My life's Adventure

The new laptop shipped out today.

I ordered a new Macbook laptop apple computer on-line and it is now being shipped. I am not sure I have a flat surface to work with the laptop. I like to use the coffee table to work on with my laptops. But our living room coffee table is always piled high with papers, books, phone, ashtrays and various remote controls. We have a very nice coffee table with six shelves underneath the table. But these are mostly jammed full with books.

Thanks again for the concern of readers my cold is cleaning up.

I took some mixture of chemicals namely Neocitran on the first evening of my cold. I then had no Neocitran left. The package I used expired in February but I recently learned medications are good six months after their expiry date at least under my countries regulations for drugs. Food of course would be much different.

On Monday I was dripping from my nose during the meeting in the afternoon, This happened today on the bus too and a women started to stare at me. I reached in my bag which is full of survival stuff and pulled out my bandana which is also for tear gas protection and blew my nose. What I forgot to include with the bandana is some packages of vinegar for the tear gas but it functioned as a plain snot rag today. Pardon mon Francaise.

I got the lumber today for the balcony.

We all need help. I don't own a car. So I was not able to pick up lumber on my own today. Instead I asked a friend to drive me to the lumber store and help me carry my wood home in his mini van. I ended up with 16 boards each 2" X 2" X 8'. These will be used to build the structure. I also got new 90 degree corner braces to fit the wood together. I also got some screws to screw the braces to the wood. We looked at metal screen mesh like on a screen door and we also looked at garden fencing. This was too expensive and it was in the wrong sizes. We also briefly looked at mesquito netting for Gazebos but this was just nylon so would not last through the winter. Instead the original plastic garden trellis is what I will use. I need to buy four more sheets of this. I now need a miter box to cut the wood but I am also most finished shopping for this project and can get started building it soon.

I am a former stage carpenter and I always seem to find people who have also been stage hands. In fact, my friends relative was a master carpenter at a local major theatre. So I had some male oriented shopping. I should note that one of our newest union members was working as a carpenter and she is a women. I should also note that in Somalia the women have traditionally done the house building. At least according to a Somali coworker I worked with a four and a half years ago.

I have a cold today so won't attend peer helper training.

Often near the end of the month near pay day I am shy on going out. I need time to manage the finances. But today also I have a cold so will not attend peer helper training today. The peer helper training is close together group and one on one training and I would likely spread cold germs if I attend. So I am staying home and resting.

I volunteered to be at a hospital management meeting today.

I met with managers and others involved in mental health services both hospital and community based. We were discussing priorities for the future of the health care system. I am the consumer voice on this workgroup.

I also started my teaching assistant work in the last 24 hours and met with one of my bosses today. I also prepared some answers to some textbook problems for the tutorial I will give on Wednesday evening.

I am in peer helper training again tomorrow. I just took my risperadol and vitamins and am going to sleep.

I am volunteering this weekend.

I am on call in my volunteer work. I have to go into the office now and will be leaving in about ten minutes. I napped from 2:00 AM to 7:30 AM rather than staying up over night. I am now rested a little and do not need to sleep early tonight. I will take a dose of vitamins now and get ready to go out. I am also picking up some outdoors socks I bought on sale. I ordered them over the internet and will pick them up at the store this afternoon after my volunteer duties are done.

The air condition is in the window but the pigeon problem is not dealt with.

I used R's help to spot me while I lifted the AC unit into the window. I still need to use some more duct tape to seal it. But it is working just in time for the hot weather.

I read the schizophrenia.com report on cigarette smoking and schizophrenia.

I was inspired to chew nicorette gum after reading the article behind the smoking report add on this web site.

My wife and went shopping improving her spirits.

We bought my wife a new watch and some kids toys. I did not over spend. We are just making it through the weekend in terms of money. We also bought eggs, bread, and milk. I just ate two soy hotdogs. I also bought the Macbook. I have enough vitamins and meds for now. We also found all the slide lids to my wife's pill box. One was left at my mothers and she mailed it to us. We are just watching hockey and I will try to sleep early tonight. I don't have to be up early Monday.

Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP).

We will be developing these WRAP plans for ourselves and the goal is to help inpatients with schizophrenia develop their WRAP plans. Some of the peer helpers in training have already developed WRAP plans.

Peer Helper training yesterday was relaxing.

