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Today is pay day and, in fact, the government disAbility support office just called to verify some data they could not read on our fax to them from last month. I spent about 6 hours since I stopped marking doing money stuff. I also did a little quality control for the marking so not all six hours were lost from work. I am now waiting to hear about that government job. I am going to school this afternoon to help with some union business. I will sleep at about 8:00 PM tonight having had a 30 hour day. I will not have friends over tonight as R is going out with other friends to watch a movie. I am rambling and getting a bit wired or pseudo manic this morning after about 20 hours awake. This is my usual 20 hours awake state of mind.
I set a reward and schedule for marking which worked so far this morning. I will wait to buy the reward and may in the end not buy it. So I fooled my procrastination. I am further along now and will mark for another 5 hours this morning. I may choose a more affordable reward like computer game time. My computer use sure takes a lot of time out of my life. It is not computer games that I play though just lots of writing.
I am having difficulty marking for long periods of time. I won't go into details but the excitment of payday is getting to me and I need to stay away from the computer and on-line shopping and do some marking. I am going to set a goal for marking and if I make it I will then do the on-line shopping as a reward.
I spent some time on my bank accounts. I need to pay some bills and am making an investment by buying stock this month. I will probably not be buying anything big this month end but next week might buy my partner a CD, DVD, and Video shelf. She also wants a trunk. I need to buy a skin for my new laptop keyboard.
Our self-help group Annual General Meeting is coming up. I will need to run for relection this year. I also as president need to give the members a report on our progress over the past year. Tonight, in fact, in one hour we are having our board dinner which we do at year end. We choose a Chinese restuartant because we are located near Chinatown. I believe, I have been to two of these dinners in the past but may have been too busy for last year's dinner. My volunteer duties have been looked after for this evening and I am just on call now. I got some progress early this morning with my marking work and hope to do more of this tonight/Friday morning. I am working a night shift this weekend in my other job but after that I have no work scheduled at this other job. I can't write much about the other job but I will say in involves security work and the shifts are 12 hours long.
Again I could be sour about not being admitted to legal studies at the MA level. I found out yesterday that I was not accepted in to the MA program. I think I was being too critical of the staff there. In some ways too I did not accept some of their marking and ideas and was at odds with them often. I did manage to get a BA in legal studies and finish with very good grades. In some ways the legal studies BA program is some degree mill program at our school and I think there may have been about 100 students in the same program in my graduating class. This is also to be critical of my own abilities at legal studies as I am not so sure I really know this field at any really great level. It seems more like I only needed to be able to talk logically and critically in class, in papers, and in emails to succeed in this program. Although this talking was also learned and may be I am in fact very good at legal studies. But it is so unrelated to my other studies, I can't help but think it is not me.
Oh well I am still looking forward, now even more to graduate studies in systems science.
I found out yesterday that I have not been hired to be the executive director of the self help network where I am presently the web master. I asked them why I was not chosen and they stated that another candidate had more regional experience which may be true as my experience although multigrouped as a board member volunteer is only with groups in the largest city in this regional network. They did say they were very impressed by my presentation and interview.
So what conclusions should I draw from this? Should I continue to look for work directing a non-profit and find a group where I have a better fit? Should I react with a sour mood and decide that I should not really seek work in the consumer survivor movement? Or should I, as I think is right, assume that my excellent performance on this application means that I can apply myself to a job search successfully and I should really keep looking for a job at a middle class salary because this is something I am capable to doing for work? Or am I, just an expert at human resources and the hiring process? That was meant as a joke, that last rhetorical question, because only my ward/rehab team, nurse in 1990 would have supported that conclusion.
I just took 6 mg risperadol, 1 gram niacin and 1 gram vitamin C. I am sipping a coffee and drinking ice water. I spent the last two or three hours cleaning. I threw out two bags of trash. I also did one bag of shredding. I cleared and swept the living room floors. I also filled up rhe recycling bins which my partner will empty today. I almost met the requirements my mother had set for her to come and clean again today. She will be here around noon today. I am heading off to sleep in an hour or so. I cleaned the other pair of boots and then bleached the bottoms of both boots and the tub where I do this pigeon dung washing.
I really should have cleaned the pigeon dung up off the balcony first before buidling out there. R offered to come over again today to help build. We have the two sides of the structure together. Now we must extend the sides slightly because the sides could only be 8 feet long boards and the balcony is about ten feet long. Then we must join both sides from the front of the balcony to the wall of the building. I am building a box frame around the balcony. So these are the next steps. Then finally the plastic netting will be stapled on and then the dung will be cleaned up.
