My life's Adventure

I managed to post something here every day this month.

I tend to think because I am doing great with my statistics course that I am not working hard. It does not seem to take a lot of work. This is an old myth I tend to propagate. The myth is that math is lazy person's subject. I am actually doing so many different things that I am not lazy. Just writing something here each day shows I am working hard at the computer every day. Speaking of computers I did finally get the iBook home but it is broken. I was robbed by an ebay seller.

I managed the finances today and am picking up the iBook this afternoon.

The iBook I bought on ebay last summer is finally being delivered. What a rotten person who sold it to me. It took over 6 months to get here. I finally sent an email saying she had stolen 200$ and she sent it. I will go to the UPS depot today to pick it up. I managed our end of month expenses. My partner is just out right now buying some groceries. I need to buy some monthly bus passes today. I am volunteering all weekend except for Saturday over night when I am working. I will need to stay up Sunday to do volunteerng and then finally sleep at 6:00 PM Sunday. I have some marking to do this weekend and an end of term homework assignment.

The Library at end of term.

It is near end of term at our school. I canceled the last lab I was to give tonight because no students showed up. I had my bosses permission to do this. I then went to the library.

The library is something I fell in love with in my first year of living with the schizophrenia label. But perhaps I was in love with these places long before that. When my parents read me the story of Robin Hood or The Wizard of OZ, they read me not one book but tens of books borrowed from the university library. When I was first living with the label of schizophrenia I read a story called the Labyrinth by Borge. It had an illusion of an infinite library building based on the repeated hexagon pattern.

Tonight I took back most of the mental health books I was borrowing. I also took back books on MIDI, and one virtual war book, and one women and computing bibliography. I was trying to take books back for the end of term. I was also trying to focus my studies more on either law or statistics but in particular statistics. So I took back a lot of other subject books. I then searched out an author my statistics professor recommended, who she had learned from, when she studied experimental design. I borrowed that book and read it on the train platform. I was able to understand a little better this past weeks lecture material and will now be fine for the fifth assignment and the final exam should be easier too. I borrowed other books on experimental design. I also borrowed a book by Emma Goldman on anarchism. And the other famous scholar I borrowed a book by was Max Weber. I borrowed a book of his writings on universities.

I am now going to sleep after writing this entry and proof reading it.

I did some calculations this morning.

I did some calculations this morning following the teachers notes. These checked out with the software's analysis, so no mistakes were made with the software data entry or the calculations that I did with a word processor and a calculator. The data relate to a machine tool process involving speed of the tool, geometry, and cuting angle. I am supposed to figure out which has more effect on the life of the tool which is our response variable. In schizophrenia the response variable is not as clear and is more dynamic and is more likely a quality of life variable. In these studies of dugs the experimental design is also statistical.

The union meeting went well today.

The union meeting went well today. We elected a new executive. I am again the recording secretary. I am also the health and safety representative for another year.

I am up early this morning studying and getting ready for a union meeting.

I slept at 4:00 PM yesterday. I woke up at 3:00 AM this morning. I have been reading Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update and Cracking the Gender Code this morning. I need to get some home work done for my experimental design course. I attended our lecture yesterday and now know how to do the SAS work fine. I will have a little problem with solving the confounding of treatments problem we are assigned. I am cutting back on smoking this morning. I also cleaned up some paper for recycling this morning in the living room and office. I took my vitamins about an hour ago and will now eat a sandwich. Our union AGM is at 11:30 this morning. We have been working hard to get as many union members as possible to attend the meeting. After the union meeting I have no duties until 9:00 PM tonight when I will give a last lab of the school term to some students.

Cleaning up after building something. One of my crazy "night" projects works.

I garbaged picked a metal tool box that is tall rather than long. It is sort of a file folder sized box. I used the foam packing from my latest Macintosh computer and cut some holes in a few layers of foam and made a microphone box. Usually microphone boxes are done with softer black spongy foam. I used the white styrofoam. It worked. I cleaned up the foam and am up studying experimental design over night. I am also studying internet research on women's use of the internet.

I had a good day yesterday.

I attended my class in the early afternoon and it went well. I scored another 100% on a statistics assignment. I also attended some training in assisting disabled victims in the evening. I woke up late this morning and will be attending a mental health work group involving hospital workers. I just printed the documents for today's meeting. I also transfered them to my palm. I need to buy a new palm cell phone because my cell phone costs are unmanagable at the moment.

