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Mike
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wish I was computer savvy like you... the only thing I know how to do on my laptop is turn it on and off and put a cd in it Laughing

Glad you managed to get it all up and running tho.
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Reenie
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Joined: 08 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 12:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

George wrote:
What no Vista Shocked Laughing

Still too new, Mike. I'll wait for them to get the bugs out of it.

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Susan



Joined: 27 Jun 2008
Posts: 79
Location: Cardiff

PostPosted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Reenie wrote:
Bozric lives! This is the first meaningful thing I've done with him - post on tzone. I haven't fettled Adblock yet and I didn't realise there was so much advertising crap all over the forum.

Well soon say bye-bye to that...

He's running Win2K Pro for the time being. I'll upgrade to Win XP Pro when I've fettled the hardware.


There's advertising on the forum?! <3 Adblock Very Happy

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Reenie
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 4:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I went to the last of my voice therapy sessions yesterday. My therapist said she'd be writing to the Sandyford to remark on the good progress that I've made.

I mentioned to her that I was still getting read and people were calling me "sir", and on the phone too.

She was insistent that I wasn't giving out any definite gender signals and that perhaps I should dress in a more feminine manner.

Not until I've got rid of my five o'clock shadow. That's the next target.

I'm off to the Sandyford on Tuesday and I have an endo appointment at the end of August. This is the important one. He'll have the results of my blood tests and hopefully a new regimen lined up. I suspect that I have significant amounts of testoterone still working in my system. My body fat distribution is somewhere between male and female at the moment. I was examining my receded hairline the other day and there's a covering of very fine hairs in front of it. I wonder if they'll grow back properly. That'd be a bonus.

I'm not pinning my hopes on any of it, still it's nice to know that I have that appointment in the near future, just days before my 3rd Reeniversary.

I left my voice appointment yesterday in high spirits and popped into a hobby shop just down the road for a look 'round. Mum threw out the last of my Airfix models not so long ago and that was a hard one to take. They were works of art that I'd put together in my teens - gone forever now. Anyway, I bought an Airfix 1:72 Hawker Sea Fury while I was in there which can be decorated with the markings of the Fleet Air Arm's Historic Flight which is based at Yeovilton, my old stomping ground.

Just to take the edge off of my good mood, the shopkeeper "sirred" me to death. I had to suffer the S-word as often as three times a sentence. I might just wear a blouse and skirt on my next visit.

Later in the day, I went down to Rutherglen where I'd spied a large American convertible in a car showroom. I didn't know what it was until I got close to it. The fellow in the showroom was happy to let me take photographs and didn't call me sir.

'59 Ford Galaxie in pristine condition >>

Chrome monster >>

A further stroll brought me to Tesco in Dalmarnock. It's new and it's huge. It might be even bigger than the Asda at Toryglen. I paced it out. It took 85 seconds to walk one end to the other. At 4mph, thats 150m ('scuse mixed metric and imperial units) or in simple terms, a football pitch-and-a-half. It sells everything from pins to elephants. It's certainly a haystack with a lot of needles in it. Took me ages to find the batteries that I wanted.

This post is a day late because I'm bogged down with my computers. Bozric is happily running Win XP Pro SP3 and I've removed much of my photography files from Harris. Harris has a partitioned drive so I can install a Linux OS on there at some date in the near future.

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carrie



Joined: 15 Mar 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 5:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Reenie wrote:
I went to the last of my voice therapy sessions yesterday. My therapist said she'd be writing to the Sandyford to remark on the good progress that I've made.


It's go to hear that you have made good progress with your voice Cool

Havent got any good tips or advice you could give me to help me with changing my voice?
The way i stop others from calling me sir, is to not say anything to anyone Rolling Eyes just makes it a bit easier on me
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PurplePrincess
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Joined: 08 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I hope you don't mind me invading your blog for a second Reenie.

carrie wrote:
Havent got any good tips or advice you could give me to help me with changing my voice?
The way i stop others from calling me sir, is to not say anything to anyone Rolling Eyes just makes it a bit easier on me
Awww, I havn't had any speech therapy, I taught myself from information on the web and I have no problems on the phone or otherwise. The site I used mostly for tips isn't going any more but there are quite a few sites. Some will try to sell you a DVD or CD but also most of them have some good tips.