We got into some critiques to the psych system yesterday as part of our group work about patient/consumer rights. Remember as a psych patient you have rights. Although the staff on a hospital ward tend to control what goes on and they are the ones who need to grant these rights.

Labs and tutorials were canceled this past Wednesday.

I did not have to work this past Wednesday as labs and tutorials were canceled. My first day of spring term work will be next Wednesday evening. I am in touch with my bosses. I also picked up the course textbooks yesterday morning before going to peer helper training.

I take 6 mg of riseradol per day.

Someone asked what medications I take and what symptoms I experience. I may not talk about symptoms directly but you can find me commenting on symptoms in some parts of this blog. I will say now I take 6 mg of riseradol and 3 grams of vitamin C and 3 grams of niacin everyday.

The Canadian Senate report on-line

A week or two ago I posted the news item about the Canadian Senates report. I am now going to post a link to the report itself. It is herehttp://www.parl.gc.ca/39/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/soci-e/rep-e/rep02may06-e.htm. It is titled and this is the same link OUT OF THE SHADOWS AT LAST Transforming Mental Health, Mental Illness and Addiction Services in Canada.

The pigeon problem solution has changed.

I have decided based on the plastic netting sheet I bought and another apartment's balcony to change my solution to the pigeons. I have decided to fence off the whole balcony with some wood poles/sticks holding up plastic netting. In fact, I will build a box frame around the inside of the whole balcony and then wrap the whole box frame in plastic netting. Now I just need to buy some 1 inch by 1 inch wood pieces for the frame structure. I need to go out on the balcony to measure the lengths I need to buy. I also have the hardware to attach the frame pieces. I will have to build it on the balcony. I also need to buy about four or five more sheets of netting but each sheet is under five dollars. It is still not warm enough to put the air conditioner in and I can't quite afford the wood poles/sticks yet. In about a week I can buy them. I also have to solve the transportation problem of getting the wood home from the lumber store as I will probably not be allowed to bring them home on a bus like most things I buy. I am hoping the lumber store can deliver the wood.

I have the day off Peer Helper training but it is the first day of our union convention today.

Today is a break in our peer helper training. Yesterday was fun with lots of role playing and joking. I am not sure if my joking is a pain on the other participants. I know some of them do not like talking about politics but I keep politics to a minimum unless people want to talk politics.

I will be talking union politics today and it should be quite relaxing. I am attending a union convention today. I will be attending this meeting on Friday and Saturday as well. I won't attend on Thursday so I can take more peer helper training.

I am applying for the executive director position at our self help network. Wish me luck!

My graduation present is a new laptop.

My father is helping me buy a new Macbook laptop. It seems many computer users are moving over to the Mac platform. I just like the arts behind the Macintosh computers. The new Macbook can be seen here http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html.

I managed to get through day three but still need to make up day two.

I did get through day three of the peer helper training today. It was tiring but really not I am tired after hours of computing that just went by while I was at home. I helped R set up his internet connection for a computer I sold him.

I am in day three of Peer Helper training today.

My sleep plan worked. I woke up at about 2:00 AM this morning well rested. I have been doing various tasks this morning. I studied a little of the peer helper training and am just preparing to go to day three of the training. I have day four of training this Thursday.

My work this past weekend was fine. I developed a bit more solidarity with my coworkers.

I got off work but am not so tired in fact I am hyper aware of my surroundings.

I got off work the same as yesterday and saw some of the same people on the bus this morning as yesterday. I was listening to Parachute Women by The Rolling Stones on my iPod and on the bus I finally could really isolate the bass guitar music in this piece. I have come to the conclusion that Bill Wyman is a polka style bass player. So when I am tired my hearing for music and bass frequencies seems better.

I am up and keen to go to work.

I woke up at 3:00 PM and did some household errands. I am now prepapring to go to work. I am just checking the bus schedule on the web. I enjoyed work last night and an older worker gave me a lift to the bus stop so I did not have to walk so far on the way home. I am working tonight and then have two weeks off for this job.

I am working this Wednesday in my teaching assistant work for my first teaching assistant work for the spring/summer term.. Also Tuesday I continue Peer Helper training. Wednesday our union convention starts. Thursday our fourth day of Peer Helper training occurs. I have the weekend off paid work next weekend but have a fair amount of volunteering that weekend.

I am off work and tired.

