My life's Adventure

Even with more work and studies I seem to find time to relax.

Even with the pressure of getting work done at home I seem to take a fair amount of time off to organise my work and also surf the net for relaxation. I find when I am surfing the net that I will do a fair amount of research on web sites or journals articles. This really helps my school work. I also chat for support with day to day issues with strangers. Being an older middle aged Internet user this is not that much of a threat or risk. I do find chats to be verbally abusive at times but this is par for the course when your dealing with life's more serious issues like mental health and addictions. I am enjoying reading Stanton Peele's The Diseasing of America these past two days. I am up to date and on top of the writing for my law courses. I am catching up on my math work and should be ok for my paid math work this week. Another thing about relaxing on the computer is that I can mix in some statistical software lab prepartation. I think I will ask my brother and father for some help getting some of this statistical software for my own home use.

My friend is chatting with me on the phone

I up for a night shift tomorrow night. That means I am also on night shift clock tonight. I hope to mark some papers tonight but am just relaxing on the computers and chatting with a friend on the phone. It is nearing midnight here.

I bought an PCMCIA ethernet card on ebay

My computer hobby is still costing me money. I bid on ethernet card on ebay and won it. The seller is from Brooklyn, New York.

Reached a goal with my marking work

I reached a goal with my marking work at about 12:40 AM. I had planned to reach this goal days ago. I need to up the amount of marking I am doing.

I had a new experience at school tonight. I gave a test for 120 students. I had never handled a class this big. There were no incidents. I was professional. It took about two hours.

I am working on newspaper delivery in about three hours. I need to mark some more until then. I am working a night shift on Sunday night then I have a volunteer board of directors meeting Monday afternoon. I did not volunteer to meet with the minister yesterday after all.

Small Press book fair tomorrow.

I just called my wife's publisher to do the last minute details for the Small Press book fair tomorrow. He has paid for the table. We should be there at 11 am tomorrow morning but it is ok if we are a little late. I may leave my wife there and leave the fair early. It should be a good relaxing time though and social. I might be able to pick up some interesting books art or digital books or art. I should budget a little spending money for lunch too.

Writing coming along fine

My school writing is coming along fine. I got about 6 pages written in the 60 page paper. This paper is on computer crime.

I have a lab to do today. I will be programming in MATLAB. I skipped out on meeting with the Minister today. I have to proctor a test tonight. I actually enjoy being at school late Friday nights. It is better than being drunk in a loud bar. I might end the evening after the test in the library. Our school library is open late. I should be reading some more books on drug laws. I think I'll post this now and search for some books on the library web site before going to school for the lab.

Big grocery shop

We are doing some grocerys today. We get one of our parents to drive us to the store as we don't have a car. This is one strategy. Another strategy we use is many small shoppings. Today we will stock up for two weeks. We actually only buy veggies though for three planned meals. Pasta, Kraft dinner, and tofu rice dishes are not planned for but happen as needed.

Taking a little down time

The concept of down time comes from computing I think. I did work yesterday for two hours. I gave some help to students in their scheduled lab times. I also worked on their review problems at a computer using Minitab and SAS. I also got some of my homework done using MATLAB. This morning I am going off to my lecture the 11 th lecture in my numerical analysis course. We are just finishing up linear systems. This lecture today should be the new stuff on iteration methods. I hope to work some more after class on the assignment for this course. Then I have to prepare for one hour for a lab I give later in the afternoon. I also have mobilization meeting at noon for our TA union. Then after the lab later in the day I have a wobbly union meeting. I should be able to get home at about 2 PM and rest and relax a bit before the late afternoon work.

Tomorrow morning I meet with the Minister of Citizenship to discuss the new Ontarian's with Disabilities Act. Then on Monday after my Sunday night shift I have a board meeting at our self help group.

I will also be selling books this weekend at a small press book fair on Saturday. Somewhere in all this time I have to find time to mark assignments too. Maybe I will skip the mobilization meeting at lunch and come home and mark.

School going well but lost my watch at school

I got one reaction paper written and handed in for Sheptycki's Issues in Transnational Policing. I had a little chat with my professor about my term paper and things went well in class yesterday as we discussed the drug/crime nexus.

I got some writing done on my fourth year paper and the supervisor was impressed and happy with it. I did though loose my watch while visiting him and must go buy a new watch today at a department store.

I also have attended my math course yesterday. It went well and we studied iterative solutions to linear systems. This is matrix math.

I need to work on grading papers this morning and then have two labs to give at 10:30 and 11:30 then I have the day off but will do more grading today.

Thanksgiving Dinner

We had a few friends over for Turkey and fixings. I made the turkey and put it in the oven at 10 am and slept at 11 am then woke up at 4:30 and ate than slept again. No one was really upset or feeling bad. We had a good time generally. Another successful holiday of sharing.

Again a 24 hour day.

I worked a day shift yesterday. When I got home our friends were here. I had bought some Thanksgiving food so fed them all some apple pie. We talked a little about mood and computers. They then went home and I stayed up installing WinXP and chatting at yahoo a little. I left the WinXP install undone.

I was friendly and hard working at work yesterday. I helped my coworkers and did my job properly. I then worked on some school work.