There are some old furniture pieces on the balcony including a mosaic table build by my grandfather that must be trashed. There are two folding metal mesh chairs and some old garbage picked table. These will all be lost.
The air in the apartment is being filtered and cooled right now but there is an oder of pigeon dung about.
We did make all the cuts. We then tried to maneuver the wood on the balcony but the plan for maneuvering did not work. So I needed to reach up high to put some pieces together. This strained R's arm strength as he held the wood while I used the screwdriver, The powered screwdrivers helped a little but really failed to have the power to do the job. Also I got ahead of the pieces I had pilot holed so some screws went in on an angle. Also I used the wrong sized square driver at first and this was also a mistake.
We got about a third of it together and then we relaxed. I made supper and we did not order pizza. I cleaned up pigeon dung but still need to clean up a bit more. While it was safer to work in the wet pigeon dung it was messy on our boots. I cleaned both of our boots. But I changed boots to my old black army style boot out of my safety boots, so still need to clean the army boots. I also need to clean up around the balcony door but there is newspaper containing the dung there. I need to do this tonight before sleeping. I am now relaxing alone and organizing the budget and scheduling and blogging of course. Then I will do some marking for statistics and then sleep. I also am managing to do an on call volunteer shift and did a little managing of volunteers by phone today and this evening.
We have made 8 cuts now. We have 8 more cuts to make and we are done with the circular saw and cutting wood. We are on an extended break. I have to mark the remaining 8 cuts before we cut again. The next step will be pilot holing the screws for the hardware to hold the 1.5" square boards together. I have a detailed plan for how we put it together. This means how we will maneuver the wood onto the balcony and put it together. I am hoping to be done today. I did use all the safety equipment. I learned that the wood was getting caught on the saw's frame, which caused me a bit of a problem, but once I figured out that that was happening things went smoothly. We are taking lots of breaks and took one when my partner's ACT team worker dropped by. We chatted a bit. My partner is working to clean the cupboards. R and my partner will have some beer later and we will all eat pizza.
So I set out the tools and asked R just now to bring his cordless screwdriver and Philips screwdrivers. He is also wearing his safety boots and I advised him to wear a pair of old pants. I am just about to do two measurements for the balcony. One is the exact height and the other the exact length. I need to find my own work gloves but I bought R a pair he can keep after the job.
We did not clean so much yesterday. Today the ACT will inspect on the progress. I managed to shred a little yesterday but did not even produce one bag of shredding. I did though get one bag of recycling prepared to go out. I also bought a little more cleaning supplies. I also cleared off the last of the fridge magnets and cleaned up the cupboard above the fridge a bit but it is still brown. I also made arrangements to reschedule the landlord inspection because it had conflicted with a union all day meeting. Today my partner does more laundry and taking out recycling. I need to clear the living room floor and the dinning room floor before Wednesday noon. My mom will come again Wednesday. I lost the paper she had made a list of things to get ready for her. I also today want to do carpentry. Yesterday I bought goggles and work gloves for R who is helping me with the carpentry. I need to read the saw manual now before sleeping. Then I will take my meds and get some rest. I know I need to be well rested to work the saw. I will also tonight find my planned design and prepare to measure tomorrow morning. I will mark the wood tomorrow. Hopefully we will do carpentry tomorrow between 12 noon and 4:00 PM. I will also bring the tools out now and place them on the floor in front of the wood. I got explict permssion from the superintendent for using the side of the building to do wood work.
P.S. I placed all the tools out and materials. Now that manual. Then meds and sleep.
I got in about 9:00 PM tonight. I had been out since 10:00 AM. So I spent 11 hours outside the home today. It is good the way work supports me socially as I describe in the extended entry.
I could not have done this in the past but was required to do this when I lived in a boarding house. It was a difficult year that year. It was only from about November 1986 to June 1987 that I lived in a boarding house in the downtown area. This was as close as I have come to being homeless. The boarding house staff told me I had to leave the house in the morning and return for supper. The only way I could do this was to increase my study load at school that winter term. I often that winter term would be at school with no money to buy lunch so would return to the boarding house to eat lunch rather than starve. I would then miss classes. I ended up failing all three courses that term. It did not work.