I was thinking of going into school early this morning.

I was thinking of going into school early this morning to do some building inspections. I have managed to not smoke for the last three hours. I have a class today. I also have some union volunteering to do today. I would need to go in early this morning so I can inspect some classrooms before the students arrive there.

I updated Quicken but not too into using it this morning.

I updated Quicken but I am not going to do a lot with it today. I also imported my old files. I also downloaded the past few months accounts from my bank. But I am going to go back to reading now and studying experimental design notes from my course.

I am up early in the morning and reading.

I woke up thinking I should get Quicken working on my new eMac. I will make a CD of my old Quicken files and transfer them to the new eMac. Otherwise I am studying this morning and don't have to be at school until about 1:00 PM.

I am preparing to go out to the last part of the conference now.

Yes, once again I am up all night and going to sleep in the day. I will have a nervous morning and perhaps afternoon if I also try to go to other Sunday events. I am going to bring my new camcorder to film with. I sorted my conference bag out and took out a lot of the papers I won't need today. There are some elections this morning for the coming year, and we have only two delegates from our local and we need to vote for one delegate, as a representitive to the committee, that held this conference. I could put my name forward as I am one delegate, but I think this would not be wise in fact this would be too much work. The other delegate was last years representative and I am fairly sure she will like to do this again this year.

Time to take some vitamins and morning coffee.

I am just about to take 1 gram of each vitamin C and niacin. I will also drink some coffee and eat a bowl of cerial. Cerial seems to work for morning food well even if one is up all night. Maybe eating really is related to the sunlight experienced.

I worked on my medical journal for my own treatment facts. I may feel, I know more about the facts of my own health care than others know of theirs, but this is fairly arrogant and priviledges my defintion of knowledge above others. I was not able to remember exact dates for when I stopped and started pills except for recent dates. This goes back to the write it down rule used to beat memory problems. This rule I learned from a high school math and computer teacher in the 1970's. This is the lesson that makes me feel that my accuracy is so good. I feel because I am good at maths I must be good at memory but this is a faulty argument because it is maths that, in fact, help us with memory and this is only a tool that perhaps I value more because it has worked for me in the past.

I read Sunday's newspaper just now and paid attention to the writers names.

I read some articles in the newspaper. I tend these days to scan headlines only. I also scan the jouranlist's names.I also have read the small foreign news items concerning crimes and disasters for most of my adult life. These small pieces with no author attribution used to attract my reading in Time magazine as well which I read when a teenager. I read Time also when I living at home in the 1980's. I also began to read the letters to the editor in the 1980's.

Topics in mental health and general health care.

I am reading about research and development strategies for mental health treatments in the UK. I am also reading a book about ethics in mental health care and also a book on ethics in general health care. I am also reading a book about risk taking in health and social welfare. I am also reading a book about health statistics. This is called educational therapy. This is where one learns about one's condition. Also reviewing the basics on this schizophrenia.com site is something I do from time to time. Then I hit the books on advanced topics. I have also read the DMS IV an older version all the way through in the very early 1990's. I have also in the past read some advanced pharmacological sciences.

I also talked to a former orderly yesterday at the union conference. We talked about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and his experiences with labotomies in the 1970s. We were talking on the theme of oppression in hospitals.

I did manage to go to music therapy this past week.

I did manage to go to music therapy this past week. You may remember that I bought a guitar back pack and small practice amp to help make this happen. The therapy was good I left a little early. We did have a new member there who played improvisational music on the acoustic guitar. I played along with some jazzy bass notes.

Did you know I play electric bass? Usually I find music playing to cause anxiety because it is performance art. But Harry Belafonti has said all good performers are nervous. I am not saying I am great performer just good. Many other musicians I play with are also good. It is not too difficult to be a good musician. I have been playing bass for about 30 years now.

I read the article on schizophrenia.com about keeping a journal and started one using this example.

I read the article by Rose Bauer, Family Member dated 4/97. It is a two links off the main page at schizophrenia.com. The first link is the overview of schizophrenia link. Which should lead you to this page http://www.schizophrenia.com/ami/index.html. I copied her example and started a journal for my wife and I. It is kind of romantic too to do this as I will have to constuct my wife's life doing this and she loves to tell me about her past. But she is not all that accurate at remembering it.

