SKA Alland
SKA Alland

Part of the therapy we’re getting here are all kinds of lessons that are somehow related to obesity or metabolic disorders. Today, for example, we had one about nutrition and one about the effects a large amount of body fat has on the organism.
The „teachers“, mostly physicians or other specialists they have on the staff, are doing their very best to make the time entertaining as well as educational, and I’m happy to say they are doing a pretty good job. Unfortunately, they need to start on a very low level in order to reach out to most of the people here.
I have a very low tolerance for ignorance. Not in the sense that someone fails to be in possession of a certain bit of information. No one knows everything there is to know, and everybody’s education is necessarily full of huge gaps. I’m aware of that. But how can people be morbidly obese for decades – no one gets it surprisingly overnight – and not have the faintest idea of what they’re doing to themselves and how?*
There are people here who need it explained what the basic food groups are! Or why a healthy metabolism is necessary for a healthy body. After all, a high glucose level or blood pressure doesn’t hurt. Neither can they tell, approximately how many calories a bar of chocolate has.
If you’re healthy and don’t know the answers to those questions, don’t worry. In fact, be glad that you never had to learn them. But it’s another thing entirely to remain ignorant of these things while this very ignorance is slowly killing you, or contributing to it. And it’s not even a head-in-the-sand thing. Instead, you hear things like „My wife does all the cooking.“ I’m sorry, I didn’t know guns were dangerous. My wife does all the shooting.

On a happier note, I got a visit from my lovely big sister today. We went to the nearby town of Mödling and even ventured into the dangerous halls of a restaurant, the Casita. I had saved up some 500 calories from my diet over the week and it’s a tapas bar, so the portion sizes fitted my needs. I had three delicious meatballs and some alioli, and I’m certainly going to re-visit when I can actually have a real dinner.

* Maybe at a later date I’ll do a post on habits and addictions and explain why knowing isn’t the same as stopping.

On Friday I was surprisingly called in to see the head physician. Dr. Mario Francesconi appears to be somewhat of an authority when it comes to metabolic disorders, so I was quite thrilled to the the opportunity and meet the man.
Apparently my case is one of the more promising ones, so he made himself available personally to discuss my options. He was very direct as to the chances I have of losing all the excess weight I’m carrying around, which are about zero. I knew that already, although not physician has ever told me that clearly. We had a rather satisfying talk, touching on topics from medication to surgery, as well as the chances and dangers. I’ve been summoned back for a second talk the day before I leave, when we will decide on further measures I could take after I get home.

SKA Alland
SKA Alland

As to therapy, I had half an hour of ergometer training. It showed that I’m used to riding a bike, as I could work with a much stronger resistance than the rest of my group. Seeing others struggle where I’m doing fine helps me seeing myself differently. I’m not the complete wreck I sometimes think I am. Things could be much worse.
One thing I find irritating is that the staff automatically assumes that you have done this before. Even if you ask, you get very little in the way of explanation or introduction. Of course, I keep insisting.
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Finally the pace is picking up a bit. The day didn’t start as early as yesterday, albeit still at a time I like to call the middle of the night. I don’t believe in good mornings any more than I believe in fairies or yetis.
Anyway, breakfast looked a lot better today, even though it wasn’t, really. I seem to get accustomed to the meals, which is a good thing, considering that this is my main goal here.

SKA Alland
SKA Alland

After breakfast I saw my Doctor and we discussed the results I had bled for yesterday. Of course, not all is well, but I don’t have diabetes or anything, which is a great relief. The rest will be better as soon as I’ve got rid of some weight. I’ve already started losing some, so I’m on a path to success. Cross your fingers for me!
After that, I had pool gymnastics. I’m not a big fan of watersports, as a rule of thumb, but I’m determined to make the best of my stay here so I tried to get into it. A lot of the success here depends on the energy you are willing to put into it.
After lunch we met the Chief of Staff and the Managing Director of the house, who explained a bit of what they’re trying to do and why. The most interesting part was that we can get out on Sundays if we get permission from our doctor.
Later in the afternoon I had hay compresses, which help a little with the pain in my knees.
It’s been raining today, so I think if I’m going for a walk later I won’t explore the woods, but stay on paved roads and leave my camera at home.

Today started out at six o’clock (yes, A.M.) with giving blood (lots and lots of it, I was pricked a grand total of seven times). In order to work their magic, the doctors needed me to drink some solution of sugar and God knows what else. At nine we were finally allowed breakfast.
The first meal of the day consisted of one and a half slices of bread with margarine, which I left out, jam, and some yeast-based spread. Additionally, you could have as much vegetables as you like. They had only cucumber and kohlrabi left today, but it seems that was because we were so late. We were also allowed two pieces of fruit.
Between the meals most of us were completely free today, except if we needed any additional checks, which I didn’t. So I seized the opportunity and went back to bed after breakfast. Hey, don’t judge me, remember I had been drained of my life juice practically since midnight.

a typical lunch
Pork chop with a variety of mushrooms and noodles.

