The story of my life wouldn’t be completely told if I didn’t mention this health problem which plagued my life for the last 15 years. So it’s going to be a bit grim, but it needs to be written.

It started innocuously and slowly worsened over the year. It started with reduced sexual drive, then excessive sweating without cause, then dandruff, then heat flushes, then burning painful red limbs, then headache. And it evolved from casual to permanent.

That was bad. And I had no clues as to what’s going on. Neither had the numerous doctor I visited.

At the time when I was in Paris (France) it became too hard to maintain a normal life, and I was hopping to just die alone. To go along with this plan I decided to go in Australia. OK, it sounds far fetched, but hey, I was born there and it turns out I had an Australian passport waiting for me and this is as far from my known world of the time (France) as possible. Plus my sister was there, so I was not really that adventurous…

Good that I did! To make a long story short, going to Australia started a chain of events which brought some valuable understanding about my problem (it took about 3 years to sort it out with reasonable certitude).
Plus I also met many cool people and saw many part of the World (Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, New Caledonia and, in Australia, Sydney, Brisbane and Darwin).

It turns out that something with car pollution is inflicting on me some sort of painful reaction. I suspect it is petrol fumes that caused it although, some bleak time, I fear it might just be tiny rubber peace (from the tires)(It’s bleak because electric won’t save me then). Anyway, busy road, big town, cities, all harm me rather quickly, like if they inflict me some wounds. But if I stay in the wild for a big while I recover. Over time I became really too ultra over sensitive and I really have to go in some really small village to feel well now.
Although… I also found some relaxation techniques which improve my condition a little.
And when I’m very well (after 1 month in the bush for example) I can cope with city life without trouble for a few days.
And water sport helps as well, I should thanks Australia for its surfing culture then!

Also there are some extra aggravating factor like temperature, exercise, video games (yes, you read that well, I found that strange too, but it’s unfortunately experimentally true, maybe because of Adrenaline), etc…

Anyway, as I haven’t told yet, despite that, I managed to have a rather successful career as a computer programmer. Slowly evolving my career toward a specialization in the latest and greatest .NET technologies by Microsoft. Mostly doing desktop application development (as opposed to web development).
By the way, it might be a good time to digress even more, and mention I didn’t study IT, but physics, almost got a PhD.

So with all these element to think of, I was trying to find an IT job in some small village on the Australian coast. Without much success and great sadness I was about to go to Ireland, which seemed to be a good move for my career and health, but a rather sad one (well it’s cold and rainy over there, you know! plus there isn’t all those cute Australian girls with their multiple racial origin).

Fortunately for me, at the last moment (well, 1 week before the last moment) I found an interesting looking job in Darwin. There is about 100.000 people in Darwin.
Unfortunately this was not good enough, health is still not good (although that depends, some days it is, in fact it’s on the edge of good and not good). But this was a very interesting experience nonetheless.

As it was still not good (but much more bearable) I kept looking patiently and one day I found it: the perfect job in the perfect location!
It’s in Billinudgel, not far from Byron Bay, 1h30 south of Brisbane (where I have many friends). It’s in a small village (unfortunately along the highway, ha, I suppose It will be ok). And it’s an interesting .NET job, the employees are all ex scientist, the application features many mind boggling logistics algorithms and actually do save the livelihood of some people (Sugar cane farmers for the moment). It’s going to be good!….

Now on a latest note, despite the grim picture of my life as shown above, I managed to have many great fun friends in Brisbane (and Darwin as well for that matter), it’s going to be party time! And there are few cool girls that I like who seems to like me too as well, I found that amazing sometimes but hey, if that pleases them, I will capture one this time!
Time will tell if I manage to import one in Billinudgel!… but now at least I could try that’s a great and pleasant improvement I’m looking forward to!

Another cool thing happening right now (relating to my health), is the ever increasing petrol prices. Which is a big push towards the soon to be mass marketed hybrid / electric cars (in 2010, or so they say), so I hope that in a few year the doors of the world would be once again open to me. Car makers sure looks like working on it like crazy!
Speaking of which, if everything goes well, I plan to buy a GM Volt car around 2012.