I just got off work and home and fed. I am tired but this is the plan because I will only get 7 hours sleep before going to work again. So I planned to be tired, so I could get to sleep right away. I have taken my meds minutes ago and will now sleep.

I started cleaning the air conditioner machine itself.

So you probably know how to solve a big problem by breaking it down into smaller problems. I had broken the air conditioner annual set up into two problems. One, I need to clean the machine and this was further broken down into two problems. The first of these sub problems was to clean the frame which is now done. And second part of the first problem was to clean the actual air conditioner machine. I started this second part of the smaller problem last night and this morning.

The second problem is to build a pigeon proof cover. This has been broken down into a design step and two building steps. The design step is almost done now with a common idea from mechanic and house handy person friend. I will use chicken wire pieces with spikes sticking up and staple the flat parts of the chicken wire to a plywood sheet. So the cover with the chicken wire are another part of the second problem. The final part of the second problem is half done and that is to build the structure that wraps around the air conditioner frame and supports and fastens the cover above the machine when it is in the window. On this structures' sides there will be some garden netting which I have bought now and this will keep the pigeons from getting inside and under the cover. So I need to build the cover and structure and then test it on the frame before I actually put the frame in the window. Then I will briefly go out on the balcony after the frame is in the window, and put the cover on the frame. Then I can finally put the machine in the frame and start it up. I plan to have this done in about a week from now just as it starts to get hot.

But back to the cleaning of the machine. I put on some old winter gloves and a dust mask to do this cleaning. I grabbed most of the old poop out and into a garbage bag. I then flipped the machine upside down in two ways and dumped the remaining poop on the linoleum floor. I then swept it up and into the bag. I have now thrown that bag out. I threw out the gloves too. I figure I still need to wipe the air condtioner machine clean with some cleaning fluid and also vacuum out the dust. I also have swept the floor now but need to mop it too before sleeping.

So this project in all its parts is happening. I am just surfing the net a little, up dating blogs, and organizing my coming week of work duties. I don't want to surf the internet right now too much because I need to sleep soon enough to get rested for my night shift work later today. I also have some shopping to do after I wake up and before I go to work. I am working until 7:00 AM tomorow then working again on Sunday at 7:00 PM.

Disaster preparedness and disAbled people.

Some thing I used to write about on the internet was disasters and disabled people. Here a piece of information about a world forum on this.

A three-week e-discussion on “Disasters and Disabled People” hosted by the World Bank begins next week. Each of the three weeks has a different focus topic:

Week 1, May 22 – 28: “Disaster Preparedness & Mitigation”

Week 2, May 29 – June 6: “Emergency Response/Relief”

Week 3, June 5 – 9: “Short/Medium Term Social-Economic Recovery & Reconstruction (with mitigation)”

All those who are interested are invited to join the discussion. For more information on the discussion and how you can join, please visit http://v1.dpi.org/lang-en/resources/details.php?page=596.

The meeting went well today.

The meeting went well although I probably talked too much and did not take notes. We now have a plan to move forward and support the Senate report and the professionals with us will be supporting this as we move forward. I came home and then slept at about 11:00 AM and then woke up by 5:00 PM and now am up for a few hours. I will sleep at about 2:00 or 4:00 AM. Then I will wake up early afternoon to prepare for a Saturday night shift. Then I also have a Sunday night shift this weekend and will work some time on Monday and because Monday is the celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday, it is an official holiday day and I will be paid time and a half for hours worked on Monday.

Speaking of work, I have work this weekend for two shifts then the next weekend off of work then a weekend after I work two shifts then the weekend after that we visit family. And the weekend after that we go to a book fair to sell our fiction.

I am dressed in a suit and tie.

I don't know if this is normal or abnormal, but I have been sitting here at home working on my iBook laptop for about an hour in my suit jacket and school tie. I am all prepared to go to Parliament Hill today. I have hundreds of things to say about labour with this pro labour MP but that is not what we are going to discuss today. Also I am not so sure this MP could help all that much more than the work he is now doing. We are going to be talking about consumer/survivor issues.

I am going to need to check in with security so I am bringing various ID's. I also will not bring my napsack because of the metal detectors. I also took my mini swiss army knife off my key ring so I will not set off the alarm. I would like to take my camera and Palm though so I can take a picture of my MP with me.