Today I had more success out of the house and had meaningful things to do like working, participating in consumer advocacy, and shopping for carpentry safety gear. My pack today was loaded, so heavy I thought the straps would break.
Today unlike the winter of '87. I was fed lunch at a government meeting of mental health workers who give intensive services. I won't go into details of this meeting but I will say that a family member, myself, a consumer voice, and a mental health meeting facilitator from an agency, discussed a priority for the system. That priority that we discussed was standards and models for care and delivery of services. After we brought our thoughts back to the whole meeting I butted heads with a senior hospital manager who rebutted us. But I eased off and left saying only that it had been good discussion.
I then caught a bus to school and went to the union office and chatted with the business agent and did some union business. Then it was one hour of office hours where only one student attended and we worked on basic probability, expected value basics, and variance basics. I then proctored a test. Surprise, because at the test my neighbour from right across the hall was writing the test. He is studying systems engineering. We hardly ever talk because of religious differences and generally having no reason to even say hello. But tonight I told him more about my education and he suggested we talk more. He said he had no idea I was so educated. He said he would now come to my tutorial. Which means I have attracted students to my teaching.
So this summer could be a really good term for meaningful relationships in teaching effecting my community support. Although the concentric circles of support and, in fact, the definition of a community, need not be physical, this is the next circle outside the family, in a physical way of seeing the people that surround our "self". Neighbours are also a first line of support in other crisis not just emotional or psycho-social crisis.
A psychologist/consumer sent me an email today supporting our efforts to clean up. Our apartment is fairly gone but it is making a slight comeback. I cleaned some more cupboards today. My partner did two loads of my laundry and she washed the dishes. I recycled some old city hall agendas and minutes from our accessibility committee. I hope they are safe being recycled. I am less worried about privacy and more concerned to get this cleaning done. I haven't shredded much in the past three days. The bathroom is still cluttered but the toilet bowl and sink are clean. The floor is stained though. In fact, the tiles on the floor are stained in all the rooms.
One of the best tools I have for getting better is reading library books about psychology and psychiatry. Some are good and many are bad in a public library, but you can learn a lot this way.
I worked last night and have been up doing some cleaning and chatting on the internet.
I slept at 2:00 AM this morning but just lied down after studying when our guests went home. I slept till 6:00 AM on the couch. I then took 6 mg of risperadol and went to our bed and slept until about noon. I have been up organizing my shedule and the budget and studying. I am now preparing to work a night shift tonight. I am also preparing some volunteering next week. I also have to make some phone calls for our self help group Annual General Meeting (AGM) coming up soon.
On Friday morning I had an interveiw to work for the government at an entry level job. This work would be full time evening shifts and this work would take us off the government income support. I have wanted to work in this government offce for years and I hope I get the job.
I also sold the iBook I restored to a disabled person. I am making a donation of some books and magazines which will also help us clear stuff out. I should also be getting rid of some other computer parts this coming week.
Some of the cupboards are actually white now. My mom did a good job. My partner also cleaned yesterday. I moved the stove out and they both cleaned up behind it after I swept it out. We had some positive team work happening. R and I are doing the carpentry for the balcony this Tuesday.
We talked about words like "self", "doctor", and "family". We read some books. J read Cooper's Psychiatry and Anti-Psychiatry. I read about computer consulting. R read some case studies. C read about working with those with schizophrenia. We ate potatoe salad and nuts and drank pop and water. It was a peaceful evening.
We did a lot of cleaning today. We have a clean front closet. I also was able to clean some of the cupboards with a special new cleaning sponge. I won't write the brand name here. It worked at getting nicotine off the cupboards but cost a lot to buy.
I am just enjoying my mom's company and chit chating about government jobs and the government job search web site. I go for my government statistics job interview tomorrow. I asked my mom and dad for advice about this job because it is full time and I won't be able to continue into grad school if I am working at this job. My mom and dad reminded me I don't have the job yet. My mom suggested I take the job if it is offered and decide on school in September. My dad said to focus on the immediate situation in other words tomorrow's interview. This is a good piece of advice. I need to prepapre some clothes and shave for tomorrow morning.
I stayed up late to about 2:00 AM and then slept to about 10:00 AM today. I did some cleaning and blog writing and a little studying. I read a chapter in a book, which is a work on the social networks of people with schizophrenia. This is an under studied area according to the author. The chapter in a book is
I continued to shred papers and managed to get a large bag of shredding done and thrown out.
