My life's Adventure

Busy even during time off

I had meant to take two hours off this afternoon. But I needed to download and print lecture notes for tonight's class. I did that. Also there is an important union meeting tomorrow evening I have said I would go to. I also might attend a talk tomorrow by a lawyer on wire tapping and its affect on Internet business. I have some marking to do too. I have a lab to give early Wednesday morning and then a self help group network meeting Thursday morning. Also I have labs to give Thursday night then finally I have Friday off and then Saturday off as well. I will probably mark assignments those days. I am working again this Sunday night coming up.

I cleaned out some more paper from my office

I did get at cleaning up some more paper from my office early Saturday morning. Our house guest L washed the dishes yesterday. I got coins to do our laundry and will do some laundry later today when I am back from training. I will try to wash our bed linens to clean up the flu germs. I also need some jeans washed and perhaps need a new pair of jeans and a new pair of pants.

Continuing to volunteer this weekend

I am continuing to volunteer this weekend. I have volunteered for 32 hours since last Sunday and this training completed today will bring that up to 40 hours of volunteering with 24 hours of that having been training in disaster response.

My wife has a flu right now and is resting comfortably.

I am being trained in critical response to be a psycho-social first aider

I am being trained in critical response to be a psycho-social first aider. This weekend is our three day training. On the first day we covered structure of government emergency response. We also covered Canadian history of distaster. We looked at factors in distaster for the victims.

I just completed reading the first chapter of Borkman, Thomasina Jo, Understanding Self-Help/Mutual Aid: Experiential Learning in the Commons (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers, 1999). It covered why we should study self help as part of the third sector of the economy or voluntary/non-profit sector. This the sector I find myself involved within.

I have not been cleaning house as planned.

One of my wive's team workers suggested that I clean up for half an hour a day at the end of the day. I have done some of that but can't seem to keep at it.

Something I posted to a schizophrenia support email list today.

SUBJECT: Literacy in consumers and why it is matters

You read on this list of people like myself reading law or statisics, or people like John studying and working in computing, or Millie studying all kinds of things like web mastering recently, or Kemila studying Jungian psychology and other topics on the Internet, or Andy studying political issues. Or the fellow in South America studying his old school books on physics. All of us read and study something and this allows us from time to time to read about schizophrenia or medicine and become educted consumers and function to improve our own health. We can not always do this but it is my belief that reading about schizophrenia it the best therapy and becoming an educated patient is the best we can do to help ourselves. We may still need support and loved ones but by being educated even a little or even a little later than now we can know what goals we need to be seeking.

My mini paper is done.

At the end of my second 30 hours day in a row I had an appointment to see a writing tutor. E listened to my topic and suggested having an hypothosis in the mini paper. That is to add in the over all papers hypothosis. I was able to put this hythosis and then add in the analysis in from the first version of my mini paper and did that this morning and now basically have the paper completed. I am just proof reading my conclusion and then printing two copies for when my supervisor and I meet at 11 am this morning. In the next hour I am relaxing before going to school to prepare a lab for the students today. Then I will give the lab and then see the boss of this statistics course and finalise the hours. Then I will have the mini paper's meeting. After all this must do work I will attend a union info session and eat lunch there and we are having Chinese food in honour of Chinese new year today. I might then go and see a professor who might be able to supervise graduate school work on criminal law and the mentally ill. She had offerefd to chat during her office hours and she has office hours on Wednesday afternoons. I just need to check those hours now. I am going to make another pot of coffee and and print those papers.

R's sleep solution.

R is having me call him this morning to wake him up. He has learned to allow more time between when he wakes up and when he has an appoinment. I learned that about three years ago in the working world. Now I share it with R as a secret on medications sedation and getting up in the morning. I am calling him right now.