But keeping a journal to talk to doctors from is nothing new to me I learned this in group therapy years ago. These days I usually think of one key issue about my health to tell the doctor about on the way to the appointment. Then remember it until I get to the hosptial. Sometimes my pen and ink journal about my daily life will allow me to discover an issue to discuss. We don't change doctors frequently my wife and I. I have had this doctor since about 1997. My wife too has had this same doctor for the same lenght of time.

The union conference continued today.

I managed to wake up early enough although I slept in past my alarm. I took the bus slowly to the conference hotel. I was able to attend the two workshops today. I have a final wrap up session tomorrow morning. I am thinking I may stay up all night but I actually have had two regular waking hour days in a row now and feel more relaxed. I got angry with my brother twice this past little while.

I continue to take time off studies but will get back at reading tonight.

I continue to take some time off studies but tonight I will read some academic books and also surf some other graduate student program sites on the web.

I did not make the first round of acceptances into the MA in legal studies.

I got a letter today from our legal studies department saying I had not made the first round of admissions for next year. They will look at my file again in June after they have my marks for this term. But my hopes are dashed now. I will be looking at programs at the other university in our city now. The grass is always greener on the other side.

C and J went to a public issues film last Friday.

I kind of knew that J would want to go to the film last Friday on busing issues. They showed this film at the public library. I did not invite them over tonight. R is visiting his family this weekend.

I attended a union conference today and will be attending on Saturday and Sunday as well.

Well I did not try to stay up last night just to be on time in the morning. Instead I slept at 11:00 PM and woke up at 7:00 AM. I was not so rushed to get to the conference this morning. This also reflects our proximity to the downtown core. It really took me very little time by bus to get to the conference hotel. The meeting went well all day and went better than if I had been tired. I am learning recently that long hour days are just not as effective as getting enough sleep. I am realizing that I need this reality check.

I read some of Box and the Hunter's Statistics for Experimenters and some health and cultural diversity studies.

I was reading this morning. I got through the first chapter in Box and the Hunter's book. I also read more about how Wired magazine is a sexist and racist magazine because they never cover African Americans or women in a neutral tone if they cover them at all. I read about this in this book: Stewart Millar, Melanie. Cracking the Gender Code: Who Rules the Wired World ( Toronto: Second Story, 1998). I also read about required cultural diversity and language skills in health delivery in the USA but this would apply in a similar way in Canada. Many of our local health centres, in fact, have multilingual information posters and, I am sure, fairly multilingual doctors and nurses.

Making the home movie DVD was successful this morning

Almost the first thing I did when I woke up early this morning was unwrap the DVD -R disks that came by mail yesterday. These are the type of DVD disks I needed to make the home movie. I then made the movie and burned it to DVD. I tested it in the new portable DVD player and it works just fine. We also got my wife a carrying case for her new DVD player. I spent the rest of the morning reading, chatting on the computer and cleaning up a bit. I am just about to take my second dose of vitamins for the day.

I slept a good 10 hours from 1:00 PM to 11:00 PM.

I feel very rested after sleeping in the afternoon. I was able to attend the meeting with the other unions and management. It went well and we are moving forward with campus safety. I prepared a year end report to my union members. I also submitted my partial homework. I then came home and slept.

I am not going to get this homework done and the trick will be to not get angry at others because of my own faults.

Partly the reason I am not getting this homework done this morning is of course procastination. But also the time needed was not there in my schedule. I had to volunteer in the past three out of four days. I also had my marking work to get done. Today I have a meeting for the union with the other union on campus and university management.

I slept a good 11 hours last night.

I went to sleep at about 10:00 PM last night and woke up at 9:00 AM this morning. I also had a good long sleep on Sunday so should be ready for a long overnight study tonight. I won't sleep until 4 PM or 6 PM Wednesday.

I have some homework due tomorrow.

I have been printing some SAS analysis homework this morning and now need to write up the analysis corresponding to the printout from SAS. I also need to work out some proofs and then typeset them in latex. I do not have much time to do this as it is all due tomorrow at 16:00 PM or 13:00 PM. I will probably stay up over night to get this done.

It feels great to have gotten my work done one more time.

I returned the graded assignments to the professor when I got to school at about 13:00 PM. I am feeling good now. I enjoyed a statistics lecture I had to attend earlier this afternoon. I am now home. We have our board of directors meeting for our self help group tonight. I will go early to prepare. I am just reading a few emails and getting ready to go out again. Then later tonight I will go talk about mental health issues and victim's support at our victim's support group where new volunteers are training. I am not sure what I will say but might talk about the confused state of talking and also the idea of power in silence of victim's with mental health issues. I might attempt to say a few things about paranoid thinking too.