In Austria, lunch is usually the biggest meal of the day. As usual, we got our food served to our seats. The staff is competent and friendly, no complaints there. We had some kind of broth with eggs in it, a bowl of salad, a pork chop with mushrooms and noodles, and some kind of yoghurt jelly like substance that tasted faintly of lemon. Quite a normal lunch, just like you could have it at any cafeteria at work.
Still, I’m a bit surprised by the approach they take to the whole eating habits thing. All my life I had been told that dieting was bad, that several small meals a day are better than a few larger ones, and so on. Here they give you the feeling that, yes, you are on a diet (1100 calories!) and that you need to lower you expectations as to the quality as well as the quantity of the food. It’s not that it’s downright disgusting, but you can clearly taste where they left out those additional calories. So far, I’m not sure I will be able too keep it up when I’m out of here.
Since we had nothing special to do all afternoon, we went on another walk.
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Oh, yes, supper will be some bread and cheese. Just about what I would have had anyway, only less of it. After that I will get my schedule for tomorrow. Hopefully things will speed up a little.

SKA Alland, my home for the next three weeks
SKA Alland, my home for the next three weeks

Somewhere in the Vienna Woods, close to small town Alland, there is a rehab clinic that specialises in cases of obesity and diabetes. Since my weight has been exploding lately and my GP was really concerned, I saw no alternative but to check in. So here I am, hoping for a breakthrough.

The first day was close to what I expected. I had to be here before 10AM (actually made it shortly past 8, yay!) for various check-ups, which showed what we already knew. The highlight was a long talk with one of the doctors, who really took the time and listened to my rather long litany of ailments. I don’t think I’ve ever had the opportunity to tell all of them to a physician at once – there just never is the time. And I’m telling you, I’m a wreck!

Together we decided on a set of therapeutic measures I will undergo the next weeks. I’m here until the 8th of November, so there’s plenty of time. A lot of it has got to do with exercise – hiking through the woods, swimming, that kind of stuff. But there are also several therapies for my joints and a session in the kitchen. I’m looking forward to that.

In addition, they’re offering psychotherapy, since problems like mine are rarely purely somatic.

Of course, I also had to pay a visit to the dietician. No surprise there: I’m getting three meals a day, providing a grand total of 1100 calories. Except today, because I had no breakfast, so make that 900 calories. This better work, or I’ll be pissed.

Off we were to lunch, and that was it for the day, except for a 20 minute introduction and welcome speech. There will be another one on Thursday, BTW. I’m saying we, because I already met a few nice people.

That left the afternoon free for me to take a couple pictures. The woods are really beautiful this time of year.
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Happy New Year

I spent New Year’s Eve in the very pleasant company of @blueyedbarb. At midnight we were on Heldenplatz watching the fireworks (and, incidentally, having our ears blown out. God, that was loud!)
I promised to post a few impressions. Here they are.
The fairytale castle in the background is the Rathaus (council house, or city hall).
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As usual, all images are available under a Creative Commons License.
Oh, and whoever you are, you are very welcome to leave a comment.

My Personal Viennale ’10 Programme

Viennale is the annual Vienna film festival, which usually takes up the second half of October. During these days, I spend considerable time in the five festival theatres. It’s a great opportunity to catch a lot of films that I could otherwise never see at all, let alone on the big screen. There are a few mainstream productions shown, but I’m in a habit of steering clear of most of them.

This is my personal programme for 2010. If you would like to meet up, feel free to contact me on facebook, twitter or via mail at squadrat @ this domain (soher.at).

23.10.2010 21:00 – Autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceausescu
24.10.2010 13:00 – The Dubai in Me – Rendering the World
24.10.2010 16:00 – Japan: A Story of Love and Hate
24.10.2010 18:30 – Dansa als esperits
24.10.2010 23:30 – Smash His Camera

26.10.2010 13:30 – American Grindhouse
26.10.2010 18:00 – Die verrückte Welt der Ute Bock
26.10.2010 21:00 – The Forgotten Space
27.10.2010 21:00 – Cuchillo de palo
27.10.2010 23:30 – Bezvucni pad gravitacije

28.10.2010 23:30 – Exit Through the Gift Shop
29.10.2010 23:00 – Marwencol
30.10.2010 01:00 – High School
31.10.2010 13:30 – Los jóvenes muertos

01.11.2010 21:00 – Mein Haus stand in Sulukule
02.11.2010 20:30 – The Pier of Apolonovka

Escape Unicode Characters In Java Strings

I was looking for a code snippet that does that for me but couldn’t find one, especially since native2ascii seems to skip a few characters I need to show. If you’re in a similar situation, feel free to use this:

package at.soher.unicode;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.text.FieldPosition;

public class StringEscape {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        File file = new File("~/file.txt");
        BufferedReader reader = null;
        try {
            reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                new FileInputStream(file), "UTF-16"));
        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        try {
            String line = null;
            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                String[] fields = line.split("[\t]");
                if (fields.length > 1) {
                    StringBuilder newLine = new StringBuilder();
                    newLine.append(fields[0] + " = ");

                    String input = fields[2];
                    StringBuilder dest = new StringBuilder();
                    for (int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++) {
                        if (input.charAt(i) > 127) {
                            dest.append("\\u" + asHex((long) input.charAt(i)));
                        } else {
                            dest.append(input.charAt(i));
                        }
                    }
                    newLine.append(dest);
                    System.out.println(newLine.toString());
                }
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    public static String asHex(long number) {
        String hexString = "0000" + Long.toHexString(number).toUpperCase();
        return hexString.substring(hexString.length() - 4);

    }

}