A quick search revealed these two sites but there are many more.
http://heartcorps.com/journeys/voice.htm
http://indigo.ie/%7Eprospero/html/voice.htm


Also our very own transgenderzone library has this article with tips.
http://www.transgenderzone.com/library/uz/9.htm

Feel free to PM me or add me to MSN and I can tell you the things that personally helped me.

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Reenie
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 7:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

PurplePrincess wrote:
I hope you don't mind me invading your blog for a second Reenie.

Nae bother, Chrissy! Smile

I'll have a look at those sites later. Meantime...

carrie wrote:
Havent got any good tips or advice you could give me to help me with changing my voice?

Yes. Get an appointment at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary's speech therapy department.

I went for six sessions with my therapist and she explained all about how the voice works. Essentially it is a musical instrument and a complex one at that. Everything from your respiratory system to the acoustics of your skull play a part in defining how you sound and the better you understand this, the more able you will be to take control of how you sound.

These sessions reminded me very much of the piano lessons that I had as a child. I'd chatter away and the therapist would stop me from time to time and explain what I was doing and how I could improve.

You shouldn't stress your vocal chords as you will damage them. You have a natural range and you need to stay within it. There are certain notes that I can't play on my guitar and if I tried to reach them by bending the strings, I'd break them. Same applies to the vocal chords.

Smoke and alcohol will also damage them. We're all familiar with the old bag who has drunk and smoked too much down the years and now sounds like Lemmy.

The typical male range overlaps with the typical female range, so if you can become accustomed to talking at the higher end of the range, then this will serve you well. I used to speak at the lower end and sounded like James May (as well as looking like him...)

With practice, it has become second nature to talk at the upper end of my range. My pitch is now much the same as Fiona Bruce, BBC newsreader. Her voice is noticeably lower than a typical female voice. She's on BBC1 tonight at 6.00pm, I believe.

I don't sound like her, though, so I've still got some work to do.

Don't try and sound like Minnie Mouse. Not cool if you're 6'0" and 14 stone like Auntie Reenie.

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SkaalFa



Joined: 26 Mar 2008
Posts: 110
Location: Kilmacolm, Scotland

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 7:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Yes. Get an appointment at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary's speech therapy department.


That easy? And I'm assuming it's covered by the NHS? Because I sound about as manly as you can get Sad Doesn't help that I have throat problems anyway.
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Reenie
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 8:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

SkaalFa wrote:
Quote:
Yes. Get an appointment at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary's speech therapy department.


That easy?

It was, I think, my December meeting when I asked Dr Carr if she could refer me for some speech therapy. She said yes, and I had an appointment card through the post a couple of weeks later.

I had an initial assessment in January and then six sessions starting in April. The NHS pays for it. Don't worry about how you sound now. That's the whole point. If you sounded good now, you wouldn't need it, would you? Smile

The speech therapy department usually deals with pronounced stutterers or those who are recovering from a stroke. I doubt you'll present them with much of a challenge.

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Reenie
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 7:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yesterday I started this thread:

Endocrinology - Western Infirmary Glasgow >>

Simply put, I received a letter from the Western Infirmary informing me that "due to unforeseen circumstances" my next endo appointment had been put back two months from August 28th to October 23rd, because Dr McLellan had decided to take his annual leave that week.

I was livid. There were tears, of course, before the anger kicked in and had the neds been trashing the bus shelter out the front, in all probability, I'd have worked the lump hammer into them. I felt like getting pissed, but the urge soon passed. Thank god I'm on HRT or the consequences would have been unthinkable.

When I'd calmed to a moderately incandescent mood, I phoned the number given on the letter. No reply. Same with the second number.

I know the Western Infirmary's switchboard number so it didn't take long to get through to endocrinology.

The girl on the other end found herself "up before the beak", so to speak.

"Do you mean to tell me that Doctor McLellan is the only endocrinologist in the whole of Glasgow?"

"Er, no, of course not."

With that, she gave me a revised appointment of October 2nd. I felt like I was upbraiding her for not doing her homework. If I'd been doing it on someone else's behalf it would have been fun.

She understood that it was her misfortune to be in the firing line and we ended the conversation in a civil manner. It wasn't like the time last year when I blew Prudential apart and got nowhere in the process...

I phoned the Sandyford after lunch and told Dr Carr's secretary the story. I shall be in on Tuesday for a regular meeting and I'll discuss the Western Infirmary's inept administration while I'm there.