Poverty isn't worrying me today as much still the law paper to worry about though

I am up again for 24 hours plus. I got some reading done on self help groups and emergency planning. I attended my data mining lecture. I got some but not all of the bibliography done for my mini paper. Today is a day off which is why I can adjust my sleep. I am just going to post this and then take some more vitamins and clean up a bit. I made quacamole this morning for the first time in my life. I am so happy with the fresh fruit and veggies we got wholesale this month. I also found out yesterday my Palm cell phone will work with our local wireless carrier.

Waking up worried about law essay

I am waking up worried about more than poverty these days. I have just been reading about the Internet and accessibility for the disAbled. I also have been worrying about my honours law paper. I sent my professor an email telling him I had found the case he meantioned. I should study my datamining course today but spend some time today hopefully writing my law paper. I read two research papers this past weekend. I need to write those and some more cases into my paper. Hopefully I can do that today. I should also run some more data mining code today and read lecture notes.

My dad and I talked on the Internet together

I called my dad because it is Sunday evening. He was trying to call his brother in Estonia using Skype the free internet long distance telephone. Really one could do this with all kinds of Internet chat programs too but skype is IP telephony apparently. Anyway it worked. I will now install Skype on my winXP laptop.

Spent most of my study time this week printing documents.

I can't always read at the computer. Rather I enjoy a variety of reading mediums. I printed journal articles, lecture notes and lecture programming code this week. I read one article this morning. I also got half way through another article this morning. This second article is a piece in the computer crime puzzle that my supervisor suggested I look into. I also have many many articles now to read. I took back some books but still have some fines for books not renewed on time. I need to sleep now and will edit this entry and then crash in bed for the morning and early afternoon.

I took my usual vitamins and risperadol

I am very tired right now and it is only 8 am. Therefore I will sleep on time for work tonight.

I bandaged my wife's arm after the cat scratched her and we used alcohol wipes to cleanse the wounds. I just learned that one should cleanse cat scratches because of cat scratch fever.

Helped with delivering the newspaper again.

I helped the local paper carrier with his route again this morning. I took about 3 hours to do it. I am working in security later tonight. I will not work again until Wednesday morning, although I am volunteering right after my security shift on Sunday morning. I will be volunteering on Sunday. I will be working again on Wednesday and Thursday at my teaching job. I will then be in training for my volunteer work this coming weekend or next weekend. I won't be working in security for another few weeks from now.

Cleaned up the living room floor

We had some help from a social worker or nurse with cleaning up. I cleaned up our living room floor. My wife cleaned the bathtub today.

Sort of slowed down our shopping

I have managed our budget to get by with less stuff for awhile now. We got some fruit and veggies from a food box program. Our family is supporting us a ok. I want to buy a secure digital card for my new Palm but that will have to wait. Also even with the new iPod shuffle out there I won't be buying one. Also we are just getting buy in terms of daily spending on smokes and milk, bread, etc.

Showing my wife some computer screens.

My wife is justing sitting next to me rubbing my shoulders and neck as I write this. After starting this entry my wife and I listened to the most holy Dali Lama, Ethics for the new Millenium. I lovingly clipped my wife's toe nails and then washed her feet. I may have cured some ingrown toe nails.

I was just checking out grammarian Pro X for the Macintosh computer. My dad also now has a Mac computer.

I often dream of class rooms. I was actually teaching in a class room tonight and wondering at various times of the day of my own struggles to pay attention in the class room.

My family is supporting me more these days. We are becoming healthier.

Looks like I forgot to mail in our income report

I seem to worry quite a bit about forgetting things. Thus in a way I have a certain level of neurosis. I forgot to warn members of our union that a meeting had been canceled last week past. I am lucky I didn't get one member angry. I feel too much of this union's work has fallen on my shoulders but then hey I can call myself the union's secretary. I don't know it doesn't seem fair. Yet I am always gripping in the context of that union.

I forgot I think to mail our income report to the government and they called yesterday and I had to fax all this stuff to them. I just got it done with a half hour to spare to relax before heading out to our board meeting. At the board meeting I presented my proposal to do a survey of the membership on identity and interdependence related to changes in use of ICT's. The administrator liked the idea but our president was cool on it. I recorded minutes and came home and tried to sleep.