Procrastination

I admited to a supervisor that I have procrastination but then she admitted she did too and that everyone seems to have it. My friends at the role playing game also said it was common. I have been reading for my computer crime course. I am up early again this morning for class. I am heading off to school in about an hour. I have some homework to do and a lab to give today. I am also meeting with my legal studies supervisor.

I continued to read a book on crisis intervention by non-professionals. I tend to see that the philosophy of this book protects the professional counseler. I feel these professionals should be looked at critically and we must reality test their advise and not follow them blindly. Doctors are only human too.

Respite

I am done most of my TA for this week. I have one more lab to give on Thursday and preparing for it takes one hour. But preparing for it is relaxing because it means I just study and perhaps use Minitab on my laptop. But the pressure of marking assignments has been lifted by completing that work this morning. I will of course be getting some more assignments to mark on Thursday but will have two weeks to mark those.

So I am feeling relaxed at the moment. I am just going out to play a role playing game and eat pizza.

I am getting a fairly relaxing shift in security this Saturday then have two days off on Sunday and Monday. We are having our other consumer survivor friends over on Saturday and then again on Monday when we hope to cook a turkey for Canadian thanksgiving.

Studying a lot on Tuesday's

I have to study a fair amount on Tuesday's. I have about 4.5 hours of class each Tuesday this term. I do have a half hour break between the first 1.5 hours and the last 3. Today was complicated by union volunteering. I enjoyed my off study time. I started to study non-professional crisis counselling when the day was done. I had a good chat with my dad on the phone about school work. I also had a few bus rides but they were during nine to five rush hours. They were not as realaxing as bus rides can sometimes be. Also I am carrying a coffee mug around now which is a problem some times with spills and coffee mugs are not allowed everywhere as they are a drink. I don't take my coffee in the computer labs at school for instance.

I attended classes today. I participated quite a bit. I got into a discussion of the professor's use of the word schizophrenic to describe approaches of anti-drug adds used in the drug war. I have not studied much out side of class on this course but spent about an hour this past weekend reading for next week. I also spent a couple of hours last week studying the readings for today. We looked at urban geography and environmental design was discussed. We also looked at politics and the historical leadership of the anti-drug forces. We watched anti-drug adds on a computer set up with a projector in class.

More work getting done

I am getting more work done now. I have worked about 2 hours tonight. I worried about work all day. I am now not so worried and getting the work done. I should do about four more hours before 6 pm tomorrow. I may have to miss my new group therapy tomorrow to get the time to complete my work. I am not so sure I should miss this new therapy group. If I can get the work done before that I should be ok.

I managed to do some union volunteering today. It took about 2 hours and was difficult talking to people but deeply satistfying. I am a little unsure of myself but becoming more of a practiced union activist now. It is really a volunteer task with people as the central focus.

Got it done yahoo

I set some work goals and got them done today. I am getting back into the work spirit. Must have been my cold and lacking energy. More work tomorrow and some union volunteering too tomorrow. Busy me.

Just finished some intensive math work.

I read some more about computer crime culture. I didn't read any drug law stuff today or last night. I did get started reading chapter one of one book I will read for my honours paper called Hacker Culture.

This morning I emailed my math professor who guided me towards a solution of some homework. I did some math typing in emails. Math has really changed with the advant of computers but this is the one math course where computers are to be used in particular MATLAB software. I may study some more of this work later on this afternoon. I have been awake about 17 hours now so might stop writing and figuring soon and only read for the rest of the day.

Spending over night marking

I spent the evening doing about 2.5 hours marking in small intervals. This is my paid teaching assistant work. I promised my supervisors to have this work done soon some later today. I hope to sleep at about 4 PM today. My work will dictate my sleep for the next few weeks. I booked three weekend shifts for my security work. I am working a lot but the money is good. I am also proud to have all this work and it helps my feelings about myself and gives me purpose. It is though causing levels of anxiety.

Relaxing a bit

A combination of sickness and procrastination are keeping me from working at the moment. When I use the word sickness I just mean a cold. I guess it brings up being off work for health reasons. I hardly ever miss work these days.

My friend dropped by tonight as I was waking up. We talked but it didn't lead to a great argument. I kept quiet at times. We agreed that we should not gossip. We got at some basic communication patterns in schizophrenia. We concluded that some people have to bolster their self esteem by seeking feedback for their actions. Seems heavy psychiatric intervention gives a great deal of feedback on our actions yet insults us by labelling us insane. Ah the mysteries of having a serious mental illness. We get used to being therapised.

I am enjoying reading drug law policy but dreading doing my math homework. I am good at the math homework but I am procrastinating as usual. I also think I am so great at computer crime law but actually need to get working on that too. I guess my cold is stopping more than just my paid work. I have been slowly and progressively doing my teaching assistant work.

Web work

I managed to do another hour of web work on the French side of the consumer survivor group's network's web site. I am now going to read some drug law studies now. I have been updating my other blogs too just now.

Taking a sick day

I have been over worked and now have a cold. I booked off a shift at my security work. I am though working on my teaching assistant work and will also do some web mastering tonight. I will also have some time to do some reading. The guys at the security work are being good about this too. My wife just went out to buy neocitran and I will be taking it easy tonight.