to know that your health is fine and
that if any subsequent tests reveal a problem, it will be in the
early stages and can be treated easily and effectively.
I now feel like shouting the good news from the roof tops - but
I’ll have to make do with the internet:
Fellow Dads, get your heads out of the sand! Bite the bullet!
Gather up your courage! Use whatever metaphor or image you like,
but take yourselves down for ‘a physical’ and look after your
health.
Follow the example of our wives and partners, who show sound
common sense when it comes to health matters.
You owe it to yourself.
But more importantly, you owe it to your loved ones …
Happy Parenting!
Fifteen years ago, increasing numbers of people had computers, but their important data consisted of small documents and perhaps a few basic programs. To backup all they needed was several blank floppy discs and a compression utility. Even a “power user” might find themselves with two megabytes of data to preserve.
As we collect more and more important data, our backup needs are growing. Like in the past, we still have easily compressible documents, but bulky multimedia files as well, like videos, graphics and music. Doubtless this kind of data needs protection - the first pictures or a home video of a newborn baby might exist only as binary code on a hard drive. If your hard drive fails and there’s no backup - unlike with traditional film - those digital memories could be lost forever. Nowdays it’s common to find full system backups of hundreds of thousands files, ranging between 30 and 120 gigabytes (GB). The problem is where to store this data.
There are a number of media types available to most computer users for their backup purposes. Many businesses use magneto-optical or large-capacity tape drives for their daily and weekly backups. With very high capacities, these drives are technically impressive, but the media is usually very expensive. The common backup media for home and office includes CD/DVD discs, dedicated internal drives and external hard drives that exist in capacities over one terabyte (1TB) with fast Firewire 800 and USB 2.0 interfaces. Companies like Iomega found little home market success with smaller drives such as the Jaz (1-2GB) and Rev (35GB) series.
Where cost is a priority, a better option for home and small business users is often disc spanning, where cheap blank media can be used to the same effect as a tape or a dedicated drive. The benefits in cost of disc spanning are easily measurable. For a 20GB backup set the cost per gigabyte (CPG) will be as cheap as 33c for a DVD-RW disc, compared with up to $6 per gigabyte for an external hard drive of comparable size. Even for a larger backup of 250GB the optimal cost per gigabyte for external hard drive will be around 80 cents, still twice more than for a DVD-RW disc. A large internal drive can have a similar cost to a DVD-RW disc, but unless you make enough backup sets to fill it, your excess disk space is effectively wasted. In this sense, disc spanning is an attractive and economical option.
This table summarizes the cost per gigabyte for different types of storage media and various backup sets: http://www.softwaretalks.com/files/cpg.gif.
Moreover, disc spanning is simple. All you need is to choose the files, obtain some blank discs, and a good backup program will inform you of the total size, and how many media units are required for backup. Since a CD/DVD writing drive became a part of a basic PC configuration, you don’t need to fiddle around switching external devices, adding hard discs, installing drivers and playing other “hardware games”. The ability to store your backups on discs offsite is also a major advantage.
Not only is disc spanning a cheap, simple and flexible backup method, but it is also one of the most reliable backup forms today. Modern optical storage media has a shelf life of at least 30 years and some manufacturers even offer 100 year guarantees. Compared to an average lifespan of 5-7 years for hard drives and up to 20 years for a magnetic tape, optical discs are very long-lived. Disc spanning makes it possible that our backups will outlive ourselves.
Finally, this backup method continues to gain popularity as technology develops. Next-generation forms of blue-laser discs using organic dyes, such as the Sony Blu-ray format (between 23GB and 54GB) and Toshiba’s HD-DVD, will further reduce the cost of removable media, meaning that inexpensive and simple backups are within the reach of everyone.
http://www.softwaretalks.com/disc-spanning
Like most parents, I try to do everything to get my children ready for school each year: Register them, pay fees, buy school supplies and new clothes, check out their new classroom, and talk with them about how much fun the upcoming school year will be. It seems like we should be all set - except for my usual worries about how good of a “homework coach” I will be during the year, trying to help my children be successful in school and enjoy life-long learning.