Life here carries on and I have been up all night. I am a bit manic and in denial that that is an unhealthy state to be in. I may really mess up this meeting, my Friday night get together, my work on the weekend and my volunteer shift tonight all because I have gotten off my sleep schedule.

We are having a meeting with my wife's ACT team today.

We are meeting with the ACT team today. I did some cleaning yesterday in response to this meeting. I will do some cleaning today. I got in a war of words with the ACT team worker yesterday. She tried to threaten us with evicition but our landlord does not evict tenants. I have also been with this landlord for over twenty years.

I also need to keep working on the air conditioner projects. I did buy the plastic netting/chicken wire. I also bought a good quality staple gun for both this project and also postering on telephone poles. I also need to get some metal. The consumer/survivor engineer suggests a tin cover because then the birds can not get a foot hold. I ran this idea past my brother who has worked as a contractor. He suggests aluminum siding sheets rather than tin. I will glue these to the wood cover then. I could buy tin sheets from a hobby shop. Or I could buy the the aluminum siding from a hardware store. So I need to make that decision still. For now I will make the next step cleaning the machine part of the air conditioner. The frame of the air conditioner is now sparkling clean.

I woke up too late for training and need to do other things today.

I woke up too late to attend training on time this morning. I also have a meeting with my wife's ACT team to discuss our messy apartment. This meeting is this morning in about an hour. I also need to check a union postal box for some zines sent from Japan to be sold at the anarchist book fair. I also want to attend a big protest today about the Prime Minister of Australia who is in town today at the "Hill".

I am attending day two of Peer Helper training tomorrow.

I did my homework for the Peer Helper training or some of it earlier this morning before resting for three hours. I have been going all day since then on union activities but also did some recycling of papers on the living room floor in the afternoon. I can actually see the carpet now. I will now sleep or nap and then attend day two of training on Thursday.

Then Thursday evening I have some political party volunteering to do with the green party. Actually it is a local executive meeting for the green party.

Then I have to meet a Member of Parliament on Friday morning who has agreed to meet a small delegation of consumers/survivors and let us try to lobby him. This is part of a local advocacy training exercise put on by the Canadian Mental Health Association. We are meeting him in his Parliament Hill offices so we have to be up early in the morning to check in with security on "the Hill" as this centre of our countries government is nick named. I will need to clean some dress pants and get my suit jacket ready for this meeting and polish my shoes. I may check my wardrobe just now after I post this.

Our peer to peer support training starts today.

I am up early this morning to start training in our peer to peer support training. Training starts at 10:30 AM. I just finished reviewing my morning email and following up by phone to one email. I also have been writing in my pen and ink journal. I had some interesting conversations on campus yesterday. I found out our marks in experimental design needed to be bell curved so that is why I have a lower mark than expected. So that is no big deal as long as it does not affect my admission to legal studies graduate school. I have been reading a basic book that defines social informatics as a field of study.

I am up from Sunday evening and have a board meeting.

I am just leaving for our board meeting of our self help group. We are putting on a coffee house this month which is exciting me as my PA system will be used at this event.

I am just going next door to help K with her email.

I seem to be a computer consultant for other consumer survivors. I am just getting ready to go help K with her email again. She needs more practice with microsoft outlook express. She is offering us a little left over food from her mother's day get together. I am looking forward to empowering her with email.

Quiet evening.

I slept at about 9:00 AM this morning and woke up at about 6:30 PM. It has been a quiet evening. We ordered pizza. I am just about to take my first dose of vitamins for my odd hour day. I have a board meeting tomorrow at 5:30 PM at our self help group.

I am just going out to buy bread. We haven't had any supper yet tonight.

Well my spending on the iBook is still hurting us. I had to spend my latest pay cheque on bills mostly. We have smokes for another week. I was able to pay a little on each and every bill. My next pay day is Monday and then we can get some groceries. We have food but I need to buy some bread and milk tonight. I will work next weekend and then be paid near the end of the month and this will help us get through to the end of the month. At the end of the month I will be paid for proctoring. It is almost time for an income report again and I need to go to school and pick up my pay stub now. I can do this on Monday. I will proof read this and then go to the store.

Union meeting went ok. I have five years clean and sober this week.

We met for our union meeting today. It was a lot of work preparing agendas, sending emails, and opening the meeting place on time and then the meeting itself. I am beat. I have five years clean and sober as of this week just past and might attend an NA meeting tonight or stay home and watch hockey.