I didn't get to sleep until about 10 PM and woke up at about 5 pm this morning. I have a lab to give this morning but am up on time for it. Yes, I seem to have beaten the up early problem. I no longer typically sleep in and miss appointments. Those days are gone now. It took more practical effort to solve this over sleeping problem than being solved by any medication changes. There is no quick fix in schizophrenia recovery. It takes a lot of planning of the hours of one's sleep to perform like this. Perhaps it is my maturity in life and work that is helping.

Sleep all wrong on Monday back on track today

I ended up not sleeping yesterday morning. This kind of sleep problem can lead me to bad decisions concering courses which it almost did yesterday. I almost decided not to study the data mining course and in fact attended a law and literature course in the late morning and early afternoon before coming home to sleep at 6 PM. In the past a little thing like this, i.e. missing my lecture in the evening would cause me to change courses. Instead I dropped on on one of the professors of the data mining course and discussed the course material and the consequences of missing the lecture. I am now ok with the data mining course.

So my sleep yesterday was wrong for the data mining course but is now on track for my early morning work as a teaching assistant on Wednesday. I will prepare for the lab this morning at school then I have a board meeting today for the Psychiatric Survivors of Ottawa. I will sleep again today at 6 PM. Then I will sleep at 8 PM or 10 PM on Wednesday as we are not having our role playing game this week. I also took my meds twice yesterday. Once in the morning at 6 am I took 6 mg of risperadol but couldn't sleep because I need to check our goverment allowance at 8:30 AM. I then took my meds again at 6 PM this time I took my vitamins too as I had bought vitamins on the way home from school. This meant I did not miss a day's risperadol so in another way this sleep problem resulting in something good.

I can write a proposal this morning for my research into identity, disAbility and ICT's for the board meeting.

It was difficult to make this entry as I had to play with my cat to keep her from scratching the laptop screen. I put her in the office twice now to lock her up. This reminds me of the criminal law and jailing people. I need a break from these criminal law studies. This summer I will study public law and politics and not come back to the criminal law until next fall or next winter in 2006.

Thinking and enquiring about writing a paper on disAbility and Information and Communications Technologies.

I was chatting at the Yahoo Linux room and downloaded some Turbo Linux iso images. I checked on buying a used Pentium IV Xeon processor workstation for R. He was told to consider it for his next computer. But I also had him consider buying a used Macintosh or buying my eMac from me if I was able to upgrade to a new Mac. I checked on new Macs for myself. I might end up buying an iPod shuffle this week at school.

I signed up for an email list that I found on the Internet while researching graduate school in Kingston at Queens. I have been getting the emails about conferences and calls for papers and responded to a call for papers tonight for the journal Information, Communication & Society, Spring 2006. I also asked J if she would proof read my paper if I wrote something and she said she would. I can't write about the digital divide but could perhaps I could survey members of the self help community in eastern Ontario. This might allow me to find out what ICT's mean to them and also if ICT's change thier ideas of identity or their concepts of identity as disAbled persons. I could also inquire about thier ideas of interpendence.

I would need to design a survey which I could do while doing my teaching assistant work in the sampling methodology course this winter. I could do an initial survey this February and then get it all analyised by the end of March and get a rough paper written with abstract by June. Then I could do another survey in July and have the final results by September and the paper done by October. Say now that's a time line plan.

I am just printing out tomorrow lecture notes for my data mining course and got some tips on errors I was getting with R and Rgobi and gtk. I now need to try the code for lecture #1 again and try the lecture #2 code before heading off to sleep and then wakeing up for class later this afternoon. Then I am staying up from mid afternoon until 6 pm Tuesday so I can sleep early Tuesday night and wake up up early Wednesday for my first tutorial lab I am giving Wednesday morning. I will prepare for this lab either later tonight or early Tuesday morning.