I have been grading statistics assignments this morning.

I got through some grading and have some more to do this morning. It is nice to get this done and this work pays well. I will have one or two more gradings of assignments to complete this term. I have about two or three more weeks of labs to do in this course, and then I am done. I may not apply to do this work in the summer depending of whether I am hired to work as a teaching assistant in legal studies. This could be my last term of work in this unionized job and my last term more likely for being a statistics teaching assistant as I am not going to go to grad school in statistics next year. There is a slim possibility I will be still be an undergraduate next year studying music and then I might be hired to continue as a statistics teaching assistant but I am getting tired of this work even though I enjoy it fully. It is very stressful and probably not good for my mind.

I woke up at 2:00 AM and cleaned up a bit.

I cleaned up some plastic bags when I woke up. My wife had cleaned the kitchen yesterday. I read email and thought a little and replied a bit. I am now getting ready to do some marking.

I taking my meds and hopeing to sleep for 14 hour now.

I am tired and managed to attend a union meeting yesterday, do some marking, do some paid web work, and do reading and email. I also updated some of my blogs today. I also briefly looked over the graduate student handbook for the MA program I am hopeing to be starting this coming fall. I am taking 6 mg of risperadol and vitamins and going to sleep.

I read another chapter of the computer crime book tonight.

I hope to study computer crime in graduate school. I got another chapter read in a 300 page book which is a basic computer crime book. They use the same references that I used in my honours paper so I think I did some pretty good academic legal research last year. I am patting myself on the back for that work.

I attended the union meeting but not the march.

I was able to attend the union meeting but not the march against the invasion of Iraq. I came home and started to work on the computer. I was also doing some reading of academic books. I read the newspaper a little this afternoon. Just now I have begun marking statistics homework. I will continue doing this all night until it is done tomorrow morning.

I am making a DVD with a slide show of visits with our daughter.

My partner and I had a daughter three years ago. We are allowed to visit her twice a year with her new family. We take pictures on each visit. She calls us mom and dad. I am just making a DVD which will have a slide show of the first three years of visits. I won't post more details after all this is the internet.

R went out to a movie with friends and C and J did not come over last night.

R called yesterday to say he was going out to see the Pink Panther with friends. This is another activity I have also done in the past with other disabled people which is to go see films. I got a call from C and she said she was coming over with J her boyfriend but they did not show up in the end. I slept at about 1:30 AM and woke up at 11:30 or noon and so got a good 10 hours sleep for two ten hours sleep in two days.

I am just reporting income.

I need to report all income every month to remain qualified to receive income support from the government. I am just copying pay stubs and invoices now. I will then total my earnings and then fax them to the government office. I am going to take a break right now from this task.

I am still up so must now quit the computer and sleep.

My partner has gone to sleep and I am still up tinkering on the computer and doing homework. I will now sleep. I got my latex work further along. I will let the Debian install run itself until a stop and have a look in the morning if it takes much longer. But I need to sleep. I was feeling sick from too much smoking on an empty stomach; so I ate a bowl of soup and now am not so tired but I must sleep.

I read 16 pages of an academic computer crime book today

I read the first chapter of a book on computer crime just now. I am feeling tired after a 13 hour day. But I have not been getting enough sleep lately so I will sleep soon. I am going to take my medication now. I will continue my computer tasks for another hour or two then sleep at 12:00 midnight or 1:00 am and then wake up by 10:00 AM. I might not read any more tonight. Right now I am installing Debian 3.1 on my eMac.

I did not have a very busy day.

I worked for two hours this morning tutoring a student in linear algebra. He understands this fine but needs a tutor to keep him working and pacticing. I then attended an M.Sc. thesis defence on the topic of GIS and spatial statistical analysis. I then attended a union meeting and then came home.

I am tutoring this morning.

I will tutor a student this morning. I slept about 10 hours and am well rested. I enjoyed my volunteering yesterday and felt supported by my self help group. I gave the lab last night and helped some students write SAS code and use computers. I taught one student a lot of copy and paste operations. I have two hours of tutoring over lunch today then a union meeting at 15:00. Then I have my friends over tonight.

I made it through the day.

I made it through three interviews and one lab. I am tired and going to sleep. I am just checking my email and posting this then off to sleep. I took my 6 mg of risperadol about 10 minutes ago.