I did a little union business today.

I needed to visit out cities district labour council offices today. We are having a union meeting tomorrow. Next weekend the Montreal Anarchist bookfair is happening apparently the largest anarchist gathering in North America. I am trying to book off work to attend next weekend.

The books I ordered from Germany about hearing safety in the workplace have arrived today now I have a bill to pay in Euros. I also got a health in the workplace monitoring book about Europe.

Med time and vitamins

I just gave my wife her nightly meds and am taking my vitamins. I may stay up late tonight.

I finished reading a book tonight.

I went to the school library today. I took back three new books: two on computer security and the book on health statistics. I took out a book on social informatics, a book about disAbilities and accomodation and another book on peace, war and computers. I completed reading Cracking the Gender Code by Melanie Stewart Millar today. I will take it back to school soon.

I was signed up for Peer to Peer support training.

The peer to peer support program we are starting at our self help group starts in July. The training of peer support volunteers starts this month. I will also be training in this program and I will start training this month, in fact, next week. I will be training on Tuesdays and Thursdays this coming week and for a few weeks.

I am up late working on computer projects.

I am just downloading Fedora core 5 the latest Fedora core release. Fedora core is a free linux operating system. I am installing it after I download it and burn it to CD's. There are five CD's. I have backed up all the data on the computer I am going to install this operating system on. I will no longer have a WinNT or Fedora core 3 machine after this.

I spent a little time this morning exploring a google search on my name. I also did my usual school web page surfing, reading the school's promotions magazine. I also visited a web site for my old high school a few times. Once this morning when I posted something and then once earlier this week I think Monday morning I visited this high school web site.

I am just stepping out to buy cigarettes for today.

The Canadian Senate recommend building 57,000 housing units for the mentally ill to be paid for by a 5 cent alcohol drink tax.

You can read the story here http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/09052006/2/xhealth-senate-committee-recommends-nickel-drink-tax-hike-mentally-ill.html. But I will copy and paste it in the extended entry part of this post as the link may disappear.

Senate committee recommends nickel-a-drink tax hike for mentally ill

Tue May 09, 03:41 PM EST
OTTAWA (CP) - Canadians should pay a nickel a drink to help the mentally ill, says the Senate social affairs committee.

After three years' work and consultation, the committee is calling on the government to invest half a billion dollars annually in support and housing for people with mental illness, paying for it with a tax on alcoholic drinks. In a report Tuesday, the committee recommended the creation of a national agency to help the mentally ill, and 57,000 affordable housing units for people living with mental illness.

"The stories we heard moved us to tears," said Liberal Senator Michael Kirby, chair of the committee.

"They also angered us because it shows clearly how little governments have done over the years for people living with a mental illness.

"Canadians living with mental illness confront a confusing, fragmented and under-resourced system. The situation is so bad that only one third of the people receive professional help."

The committee has already made public its key recommendation, the creation of a Canadian Mental Health Commission. The previous Liberal government said it would move on the idea but the Conservatives haven't stated their intentions.

Health Minister Tony Clement said Tuesday he would need time to study the committee's 118 recommendations.

"We can no longer tolerate a situation in which governments place mental health issues on a permanent back burner," said Kirby.

The report reaffirms the view, which has become generally accepted in the last few decades, that people with psychiatric problems can be treated more effectively in their communities than in institutions.

But Kirby said there has been a failure to provide community services for people who were once kept in hospitals.

"The reality is that in Canada today the homeless and prisons have become the asylums of the 21st Century. We moved people out of institutions without having the other care facilities available for them.

"The data show very clearly that the percentage of homeless with a mental illness is very high."

Kirby said a national agency makes sense even though health is under provincial jurisdiction.

"This is not a federal government issue. This is an issue of trying to get all the players together to help get it done."

The committee proposes a five-cent increase in the excise tax on alcoholic drinks - a nickel a beer, 25 cents for a bottle of wine - to fund mental-health initiatives.

The proposed new agency would undertake a 10-year campaign to combat discrimination against the mentally ill.

The report says a fifth of the population will experience mental illness at some point.

I am helping a neighbour consumer K with her email.

K hired me about 15 minutes ago to teach her email. I will spend at least two hours this afternoon teaching her email. I am just printing some documents to help her learn how to use email.