L came by and briefly swept the hall, and the bathroom and then did a little mop work. She also whipped the kitchen cupboards and the front door. There is layer of nicotine everywhere.
My mom will be here in about an hour to do some major scrubbing. She will clean the front closet, and help us wash behind the fridge and stove.
In about one hour I need to go to school to hold office hours.
I need to pick up the pace with cleaning. We got our eviction notice today with the cleaning conditions we must meet to avoid eviction. I am fairly sure we can do this. My mother is coming here later today to help us scrub walls and clean the entrance way closet and kitchen. I offered to give away some computers, books and magazines to other union members. I am also giving away a cell phone we don't need.
I attended a joint health and safety committee meeting. I attended just on time and I was fairly disheveled in appearance with three days of beard growth. I did wear a clean shirt and shorts for the summer solstice today. It was a rather cool day. I told another worker on the committee I have schizophrenia but only after she seemed to betray the working class.
I then did some last minute marking. I got it done by noon and back to the professor. I tried to do it over night but fell asleep at about 2:00 AM and slept until 8:00 AM. I came home after lunch and found out I have been invited to an interview for a statistics related job. I phoned up to confirm my attendence this Friday.
I then went back to school to have office hours and also to give a tutorial. It was a rather informal tutorial but I solved some homework problems that had been handed in earlier in the evening.
I am now home and need to clean up some more.
I took the powerbook to my friend's apartment. I then showed him how to use it. I also installed his laser printer and got it working with Microsoft office. He paid me 50$ for the first payment on this laptop. He will also pay me 50$ at the end of the month. R will also pay me 50$ at the end of the month for the IBM intellistation.
With the 50$ I bought us zuccini and my partner made zuccini, rice and tofu for supper. I also bought my partner the movie Love Story which she had ordered from a video store. I also bought an angle grinder on sale for 15$. I read the safety manual and put it away now. I also bought other food and a coffee at the mall. I am now home geting ready to mark statistics home work. I am marking histograms and stem and leaf plots. I am working tomorrow for one hour in the evening and also have a work related health and safety meeting in the morning.
I slept at 2:00 AM and woke up at 10:00 AM this morning. I had left the laptop unplugged over night. It started this morning fine. I did a few final updates of software and installed Illustrator 6.0 and am now ready to deliver this laptop to my wife's publisher. I am going over to his place at 4:00 PM today. So the laptop was not broken after all. It is a nice G3 Lombard Powerbook. I am feeling much better today.
I bought a laptop on ebay and it arrved today. I think I broke it installing X11 and it now does not start up. I was geting this for my wife's publisher another disabled person. I am hurt with this lose. I am in pain emotionally because of this. I also have no one to really turn to for support for this.
I searched the Canadian Senate report to see if my comments had been included. Instead I found my mom's comments and the Senate said this was one of the few positive stories they heard.
I never did play ice hockey. I did warch the Stanley Cup final game seven tonight. I am not usually into watching hockey. I started watching early during the play offs. I have played road hockey. I used to always play goal and Ken Dryden was my favorite player. This was also because he had been to law school. I still follow this adolescent dream I almost applied to law school for this year. The last time I played road hockey was when I had just gotten out of hospital in the early 1990's. I played with a neighbour and his freinds and I resocialised. I also got high a lot in those days. I truly belive getting high helps in some ways with mental health recovery. This is not a popular view but that is the view I hold.
I am pretty tired. I have been marking for about two hours this morning. I also did some planning of the day ahead. I won't get any rest today. I will also stay up for the Stanley Cup game tonight. I cleaned up some more of the living room floor and put away CD's into the CD tower. I listend to some Beethoven string music. I have been up about 16 hours now which is a regular day for the normal 8 hours sleep. I know no one actually is normal and that variance is what is actually to be expected. I took 1 of my 3 mg risperadol pills about an hour ago. I am staying up to mark and go out to a labour rally. Then I have a board meeting then I come home to watch the Stanley Cup final game.
I have about 19 books out from my old school library right now. I was not reading today. Instead I did some shopping for supper and bought some on sale pliers. Some of these I am giving to R. Some I kept for myself. I did do some web surfing of the new school's web site. I did print off the course description for the first course I will take this fall. I will hopefully do a little journal research on the topics in the course description tonight/tomorrow morning. I am going to stay up all night and do some marking then I am attending a labour protest tomorrow morning. Then I have a board meeting in the late afternoon.