I am also working on my law paper off and on tonight and emailed the professor late Sunday night.

Spending nights up studying

I have been waking up at 6 PM three days now and tomorrow I will wake up at 2 PM. I have been printing journal articles and reading these past few nights. I have been reading about policing and politics of public v. private provision of services. I have also been reading about risk and managing the population through statistics in the 17th century. I have also been still studying the IT revolution on the developing world.

I also started the study of data mining. I printed out the journal articles suggested by the CD we got in class last Monday. I printed two of these articles and read the abstracts. I have the software, for this course working now on my laptop.

No Vitamins for two days now. Won't be getting any until Monday.

I have had no vitmains since Thursday now. Our budget won't afford vitamins until Monday.

Just on break

Well we got the newspapers ready for another Saturday. I am just on break before delivering them door to door. I am having a coffee and smoking. Otherwise I am off work this weekend. I was just surfing alt.support.schziophrenia before this newspaper work. I was also debugging some Xemacs problems. I got Xemacs working but not ESS. I was able to run GGobi again to visualize some flea beetle data in 7 dimensions.

I worked on computer science and data mining this morning.

I was able to complete the 33 hours of volunteering this morning about an hour and a half ago. I now have three days off of working or volunteering. I will try to play cyberpunk with my friends tonight.

I was busy a little with my Debian computer this morning in the wee hours of the morning. But before that I did some review of the first week's data mining lecture using the lecture code and copying and pasting it ino an advanced statistical software R. I have two books on using R but did not read them in the past four days. I also helped out with the paper route this morning and will help out Saturday morning as usual. I read an article about computers in schools and education in terms of the globalization process. I also read a small lecture by Judge Richard Posner and his collegue William Landes on the Political Economy of Intellectual property. I also read about emergencies and sleep disorders. I also read the end of a Canadian Law Commission report on policing.

I decided on studying only data mining and my honours paper after all. I got assigned to four labs in my teaching assistant work. I did not get the web master job with the union and no longer want it. Our unemployment rate in Canada while a debatable measure of true unemployment is at its lowest in a long time.

I have been setting up and using my new Palm Tungsten W. My wife has been using her DVD/VHS player. I played Dungeons and Dragons on Wednesday night and later today will manage a cyberpunk game. I am so tired being up on call and am about to sleep until 7 or 8 PM tonight. I am just going to pop my daily risperadol about 10 hours late. I should have taken them at 11 PM last night. I have had no vitamins now in 36 hours.

Volunteering 33 hours this week.

I guess I broke my perfect record of posts. But now that I am returned here I can update you on my volunteering. I got some more training with my volunteering this past Tuesday. I am also on call right now. I will from last Sunday until tomorrow at 8 am have done about 33 hours of volunteering. Yesterday it was a union meeting and on Monday I had an emergency board meeting at the self help group. The long hours have been my victims support volunteering and just require being on call.

Getting popular on the web.

I just posted this blog's URL on this web page about a journalism and blogging conference http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/webcred/index.php?p=2. My point in the post is simply that when journalists talk about part of the Internet like blogs that becomes what we all then tend to think about that part of the Internet. In this case they are talking about blogs as news sources. Yet many readers here will know that news and politics blogs are such a small part of blog space but in the future this small part will be a part of "first impression" when one meantions blogs.

Well my post is done.This is often how I use the Internet.

• I read some email, or newsgroup post, or web page from a stranger on a topic I am interested in or a sub topic of a larger topic I am interested in or learning about.
• I then click a link in what I just read. or reply to the email or post a reply to a newsgroup.
• In my reply I leave my name and web site address, or blog address or my email address.
• I then check back at the linked resource later sometimes ten years later to see what has become of it; if anyone has replied and so forth.

Recover from divorce and gut feelings

I was reading a book on adult children of divorce and then thinking about my own feeling in my stomach and lungs. I enjoyed some coffee after work and then again after volunteering. I am clamping down on my spending and this seem to have made me a better student.