My partner and I went out to a social justice event last night.

There was an event last night to raise money for a political prisioner in the USA and we went to this event. They were also collecting books for prisoners and we donated about 10 books. My wife also sold some books and we were able to buy drinks. Some of my law professors were also at the event and I chattted briefly with them about prisons and sentencing. Also some unionised panhandlers were there selling books and magazines. We heard poets and rap artists on stage at this event. It was a good time and we met other local poets.

I hope to finish cleaning the air conditioner frame this morning.

You probably know we are messy us people with schizophrenia. I still need to clean up the air conditioner frame. I hope to complete that work today.

I did a little green party volunteering to relax my under employed anger after reading about labour law.

I picked up a bunch of law papers at the conference yesterday but my day was too long and hard and I could not relax. I got very angry about work after reading one paper. I was relaxed while I read it. But it was a discussion paper so I emailed comments to the government office. After all that anger surfaced I instead did some green party meeting follow up to get that done. I read this morning's paper and then completed the law report reading and more emails and now I will sleep exhuasted.

Link to Internet and disablity studies for those who like to read their way to health..

Check out this article

May 2004 - Ref 524
Does the Internet open up opportunities for disabled people?

http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialcare/524.asp

Another long day angry about my work situation.

Long term unemployment carrys emotional scars that last a life time. As well the financial hardship is hard to bear. I spent the morning up from yesterday and I read a law book on how work is for low paid, part-time and marginalized workers. I send the government office that wrote this report my story as they were hoping to get Canadian public input. I then visited the government jobs web site. I may stand a not bad chance at two jobs still. one managing the security of a data base using SAS and another as a web master. Also I don't see why I should not get a job as a junior statistical clerk. I am maybe over qualified for this job but it pays 30K a year and I could use that just fine thank you. But I can do the web master job and that pays more. I don't think the process though will be fair as I have never had success being hired in the government. I just reviewed the web master application and there is one spelling error in my application.

I am thinking of quiting some of my other jobs soon. I am worth more than minimum wage. I am worth more than 17/hour for 65 hours in four months. All this work seems great when you don't have a job but I am getting tired of being kicked around. So all this to say I am at the end of another long day, angry, and tired and again a little more knowledgeable.

I am not quite up to it. I will stay home from the rest of the conference.

I worked too hard the past two days. First I had a short but extremely busy work day on Friday. Today I sat through 4 hours of the conference and then ate lunch with these young professors and went right into a four hour political meeting. I then stupidly tried to go shopping after being home briefly for supper. I am needing to relax at home now and it is getting late. I will not be able to wake up in time for the morning sessions. Perhaps I will study over night. I need to do the accounts and read some of the readings I picked up at the conference today.

I am just preparing to go to work now.

I woke up around 12 midnight. I have been doing some computer tasks this morning. I also shaved and got dressed into my work clothes. I will leave for work just after 5:00 AM. I am only working until 13:00 PM today. Then I will take a book I am not reading back to the library. I just bought milk and pop for the day. I also got some change for laundry and buying a pop at work from a machine. I will see about having R, J, and C over tonight. We will probably watch hockey on TV.

Speaking of TV yesterday at about 24 hours into my day the TV arrived. I spent about an hour setting it up. The most work was getting it up on the table my partner's father got us. The table was too low so I needed to use some cinder blocks under the table to get the TV to the right height. This TV is in our bedroom and I went to sleep right afterwards so my partner could not really try out the TV right away. She did watch a little with her friend L.

L did not get a job at an internet café and also my partner is not too keen to have the iBook laptop.

Where I am getting some of these wild new academic ideas from....

I am reading this book on mad bad women, which is giving me some of the critical ideas I used in today's posts. The article I talked about in the last post was the third article in this book. I want to read the whole book by Saturday for the criminology conference but will have to settle for reading as much as I can before Saturday. Here is the bibliographic information for this book.

Chan, Wendy & Chunn, Dorthy E. & Menzies, Robert. eds. Women, Madness and the Law: a feminist reader (London: The GlassHouse, 2005)

In this book I have read the introduction and the first two papers and started the third. These are:

Ussher, Jane M. Unravelling Women's Madness: Beyond Positivism and Constructivism and Towards a Material-Discursive-Interpsychic Approach

I just read this last night and understood it. I find the hope for better more humane treatment, fewer medications for women, and the idea of not seeing everything as mental illness, to be enlightening.