I have been up all night now. I woke up at 7:00 or 8:00 AM Saturday so soon I will have been up for 24 hours. I just did a little more work so today has been a work day for me. I worked five hours last night and now about 1 hour on my teaching work so far this morning. I hope to do more marking this morning.
I also tried out an on-line role playing or simulation game called Second life and learned more about it.
I did some recording of marks for one course and should get doing some more marking now. I also sent an email report to one of the professors.
I did manage to produce two more bags of shredding and throw them out last night before having my friends C and J over for some conversation. C thinks this is group therapy, but in fact, this is just getting together in our home. We do tend to discuss meds and doctors though. In fact, her doctor has increased C's meds because she was feeling very down since her father passed away. Pills solve death. Death is natural but our reactions to it can be abnormal.
I managed today to do some training in providing women with access to safety workshops. I did this for about five hours over the midday. My partner went out to a bookfair which cost us 20$ for table but she was able to sell two books and make the money back. After the volunteer training I went to school for some special work helping a disabled student who has some other disability which I won't write about here because I must respect her privacy.
I got home from the job interview at about 5:00 PM. The interview went well. I will start this work in two weeks if I get this job.
I am still preparing to go to this job interview today. I shaved. I got my fancy clothes on. I also unplugged the cordless screwdriver which was charging while I slept. I bought it yesterday. I also bought one for R. These were on sale for ten dollars each. They seemed like a good deal. I read the manual for his screw driver yesterday.
I still need to do two hours of cleaning today. I will have R, C and J over tonight after I get home from the interview. The power point slides I created have been emailed yesterday to the self help group in the near by town and confirmed that they received the slides.
I cleaned some papers up off the living room floor and shredded them. I then bagged these shreds and threw them in the garbage. I am up early getting ready to go to this job interview in a near by town.
You might not believe this but previous to today there was cat fiscies on our dinning room floor in the cats litter area. I swept this up and removed the spill paper and threw this all out. I need to mop and then scrub this on my hand and kness still today. I also cleaned up the remaining cables from my recording weekend and put them in the orange bag I have for cables and microphones. Our landloard inspected today and we need to do some serious cleaning in the next two weeks or they will clean it for us and throw stuff out. I was able to throw out some old broken magazine racks and recycle almost all the magzines. We will have to pay for wall damage from the air conditioner and also carpet damage and tile damage. My partner's ACT team worker is supprting us in this clean up blitz. I was full of manic energy when I did this cleaning.
I started in again on my balcony project this morning by reading a construction health and safety manual. I read about the safe use of screwdrivers, hammers, and saws. I learned my new circular saw has a composite blade that can cut both with the grain ripsaw and across the grain crosscut. So it will work for what ever I do with the wood but now I know looking at the wood I will be cutting across the grain. At least I took time to learn this.
I then started to think of safety equipment I still need for our circular saw work. I have safety googles but R will also need a pair. We should also have hearing protection. I am also going to buy R some quality screw drivers that are on sale right now. This is getting me into more debit. But this will allow me work safely and also support R with employment support. There are also some pliers on sale right now at my local Canadian Tire and I would like to get those but that all involves a trip to the store later today or this morning.
I also need to buy more vitamin C but that can wait until this afternoon before I sleep.
I placed all my statistics books in my office shelf designated for statistics books and papers. I spent an hour cleaning just now and am trying to relax and stop now. I also picked up garbage off the living room floor. I piled about 20 magazines into a pile. I cleared off half a couch. I made coffee for the morning and I am up from yesterday feeling a little frazzeled.
I am being interviewed tomorrow. I have been asked to present the topic of recovery to a mock meeting of senior executives of a traditional mental health agency. I have completed a draft of the power point presentation and am now doing a little more research for the spoken part. I am also inspired by reading some of these documents. Here is one I found on the Internet quoted on this peer to peer support site (http://www.peersupport.org/). The document is web published on this site (http://www.nasmhpd.org/). The document is titled, Emerging New Practices in Organized Peer Support
2003 by Jean Campbell, Ph.D. and Judy Leaver, M.A.. It is found here (Emerging New Practices in Organized Peer Support
2003.)