I am carrying around a CPR mask and first aid kit. I am also carrying around a mini-mag light. There were apprently some muderers also carrying around flashlights in our city. I am getting more involved in law enforcment.

I have not been smoking much today as I don't smoke much at work. I took my vitamins and should be going to sleep in about two hours. I will take some more vitamins now and then take my risperadol before sleeping. I am just ending the day with blogs entries...in five different blogs. A blog a day keeps the doctor on the pay.

Worked again and volunteered too all in the same day!

Well I managed another good night at work; working hard and getting a lift home. I also discussed a little law and security with other guards. There are other people with schizophrenia involved in this profession either as relatives or other.

I stayed up until now and am presently on call for victims support. I also am volunteering on Monday and Tuesday then have Wednesday off volunteering and volunteer again on Thursday and Friday. But then I have Saturday and Sunday off of work and off of volunteering. From Sunday today until Friday this coming week I will volunteer for 24+2 hours in victims support, 4 hours in my self help group, 4 hours for the disabled community generally and will miss four hours of volunteering because of an emergency board meeting.

I will not work at all this week. But I will be finding out tomorrow what my assignments are for teaching assistant work this term. Work probably starts next week or the week after in my statistics and mathematics teaching job.

Promises to be along day.

I helped with the newspapers this morning and then slept. I am just getting ready to go out for my night shift. I will then be staying up all day Sunday to do some volunteer work. It will be a 26 hours day in the end sleeping at 4 Pm or 5 PM tomorrrow.

Up late fiddling with Apple Networking

I was into building computers from parts a few years back. I still have some of these computers around including an old Quadra 800. I bought a hard drive for it including having to buy a sled for the hard drive. I bought more memory for it. I also bought a CD rom drive for it. It was missing all this stuff. It has no OS. Apple give away MacOS 7.5.3 and I am trying to install this. To do this I need to use network access. I got network access OS 7.5 working on the Quadra but don't have an apple server to serve the images of the Mac OS 7.5.3 to the computer. I did try my eMac as a server but it uses the wrong formats.

J finally picking up TV and computer.

J finally got his brother to come and pick up the TV and computer. They should be here at 6 PM. I am just stepping out to get some groceries. I should be able to make another update here later today. I have been busy today getting one more Christmas present delivered or picked up. Today I have been doing a little school reading on the history of private policing and getting some proof reading help with my mini paper.

Network meeting today cancelled.

The self help groups network meeting today was cancelled yesterday because of poor weather. This means I have now two and a half days off of work and volunteer duties. But I will continue to study at home and should take a book back to the school library today.

Managed to attend yesterday's classes ok

I managed to attend the polcing issues course and the statistical computing course yesterday. I borrowed some books for the study of policing. I read a little of the history of the private police this morning. I am also continuing to read about vunerability and also information technology in the developing world.

When I got home yesterday our gifts from Amazon.com had arrived and this included books on R. One of these books is very similar to yesterday's lecture on the basics of R. The other on R covers using R for the basic statistics I have learned in studying for my B.Math degree. My wife got a DVD and CD and an audio book by the Dalai Lama on ethics for the new millenium. I read some of the R books before sleeping at 6 PM last night.

I chatted with the policing professor after class about a possible topic for a paper. He is ok with me writing about labour and technology in police work. I have found a good quote about the demands on constables and how they had too much work to do in the past in Les Johnstones book the Rebirth of Private Policing. I also chatted with a younger student who is also just about finished her BA in legal studies. I did not even learn her name we just talked about courses and professors and working in policing.

I made an appointment to see the school psychologist again later in January. I also dropped in on union offices and did a little paperwork there. I got my grade today for my durg law course and I passed with an ok grade. My problem was again my English use.

Staying up late again.

I printed out a bunch of the material for the policing course and will attend the first lecture this afternoon. I also read some of this material. This could be my final optional law course in my degree. I would only have one core required course in public law to do this summer and I would be done by September. Two degrees completed.