Kendall, Kathleen, Beyond Reason: Social Constructions of Mentally Disordered Female Offenders

It covers the history of criminal lunacy as social construction of this type of person.

Labrum, Bronwyn, The Boundries of Femininity: Madness and Gender in New Zealand, 1870-1910.

See the previous post for comments on this article.

I read a little about Auckland Lunatic Asylum in the late 19th and early 20th century.

I was working at the computer too much this morning. I think many of us with schizophrenia seem to work too much with computers these days. At least this is what it seems to family members I have heard from. I am starting to think I spend too much time on the computer too and not enough time reading books and watching TV. I don't watch TV shows or comedies anymore and I used to love doing that. I did try this morning to take a break from the computer and do some reading.

I did manage to read further about causes for admissions to this Asylum in New Zealand in the 19th and 20th century. The researcher, Bronwyn Labrum a history professor in New Zealand sampled about 50 cases from 1870 to 1910 and so far has compared gender in looking at various reasons for commitment. The four reasons she looked at were... "threats to property, threats to persons, varying manifestations of 'paranoia' and threats to articulated social norms." It was interesting reading and the cases described remind me of myself and others I know. It is interesting that in those days men were locked up for violence against wives. Also people were locked up for wild ideas about supporting native religious beliefs. Imagine that politics affecting committal one only has to remember the standard line about the Soviet political dissidents and their hospitalization in asylums to get this point.

I spent about an hour or two researching health statistics

I used a book from the university library on health statistics to search on-line journals, the WHO and US government health institute for information on health statistics. The US document was here http://www.ncvhs.hhs.gov/21st%20final%20report.pdf, concerning health statistics and health statistics models. I got lead astray at the WHO web site looking for this document on disease classifications http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/ which is on-line. I went to something on noise and ended up in Germany at a national occupational health and safety web site here at http://www.baua.de/ which is available in English. So another research adventure over night.

Of course disease classifications included stuff on schizophrenia, so I printed that out from the WHO classification. But to put it in popular language it means we are being put in little shoe boxes by doctors. In academic terms, classifications like the WHO's and the DSM are contested areas and suggest viewpoints that priviledge scientific knowledge above other forms of knowledge. When, in fact, experimental science can not study the whole of life. Even just feelings and emotional reality, or friendships and real human to human relationships, and the effect these have on mental health and mental illness recovery, will be unrecorded as experimental sciences can not record these factors. So these factors will be ignored and left out of a scientific and classifications world view. Thus we need narratives i.e stories from friends, family and professionals like you find around the schizophrenia .com web site to tell a bigger story.

Another crazy late night project started that actually is an original solution to our(nature's) mess

We have an air conditioner. But we also have pigeons on the balcony. I think some people see us as nuts because we don't do much about the pigeons. The air conditioner has come out of the balcony window for two years now over winter. That is how long we have had it. It always comes out full of pigeons droppings. They sit and poop on the top of it. This year back in February I got to designing a cover for it that would keep the droppings out of the vents. I consulted another consumer with an engineering background and he suggested I needed to create a 45 degree angle cover that the birds could not stand on. I thought about this but figured that I just need to cover the vents to avoid the poop. His solution does more though it actually keeps the birds off the air conditioner period.

Last night I invited a near by consumer to help me put the air conditioner in the window for the year. I took out the frame from storage and realised I needed to clean it. I started that and probably poisoned myself cleaning it. I didn't finish the cleaning and realised this would take longer so I let my consumer friend go back home, as he has an early morning job conselling appointment. After he left I stopped cleaning.

I then started building this self designed cover. I had some garbage picked 1"X1"80" wood pieces and did an on the fly design in my head and cut some of the wood into the correct lenghts for the design. I am going to attempt to build the 45 degree cover the other consumer suggested and then cover the whole thing in chicken wire. I put some of the pieces together, with some hardware I had bought years ago for a computer rack, I was going to build but never completed. I reduced the amount of noise I made sawing by using a hand saw and also saved energy.

So the project of putting the air condtioner into the window for another year is started. The two sub projects, the cleaning of the air conditioner and the building of the pigeon cover are also started. I lost interest in this and started to work at the computer but may complete some more of the cleaning this morning. I have to clean both the frame and the machine itself. Yes I am crazy and dangerous for not cleaning last fall when it came out of the window but that's that. I am now taking action. I would like to complete the frame cleaning this morning and also some more of the building of the cover. May be I will also buy the chicken wire I need this morning at a hardware store.