I am at about 17 hours into my day and I am just now going out to work for five hours.

Ok some of this work is as a volunteer but it is no less difficult or requiring of my skills. It will be mostly verbal interview skills. In fact, I have never been trained to interview people, except for a brief lesson at the college radio station back in 1984. And that lesson was basically about how to operate a cassette player and to interview for news stories not for selecting people for work. In the past at our self help group I have said that my union forbade me to be involved in hiring decisions. But, in fact, since I gain no money in this volunteer work nor get compensation for volunteering, beyond the pizza I will eat tonight, it is actually not against union policy. In fact, it should be fun and educational for me.

Wow, am I tired at the moment. This is not the best state of mind to do human resource work. In fact, I must also work one hour after this giving a lab at school and won't be home until about 11:00 PM tonight.

I did some marking this morning.

I did a little marking this morning and may do a little bit more before I begin my day. There is a statistics M.Sc. thesis defence this morning at school that I could attend. Then I could come home and then go to the music therapy group. Then stay at the self help group to do the interviews and then go to school to teach a lab. This might mean though that I would be carrying both my bass guitar and my teaching supplies all day. I think instead I will stay home from the music group today and continue to mark. I also did a little of my own statistics homework this morning. I am going to take my second dose of vitamins for the day now.

It looks like I will find time today to go to the music therapy group.

I am up over night. I got word just now that a friend's wife died this past Monday. He has schizophrenia and lives in northern Europe. He is an elder. I have known him for a few years now on the internet. My wife has gone to sleep now. A time to reflect. I have been studying statistics a bit over night and have statistics marking and my own homework to do over night. If things go well I will be able to attend musical therapy today in the early afternoon. Then in the late afternoon early evening I am conducting interviews for a new employee at our self help group. Then finally late tonight I give a statistics lab from 21:00 - 22:00 PM. Then I come home and sleep.

We washed our bedroom blinds.

Before sleeping I put the bedroom blinds in the bathtub and washed them. My partner completed the washing while I slept and the blinds are now drying out. There was a lot of brown tobacco substance in the water and the blinds are now white again.

I missed class today.

I was staying up last night to do some marking. I did not do a lot of marking but did some and could not stay up late enough this morning to attend my class at 13:00 PM. Instead I slept at 13:00 PM until about 9:00 PM. I am awake now and need to take some vitamins. I have a busy schedule tomorrow at the self help group and then a lab to give after that in linear regression. I have some experimental design to do for next week so I am very busy with statistics this weekend. I also have been continuing to study gender and computing.

I got myself a movable type web blog for my creative academic writing.

I have always wanted to do a web site where the title i.e. domain was very creative. I also want to do more creative writing on the web and make a very cool site using very recent technologies. So this morning I bought a yahoo small business web hosting plan with a moveable type blog. Mostly this choice was chosen because I enjoy writing my blog here at schizophrenia.com. My personal web page was started in 1995 and is not updated much anymore. My web spaces became places for my collection of school papers. Then my blogs became places for notes of my activities both at school and on my home computers. Then this blog here became a place to write about my friends and my self help group activities, as well as, offer some tips for surviving schizophrenia. I have also a few blogs and other on-line activities which are more social with real life people in my city who are also on-line. I initially found very few other consumers were on-line and it is still the case that my consumer survivor associates do not have great on-line lives. At least they are not on-line where I share with them. Sure we all do email but other forms of interaction are generally with people outside my geographic community and often these people are almost complete strangers to me.

In recovery from schizophrenia my personal, professional and academic social relationships have been improving and becoming more populated with people. This of course makes me feel better and I give back too. In some ways I am learning to choose better on-line activities but there are still many blind alleys and time wasters. I am hoping that by being creative with my new blog/web site that my web mastering skills will be more free which will also feed into my professional web mastering and this will also help the consumer survivor movement. This movement is really a good thing don't doubt that for a moment.

L came by and I did some organizing and listening to music

I was doing some responses to local union issues and getting ready to participate in a march this week to protest the invasion of Iraq. There are studies suggesting that political involvment like marchs and rallies are good for your mental health. I will meet some union friends at the march and we will carry an Industrial Workers of the World banner which we made ourselves a few years back. The Industrial Workers of the World were at one time the largest union in the USA and perhaps Canada too. But they were always radical and were murdered by the government for opposition to the first world war. Exciting times we live in eh?