When I met Dr McLellan he expressed sorrow at the number of transwomen who take their own lives. His conduct on that occasion suggests that he probably had no part in the cancellation of my appointment. My GP knows him and recommended him to me as someone who is thoroughly professional and so he proved to be.

There's nothing more to do about the matter until Tuesday.

I have a GP's appointment on Wednesday and I'm going to discuss anti-androgens with her. I'll see if I can wangle some more cyproterone acetate to tide me over for the next two months. I can assure you all that I do not expect my next endo appointment to happen until i'm actually sat in the endo's office.

Later on, I went to Sainsbury's. My route takes me across a green between two rows of houses where there is often a gang of young girls, aged 3-10 roughly, who play there until mid-evening.

On the way back, they called across the green to me in a sing-song fashion: "Are you a man or are you a woman?" and kept repeating this mantra until I was out of view. It sounded innocent enough.

This was inevitable, I suppose. The five o'clock shadow is obvious enough and with the summer weather and only a t-shirt on top, my boobs are obvious too. I told them I was the wardrobe monster, which had them giggling...

Time I had some foundaton and concealer, though.

Mr Inbetweenie is wearing a little thin

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Reenie
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 1:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Reenie wrote:
Time I had some foundaton and concealer, though.

I must have been in Boots for an hour and a half this morning as a young, enthusiastic lady gave me an introduction to exfoliants, moisturiser, foundation and a few other things. She relieved me of near forty pounds for some goodies, but did throw in a lot of freebies. She even wrote it all down.

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Ren
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 3:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry to hear about the Endo appt Reenie, it's awful when it happens Sad

£40, thats not too bad! I remember my first proper makeup shop, made the mistake of bringing a friend who assured me i would need everything on her list. Let's just say a fair chunk of my wages were spent that day Wink

Good luck with the appts!

Love and a Successful Day of Shopping

Ren
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Reenie
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 5:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"You look like a man today."

"Oh, thank you very much Sad"

"Well, are you a man or a woman?"

"What do you think?"

"Man!"

I shook my head, smiled and walked away to Sainsbury's. Now they know.

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Reenie
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 3:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I found just what I was looking for in Maplin's earlier: anti-vibration screws with rubber washers for hard drives and cd-rom drives.

I've brought this serendipitous find back to Reenie Towers and reseated Bozric's hard drives and DVD-writer. He's as quiet as the grave now.

The vibrations were getting so bad these last few days, I thought I might have to rename him Buzzric.

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Reenie
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 3:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I woke up this morning and the day turned to shit before I had even hit the deck: cramp laid into my right calf as I had a good stretch and yawn. I haven't had this for some months; why did it have to happen on the day I'm due at the Sandyford drop-in clinic?

I got out of bed and put plenty of Transvasin on the offending muscle and headed for the shower. I had a very close shave and set about putting my face on. It's only the second time, and this time I had to be somewhere at a certain time. What with loading Herbie up with all the bits and bobs, it took me two hours to get out the door.

I arrived at the Sandyford just before 9:00am and booked in. I didn't have to wait long and spent half an hour or so with Dr Gerber who I'd not seen before. I spent most of the time acquainting him with my circumstances, though I did get a chance to air my disappointment with the Western General for cancelling my endo appointment.

I told him that I didn't trust the Western General and I wouldn't count on any future appointment that they might give me until I was sat in Dr McLellan's office. Then I told him that I proposed to talk to my GP about prescribing an increased dose of anti-androgens. He suggested that I consult with Dr McLellan, but I reiterated my previous point and made it clear to him that I research my subject and discuss my findings with my GP before proceeding.

I made it clear that I am captain of my ship and he didn't take long to agree with my point of view: "I'll be happy to support your decision..."

All I need to do now is see if my GP will prescribe my smarties. If not, I can get them from the internet.

On the way home, I met a fellow who I know from another forum but had not met in person before (he'd recognised me from my avatar while I was in the library) and we chatted a while before heading our separate ways. I felt better for that.

I picked up a copy of Extreme's latest CD from FOPP and made my way home via Sainsbury's. The old boy on the checkout always calls me "sir"; I guess he's rather old school. Today he didn't and his attitude was a good deal more relaxed than usual. He didn't call me madam, either, but I guess the war-paint is doing its job.

I have physio tomorrow. My knee has recovered, so I'll get her to look at my calf rather than cancel the appointment.

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