On Sunday even though I went to sleep as planned at 2 PM I slept until 3 AM Monday morning which was 13 hours of sleep and unexpected. Then I needed to stay up until 1 AM Monday night and just dragged myself out of bed on Tuesday at 11 AM for a dentist appointment. I have been up all day since then and will try to stay up for a 31 hours day today.

I got more of my mini paper done and arranged to see my professor this morning at 10:30 AM. Then it is off to the law class and then right after that the statistical computing class. Then I can come home and sleep at 6 PM. Then Thursday hopefully I will be up early to go out of town for a self help group network meeting. Then I have Friday and most of Satruday off of school or work or volunteering. Then I am working a night shift on Saturday night. Then school again on Monday. By Tuesday next week I should have decided on what course I will study this term having by then checked out three courses to choose from.

Some of my computers a little buggy some are better.

My clone computer which cost about 1100$ three years ago, is now worth about 100$ minus the CD writer and win98. But it is running Debian and KDE fine. I closed the screws on the case and that is that. It works.

I managed to use my new filing crates to put computer books into and I put them all under my drafting table in my office beside the clone computer. I just now typing on my laptop which is on top of the table.

Getting interesting in a policing course

The professor of this course about policing is into researching private police. I have been finding the course material on line at our school's library and came across the name Allan Victor Horwitz a sociology professor who writes about mental illness. I visited his web page.

As the clock passes midnight I can apply again

Now that it is the 4th of January I can apply to work as a teaching assistant again. I have a fairly settled schedule where I will not work on Monday afternoon or evening nor Wednesday after 11:35. But I will apply to work on Monday mornings, all day either Tuesday, Thursday or Friday. I should be getting a raise this term that was negotiated by our union.

I put in some more hours in my web work just now. I worked for about an hour and have about 7 hours left to complete to bring my hours up to match my pay.

A coworker has died

A former coworker of mine has died in a horrible new years eve beating death.

My plans remain the same for the first week of school

I am still planning on checking out courses before I make my decision on what to study. I did talk with the statistical computing professor today and the course sounds like fun and interesting. The professor in our drug law course let us know that our grades will be ready soon.

I spent about an hour yesterday preparing to study data mining

I spent some time on-line exploring the professor of the data mining coures' web space. I read a couple of papers from the journal of statistical software. I installed Ggobi on my WinXP laptop and got it working with some of Di Cook's data from her 1997 paper. So I decided to study data mining. But that decision isn't final. I have got a place in another criminal law issues course concerning policing and a space in a law and risk course. One of either of these law courses would fufill my degree requirements and would mean if I passed one of them I would be done by the end of this coming summer with my honours BA. Also there is a course in statistical computing I might take instead. On Wednesday I will attend the first classes in the criminal issues course and the statistical compuitng course, then next Monday I will attend the first class in the law and risk course and then in the evening attend the first class in the data mining course. Then that Tuesday I will make my final decision on what course of these four to study this term.

Still can't decide on which course to take this winter

I still can't decide on whether to take data mining or medical issues in criminal law this winter. I can only take one course. Taking the law course now means my degree is done sooner. But taking the data mining course may only be possible this term and the course may not be offered again soon. Of course, taking the data mining course means I will be studying a mix of statistics and law this winter. This was suggested by the school psychologist. It will also mean that books will cost a lot.

I am for sure studying for my honours paper this winter and have been working on it yesterday for about an hour or two. I need to put some more time into it this morning. I did read some more general computer ethics material. I have some computer cirme cases to look up. But these cases concern detailed legal technicalities rather than substantive law. I seem to have some what of a history written now but need to rewrite a bit before handing it in this coming week.

My wife is out of town tonight visiting her mom

My wife's family got together at her mom's this New Year's day. She took a bus there and might return sometime this morning or later today. The weather is not looking good for later today. I hope she returns this morning.

Happy New Year

I hope you can find some happiness in the New Year.