I got a phone call today suggesting that my application to graduate school in systems science has been approved. It may now have been approved by the systems science department and now just needs to clear the hurtle of the graduate studies faculty office. I will gladly enter this program in the fall. That means I need to study some programming before September.
I am just typing this at school in the library where I am accessing the internet from the library wireless network and typing this blog entry on my new Macbook laptop.
My wife and my mother joined me at my graduation ceremony yesterday.
It was not long and boring and the Rabbi giving the convocation address was short and to the point. Although I joined the protest about his being a member of a group that considers homosexuality to be a disease. He is a doctor of psychology and a community voice for Jewish and in general religous tolerance. He spoke about looking inside ourselves as he was addressing the public affairs graduates. He was defining our faculty as outward focused. He attributed our efforts in studies, to trying to make a better world out there, but reminded us to keep our own inner worlds in good health.
I shook the Chancellors hand and told him I am disabled. I told him this because he has been exposed as saying negative things in the past about funding for people with disabilities when he ran for political office this past winter. I hope he knows we will be watching and reacting to defend our rights.
I will wear a casual pair of black pants and light blue shirt to graduation tomorrow. I will wear a school tie that was bought for me at my last graduation. I will wear some light brown shoes that remind me of Colonial English hot tropics wear from the 1800's. I don't think I will wear a suit jacket but I will check the weather now.
I have a problem of not finishing what I start. For instance, our bathroom is not completely painted. Knowing this I did finally just now after midnight complete putting the new workbench together. I have still not checked my clothes for tomorrow. I did take my meds for the night and will sleep in the next hour or so.
I shaved for tomorrow. I still need to check to see if I have clothes to wear tomorrow. I may not wear a jacket as my jackets need dry cleaning. I took 1 gram of niacin just now and drank 1 gram of vitamin C.
When I graduated with my first undergraduate degree I had only a three year degree worth of credits and had a high C+ average. Now I am graduating with a B+ average and high honours in a four year bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies. The ceremony is tomorrow. I am now going to shave and get my business attire together for tomorrow.
I spent the day mostly at home. I did not remember that there was another Stanley Cup final game again tonight. I just turned it on after over hearing the game on my partners TV in the other room. Um hearing around corners? My partner and L are having some emotional support conversations in the other room. I am not really listening as I am concentrating on the hockey game now.
I set up and put together a workbench I bought for 20$ on sale and regularly it is 70$. I just need to tighten the bolts up and attach the wooden top. I also got the remaining plastic netting today. So I am ready to start the balcony pigeon cage which should keep the pigeons off our balcony. I am thinking of inviting R over to help me with the carpentry. I may do the carpentry outside our building in the side where I would be making less noise pollution than inside the building. I have made some basic measurements of the balcony and while on the train trip I drew a design. I will review the dimensions a bit tonight and may be make some more measurements
We got the train and bus home and then took a cab from the train station. We got home and my partner suggested I watch the Untouchables which I did. I got a refund on my ticket to Montreal and will not be going to the CIRA AGM tomorrow. I will instead do household tasks like cleaning and continuing to construct the pigeon proofing for the balcony. I just washed the toilet, in fact. I will now do some marking or at least prepare to do that. I would like to get the marking done early this week.
I found some people felt they did not have good relationships with thier fathers. These were consumer/survivors I met. I was able tonight to discuss software tools with my dad. He and I are both up late working on computers. He is searching for a math software to draw graphs of his experiments. He is an experimental physicist. I was able to counsel him on the softwares he was looking at. I feel like I am getting on a equal level with my dad. This seem to suggest the quality of our conversations is at a good level.
Earlier tonight my dad was giving me some career advise. He was saying I should do something I like to do for work. I need to think a little deeper about this.
I am a member of a self help group where I have also volunteered for about five years now on the executive. In the early 1990's I was also on the executive of another self help group in my city. In those days we would have conferences supported by the government. The conferences were attended by groups in our region of the province. This became a formal network for self help groups later in the 1990's and I started to attend these meeting of the network as an extra duty to my board level volunteering. I briefly served in the executive of this network. I also became the network's web master for the past few years. In the last couple of the weeks the network has been advertizing for an executive director. I submitted an application. I have now been asked to attend an interview for this position next Friday at a near by town where another of the self help groups is located. I will be required to present the concept of recovery to a mock agency senior executive meeting. I have been preparing a Keynote presentation about recovery which I will export to Power Point when I am done. The deadline for sending the presentation to the interview team is Thursday but I want to be done by Wednesday. The train ticket for Friday has also been purchased.