L came over briefly this afternoon and watched a little TV with my wife. L now has a cat and is not coming over for as long for visits because she doesn't like to leave her cat alone too long. I haven't heard from R lately but I know he is mourning because his father has passed away. He and C have both lost their fathers recently and they are gettting a chance to support each other based on this common experience.

I did do some web mastering before sleeping.

I did manage to do the union web site work before sleeping. But I did not get to the self help group web mastering yet. Perhaps I will find some time today to do that. I need to call one student today to remind him I am tutoring him tonight. I slept at 5 AM and my partner woke me up at noon. My partner's favorite TV show was just finishing as I woke up. I woke up to some news of some brutality locally. I am helping defend the victim a little. This is union volunteering. I am still not decided on continuing the building inspections today as planned. I might instead fall back to my regular duties of marking student's homework. I am trying to get through the day without borrowing any money. So today would be day one in debiters anonymous and that program.

I did some more building inspections yesterday.

I planned some building inspection times on the weekend and carried through with some of them yesterday. I was short about 2.5 hours compared to the plan. The plan may further fall apart when I sleep in this morning. I don't really have to be at school outside of this inspection plan until about 5:30 or 6:00 PM. Thus I can stay up until about 4:00 AM and sleep until 2:00 PM. I need to do some web mastering now. I have already taken my meds about an hour ago.

I spent about an hour last night/this morning studying with my studies blog.

I was reading a famous academic article and then posted some thoughts on it on my studies blog. It took about an hour to do this. Then I did some budgeting for this week. I also spent some time budgeting my schedule and sleep for this week and next week. I then did some more work on my tax return. I mean to do some work on the web sites, I work with this morning before sleeping.

I spent the last hour web shopping for computer stuff.

I was surfing ebay and various electronic stores for computer stuff. I got started on my work day and got started marking. I have a class today just after noon. I am making my second pot of coffee just now. I am expecting some packages in the mail this week. One book for my statistics studies might arrive. Also a DVD set of a Japanese TV show might arrive.

Also our camcorder might arrive this week. Expenses that cascade out of the camcorder purchase and use include lessons or workshops, blank tapes, cables, and also external hard drive storage for the digital copies of the films/videos.

I am also bidding on some RAM now for my new Intellistation computer. So this is something to pay for. Also my partner will get some money for her bank account this week.

I applied for another web master job.

I probably already posted this. I am applying to work as the web master for our peer to peer support project between our local psychiatric hospital and our self help group. I sent in my CV and cover letter last week. I hope to hear back in the next few weeks. I have all the computers and software I need to do this work.

My other web master job for the network of self help groups is going fine and I did some site updating this past weekend on my old eMac.

I am up early as planned and should get to some marking now.

I am up early and watched a little TV news and the weather. I am just making my first pot of coffee for the day. BTW I love coffee. I need to get working on some marking but this work will be less intense than the marking previously in this term.

I took my meds ten minutes ago another long day ends in a mania.

I am fast talking manic tired excited and needing sleep. I worked 12 hours and worked very hard. I also studied a good deal of statistics. I came home and did a little web mastering and email between comrades from the manic depression self help group and famous academics as well as union collegues.

I also wrote in my pen and ink journal and came down from all the work. I will do a little more pen and ink journal self work/self care and then crash for the day as planned at 16:00 PM. I can sleep tonight for up to 14 hours so as to avoid true mania. At least my GP says as long as I am getting enough rest for all the hours awake I should avoid negative consequences.

But like I say I had a good day. I worked hard and earned money. I studied hard and got ahead in my course materials. I enjoyed creating music and web pages and talking music with my partner and academic discussion about music. But these last mentioned activities were part of the mania so must be taken with a grain of salt.

After a brief discussion with my partner I bought a Samsung Mini DV Camcorder and some Mini DV tapes.

I got interested in camcorders while shopping at department stores and electronic stores. The thing with buying electronics is it is always better to wait a bit. For instance the portable DVD player I bought for my wife is now about 50 dollars cheaper this week than last week when I bought it. So today with a Samsung camcorder on sale plus a free bag to carry it, I bought it and should get it some time this coming week. It will work with my Mac and I will be able to make our own DVD's of our family.

I may take a workshop from a local film coop in making films starting at the third weekend in April. The price for the workshop though is about 500-600$ so I need to do some more work to afford it.

I am working a night shift tonight and caught up on sleep this morning.