As parents, we often approach our children’s school performance and school success with anxiety and tension. We want our children to succeed so they feel happy about their accomplishments and have better opportunities in the future. But we also have the nagging feeling that if our child doesn’t do well in school, it will reflect poorly on us as parents. We feel pressured to make sure they DO succeed. Often, with the best of intentions, we end up using exactly the wrong strategies:
Nagging and Lecturing
Parents usually don’t start nagging children about homework and study habits until there is a problem (e.g., being sloppy with homework, or not wanting to do homework at all). Nagging only makes the problem worse because your child will either get angry at you or tune you out. Instead, try to problem-solve together with your child. Ask them to come up with several ideas on their own for how to improve this situation. Brainstorm about how to make homework more fun. Try out at least one of their ideas and discuss how it worked.
Taking Over
You don’t trust your child to get things done right, so you tell them what to do, when and how. This may work in the short run but doesn’t teach children to become independent learners who take responsibility for their work. Instead of taking over, help your child figure out what they need to do by asking questions: “What will you do? When will you do it? How will I know? How do you want me to hold you accountable for this?”
Focusing on the Future Benefits of School
As parents, we know how important a good education will be later in life. Just don’t expect your children to be motivated by this idea; they are more focused on the here and now and give little thought to the future. To motivate them, focus on the immediate benefits of learning (having fun, developing new skills, and ability to play team sports in school if grades are good.)
Leaving Homework for the End of the Day
If homework is scheduled too late in the evening, with only bedtime to follow and no time to play, children won’t be motivated to be efficient, and also won’t want to go to bed since they haven’t had any fun yet. Increase your children’s motivation to complete homework by giving them something to look forward to afterwards. Favorite TV shows, videogames, talking on the phone, or having a special snack are all great rewards after homework is completed, and may provide the extra incentive your child needs to get through a boring and tedious task.
Insisting on Long Study Sessions
“You will sit here until all your homework is done” - this can feel overwhelming to children and create resistance, resulting in conflict. Instead, schedule 10-15 minutes of study time, followed by a 5-min. break, then another 15 minutes of study. Repeat as often as necessary to complete homework. Children actually get more done that way.
Grounding Children for Missed Assignments and Poor Grades
This is not effective for helping them do better in the future. Instead, use problem solving (”What would help you do better next time?”), offer support, and give them incentives for good performance (extra privileges, special rewards).
Not Communicating With Teachers
This means two-way communication: Let the teacher know early on how they can best support your child’s learning (how does your child learn best?) -then ask the teacher periodically, “What’s the best thing I can do to help my child with this subject at home?” Don’t wait until parent-teacher conferences to find out how your child is doing, or what kinds of problems need to be corrected.
Overfocusing on Grades and Test Scores
When children get the message that grades are all that counts, they quickly lose interest in the process of discovery and learning, and instead focus only on the outcome. If they can’t achieve the expected grade or score, they end up feeling bad which usually does not increase their motivation to do better. Children also need to hear from us that success comes in many forms. Some students will excel in sports, drama, music, or art; some develop excellent leadership skills, good citizenship, become peer mediators, or relate well to animals. Whatever your child’s strengths are, be sure you focus on those talents more than you focus on their grades.
Sticking Only to the Curriculum
As long as children learn what’s expected of them in school, that’s good enough, right? Chances are that this year’s school curriculum doesn’t exactly match his or her own interests and curiosity (maybe they are into whales and sharks, space travel, jungle life, airplanes, etc). Encourage children’s natural love for learning by asking, “If you could learn about anything you wanted to, what would you like to learn?” - then provide them with books, videos, trips to museums, and (most importantly) adult conversations about those topics.
Not Modeling Life-Long Learning
Do your children see you interested and enthusiastic about learning, studying, and achieving? Do you read books at home? Go to museums? Look things up? Talk about new ideas? Remember that our children are always watching what we are doing.
Dr. Karin Suesser, PhD, is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin (http://www.dollandassociates.com). She provides therapy and assessment for children (ages 1-18) and their families, as well as for adults and couples. She specializes in helping individuals find effective solutions to emotional, behavioral, or life transition concerns. Her areas of expertise include anxiety issues, ADHD, aggressive and disruptive behaviors, depression, trauma and abuse issues, academic/career concerns, parenting issues, relationship and sexual issues. She also provides professional coaching to individuals to help them achieve their goals, enhance their performance, and live a more deeply meaningful life.