Today is the first day I can register for summer courses.

I am just now going to surf the school course system and find some courses. I will probably not be able to pick and register for courses until 8:00 or 9:00 AM this morning. I am thinking of studying introductory sociology or popular music this summer. But I should study French. I will also look at available philosophy courses. I don't need to study any statistics courses as the summer term is light and there are only courses I have already studied offered. But I must keep my schedule open to work as a teaching assistant in these statistics courses. I may in the end study nothing this summer as I think I need a break.

I am filling in the census tonight.

Every five years Canada does a census. I am filling in our census questionnarie tonight. I am doing in on-line on the web.

We got a new 26'' widescreen TV for my wife.

Instead of letting my wife drink 12 beers yesterday. I stopped her at 3 beers by talking her into going out shopping. We took the bus and train together to look at TV's. She liked the one I picked out and then we came home and ordered it from the same store on-line. We ordered it on-line because delivery on-line is free. My wife's father has bought her a TV table now to hold the new TV. We will probably have it all set up by midweek next week.

I have had a few good days off of work.

I have not been working this week. It has been enjoyable. I managed to complete some computer projects. I am volunteering tonight. I will have some odd hours tonight and woke up at 2:00 PM today. I will stay up over night and do computing projects and studies. I will sleep at 10:00 AM tomorrow morning or noon then wake up late at night or early Friday morning and then work six hours Friday morning. Then on the weekend I am at a criminology conference. I am reading more studies into mad bad women.

I am just buying our cat some food.

We buy our cat food at our vet's office. So I am just going there this morning to buy a 4 KG bag of food. I woke up early enough to do some shopping before going to my health and safety training this afternoon.

I managed to have regular length days for about 8 days now.

You may remember a few weeks ago I began to be worried about being manic when being awake for longer than 20 or 24 hours. I noticed this more concretely and have been able to take healing action. My solution in early recovery and while in hospital to many problems is to get rest. So this past couple of years of late nights and 20-36 hour days was not good for my journey in recovery. It has been good for my work and study habits but not good for my mind. I was able to get regular length normal sleeping hours for the past 8 days or so. I have not been angry much in this time. So this may have prevented me becoming bi-polar for now. I am not quite correct because on Saturday night last I did stay up until Sunday but instead of just staying awake I napped. Both an RCMP recruit and an old Sargent Major have advised me that to be awake long hours the best way of handling it it is to take little power naps. So where am I am going with this? For the next few days I will revert back to longer days but really only a few twenty hours days in a row with one turn of the clock by Saturday and the night I will be up all night until 10 AM is the Wednesday night/Thursday morning. So for today and also Wednesday I will wake up late in the morning and then Friday I will awake early perhaps Thursday late at night. Then I will also be up early on Saturday and Sunday. I work next on Friday. Today I am training for some health and safety committee work. So today I must wake up around 10 AM and I have already about half an hour ago taken my 6 mg of risperadol and am feeling a bit tired and will sleep soon. I have stopped my computer project for the night and am just doing some blog entries and accounting before I sleep.

I spent May Day on a picket line.

A sister local is on strike. I was buying bus passes for my wife and I and then went to the picket line. These are cheaper bus passes for those of us with lower incomes and disabilities. So for less money than a regular adult pass which is what I used to pay we get two bus passes. So after buying these passes I went outside in front of a large convention centre where a sister local is walking the line on strike. I talked with them each a bit and carried a sign for about an hour. What prompted this was an email from a company saying an event I was to attend this week at this convention centre would go ahead even with the strike. So I replied to the email saying I would not attend and then decided to attend the picket line.

I sent some good emails to my dad this evening.

My dad supports my school work. He helps pay my school bills and also shares his science skills with me. He teaches me things in science that help me to do well in sciences. I also help him with computer problems when I visit him. He won't come to my graduation this June but he came to my first graduation in 2002. I have a fairly positive relationship with my father these days.

I have the day off of work. Happy May Day!

I finally have a day off of work today. I was supposed to attend a community meeting this morning but slept in. I also could be at a May day rally happening over lunch but am just relaxing at home.