I got tired after J, C, and R came over. I lay down and slept from 2:00 AM to 6:00 AM then woke up breifly and took my pills and then slept again until about noon. So all in all about 10 hours sleep. I now have about 5 hours before I need to go to work. It should be a quiet evening of work. I will study experimental design if I have some non-busy time at work. It may be raining when I get off work in the morning. I will not bring my parka and, in fact, my parka is dirty and needs dry cleaning. I may wear my leather jacket with my rain slick tonight. Right now I will take some vitamins and then go to the store and buy milk, pop, cat treats, and some lunch stuff like a V8 drink. I am sort of relaxing before work.

I just recycled some adds.

With getting the daily paper and numerous bills we get a lot of paper adverts. I just recycled some of these. The problem is keeping our place clean. I still have not thrown out the large box my eMac came in for instance. I want to use the foam packing from this computer to build a microphone holder that will fit in a steel box I have. This would be for carrying 4-6 microphones. I have a large entertainment bill right now, with 100$ in DVD bills and a 50$ magazine bill. Also our cable bill TV will be about 100$ this month. I also spent about 50$ to get a set of anime DVD's of a Japanese TV show concerning the internet called Lain. I have taken a number of books back to the library now. Now that I am graduated my borrowing period at the library has been reduced to 2 weeks from 4.

I helped hire a statistical analyst for our union and also did some human resources work for our self help group.

At the end of this week I helped with a team of other union members to hire a statistical analyst for our union. I also did staff evaluations and short listed candidates for a new position at our self help group. We are hiring a peer/drop in coordinator for our self help group. We are scheduling interviews for next week. I also evaluated staff for the past year. These are good activities to add to my CV.

I started to quit smoking again last night.

I went for forty minutes then 1 hour without a smoke then went to sleep without smoking last night. Today I smoked less by delaying my first thing in the morning smoke about 20 minutes after I woke up.

I did one hour of web work just now.

Using Dreamweaver I was able to make some changes to a web site I get paid to look after. But I could not upload the files so I stopped working. Also it is getting late in the morning now and I need to sleep. I am interviewing job candidates today later in the afternoon. This reminds me I need to send an email about this interviewing work for Friday. I am just drinking my final cups of coffee for the day and am going to take my meds and get some sleep. If I wake up early enough I can go to music therapy too or a law talk on genetics and genetic selection and discrimination.

I did not actually have any paid work yesterday.

I got my marking done on Monday. On Tuesday out of two jobs, one I quit and the other the work was canceled. Yesterday, Wednesday my student did not show up so I did not actually do any paid work all day. In fact, I saw a career councelor at school. Today I have some paid work in the evening starting at 18:30 PM. I will then work for two hours as a tutor then get a half hour break and work for one hour in a lab. Then this TA work continues on Friday at 5:00 PM when I will proctor a mid-term test. But the past two days and today I have had no marking duties. I will have some more marking to do starting tomorrow.

I am working in my non-school job on the weekend on Saturday over night until Sunday morning. I am looking forward to this work as the weather is supposed to be warm and spring like on the weekend with plenty of rain. I always enjoy this type of weather. It is even nostagic to be working at this job in the spring because I started this job in the spring 5 years ago.

My lab got canceled last night and my student was a no show today.

Last night they needed to use the lab I usually give my lab in, to do some data mining instruction so my boss canceled my lab. But this is ok. I will work on a lab tomorrow night and then proctor a mid-term on Friday. Also the safety people have cut me some slack for my building inspections. I was going to tutor a student today but he had a more important appointment so we will meet tomorrow instead.

Tomorrow I may attend a law talk in the morning and noon. Then maybe attend my music therapy group and then do an interview to hire someone for our union. Then I will tutor the student in the early evening and then give a late night lab. Then I can sleep in on Friday.

Right now I am just rushing off to a monthly volunteer meeting.

I am now sure that being up in the day time is important some days.

I am kind of glad I spent the day at home today. I got some food paid for that is a food delivery from a local food group and also gave the coordinator an older wireless router of mine for her computer. I also fielded calls and activity for the teaching assistant union including emails. I also ended up volunteering this morning in victims support or at least being on call. It is nice to get asked to fill in for this important work.

In the morning I worked more on my home work. But I will still need to do a few more hours on this tonight. I have done much of the prelimanary analysis and the tukey test for equality of means. I also have a book out from the library in health statistics which covers mostly the USA.

I am studying experimental design this morning.

I did some SAS coding and must write this up now. I need to study the SAS printout some more, but I did notice that I have unequal variances with two blocking variables in my latin square design. I am wondering if I can look at the trends in these blocks and perhaps chose a transformation that might correct the unequal variances. I also know there is a technique for finding an appropriate transform but I may just try guessing.

I quit the stock market job I was starting.

Funny how sending an email is a way of quitting a job these days. But I just sent an email a few minutes ago stating I could not attend the stock market job today and that I would not be continuing with that job.

I got my marking done. I then slept early in the day.

I got my marking done and submitted to my boss. I also attended my lecture on Monday. I then came home and slept at about 16:00 PM. I woke up just when my wife was going to sleep. I have been up since about 12:30 AM. I did some statistics coding in SAS and also some computer updating. I am mostly relaxing before having to go to work on the stock market today. But I may quit this job as I have other work I have to do, and studies, and I want to take a day off.

I was not able to quit smoking.

I started to smoke again the next day. I will have to try again. I have some nicorette gum available. I have the recording I made last time I tried. I don't know why I don't just try again right now.

I slept 9 and a half hours and now must work.

I got to sleep very tired at 10:30 or 11:00 PM last night. I have been up for about an hour and a half now waking up at 8:30 AM. I have not started marking yet but would like to have this done by 12:00 noon and then head off to school.

I got three hours of deep sleep after a 22 hour day. Still up now marking.

I managed to do my volunteer tasks then I slept at 2:30 for three hours and then woke up and tried to sleep again. I was not that tired but took my meds. I have to complete some work so am still up. It may take me another couple of hours to do my work. I should finallly sleep by 1 AM tomorrow morning and I have class at 1 PM. It looks like I will miss the coalition meeting in the morning. I am thinking of quitting this stock market job as I seem to have too much work these days. I did not get to my webmaster work this weekend.

Vounteering all weekend.

I have been volunteering all weekend. This volunteering is going well. I have also been working at my teaching assistant job. I have been marking statistics homework over night and this morning early in the morning.

Aching for goals. Getting things done.

I want to do things to get goals done so I can recover from schizophrenia. I want to make music, to learn music. I have a fairly nimble left hand on the fret board but my rythum is not that great. My right hand has not had as much training. I have not really played much with a metronome. I did try some with the click track in garage band and have but not done it for hours on end.

I also want to read some stuff on writing papers for graduate school. I am going to print and read some guidelines about this tonight.

R, C and J come over we played with the PSP and read books.

Again a gathering of insane friends went well. I showed them pictures of Estonia on my PSP and let them listen to songs of mine played by Flinch my mid nineties band. We talked for a few hours and ate popcorn. I made the popcorn in our popcorn machine.

I am applying to be a web master at our self help group's new project.

We have a new funded project at our self help group. We will be managing volunteers who meet with inpatients and support these people in developing wellness plans to aid their recovery. We want to have a web site and blog and I am applying to manage this part of the project. I am just completing my resume and cover letter today.

Again I am working too much but things are a bit more relaxed this weekend.

I did not make it to school this morning for some training. I did stay up late last night and mark statistics homework. I need to get this marking done by Monday.

I am really frustrated with bell.ca's web site.

I get totally frustrated with some web sites like my phone companies web site. It should be a well functioning web site but it actually works very poorly.

I am borrowing 23 books on a variety of subjects.

I really need to focus my studies more. I have 24 books out from the library. Some are statistics books or other math books, some legal studies, some internet studies, some music engineering studies, some feminist studies concerning computing, and some health care books. The health care books concern health statistics, health care ethics and mental illness and public health. I also bought a David Hume essay: On Suicide today and read it a bit on the bus and train.

Sort of a day off today as a meeting at work got canceled and I had only one evening volunteer meeting.

After a 37 hour day started Monday at 8:00 AM, I slept for 12 hours and woke up this morning at 9:00 AM. On Monday I worked at marking statistics homework and attended my own statistics class. I then stayed up over night Monday evening and marked some more. I also studied and surfed the internet. Then Tuesday morning I worked for four hours until 2 PM. I then taught a lab and then came home and slept. Today I was supposed to do some union volunteering at 4:00 PM but this got rescheduled to 1:00 PM and then got canceled. I relaxed at home and my risperadol got delivered for another month. I did some budgeting and then went out to pay the rent and I bought my wife a portable DVD player. I then attended a volunteer meeting and came home and helped my wife use her DVD player. I then caught up on email and should get some marking done now.