We are just at my father's house visiting. We are taking the train home tomorrow. I am then on Monday attending a meeting in Montreal concerning the Canadian Internet Registry. This AGM is about three hours long. I will take the train to Montreal in the morning and then return on the afternoon train. I will then do some green party volunteering in the evening. I graduate on Tuesday at school. I will meet the astronaut Marc Garneau and shake his hand on Tuesday. Marc Garneau is our school Chancellor. My wife is just sleeping now and asking me about the hockey game score. My dad has a TV where I can pause the TV. But it can only record for 60 minutes so I need to go watch the game because I have recorded about 45 minutes of it so far.
I actually went downstairs and watched the game end and Edmonton win before coming back up to the guest bedroom and editing and proof reading this entry. Now except for smoking breaks I will be in the guest room working on the computer this evening and then sleep here on the third floor of my father's partner's house. I cut their grass early this evening.
I took my new laptop to school yesterday. I installed SAS on the Macbook on the windows side of the computer while sitting in the library. While doing this I chatted with G who works as a tutor in the centre for students with disablities. We were both having a coffeee at the library. His mother had schizophrenia. His student was studying schizophrenia in a psychology course. The SAS installed and I then went to see one of the professor's who is a mentor for my studies. She basically said I had a low mark in the winter term because I had not done enough proofs even though she knows, she said, that I can do these proofs. She has recommend me for studies in systems science at the other university across town. So this application should be complete now. I also checked in with the administrator for the legal studies degree and he said I would not have a decision about admissions to this program until August. I told him this was rather unfair. I also dropped by the union office and did some union business. So I had a very relaxed day at school yesterday after staying up late Wednesday and not sleeping until 4:00 PM Thursday. I am now up early Friday morning.
I have the weekend off work. I will have to get back to working next week with grading of assignments. But I am taking the weekend off for family time.
Are they at it again the media with *their* use of the word schizophrenic? Visit this web page and check it out. https://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/drives/806d/. The offense this creates does not seem to be the same as multiple personalities. Perhaps there is no offense. Computers were often the mad ones before the media decided computer hackers were better roles for fiction.
I keep worrying that I should get something done when I am studying in school. And often the deadlines of assignments and papers support this type of thinking. Now that I am taking at least the spring term off when I get these worry attacks there is nothing pressing to do. Sure I work at a variety of jobs but these are limited to the time at work. Also my volunteer work gets relegated to the back burner in a crisis. I also have some time off one volunteer job right now. I have been maintaining some other volunteer work. But I am also learning to say no and not make myself available for every last thing. I will read a little tonight to study but also to relax. I am glad I don't have classes right now. I basically have only four hours per week where I have to be at school this spring term.
I worked for one hour preparing questions for a tutorial. I then gave two group work labs and the tutorial for a total of four hours work. I enjoyed working with the students. I have also been given assignments to mark and will begin marking those tonight. I am staying up over night.
I am kind of doing a disabled person's microloan business. I am only really supporting computer purchases but have also helped one fellow get an X Box and also now am planning on helping L buy an air conditioner.
My partner claims she thinks logically. I just challenged her on this and told her logical thinking takes practice. I brought my symbolic logical textbook out from my philosophy shelf and gave it to my partner to read. I used this textbook in 1996 in a summer TV philosophy course. My partner now says the author is on her wavelength.
We are having Greek food delivered tonight.
I just saw my psychiatrist today. He is going to sign me up for two experimental studies. One study is about schizophrenia and smoking, The other study is about auditory hallucinations for those who don't hear voices verse those who do hear voices.
The visit with family in a few days is pressuring my partner, She told me this tonight. My mother feels it is oppressive mess we live in with mostly my stuff piled around the house. My partner just took her meds and I am trying to offer her what comfort I can. We have three days until the visit. I took a break to lie beside her and scratch her back.
I am sort of out of touch with my partners feelings. I knew she was down. But tonight she got my mother to drive her to the hospital near by to be admitted. They are waiting in emergency now. I may go there at 10:00 PM and replace my mother so she can drive home. She has a two hour drive home. I have got to be careful not to blame my partner if she wants to stay in the hospital that is fine she should be allowed too.
I had set my office hours for 1 hour this afternoon. I went to the office but no students showed up. Instead I read for half an hour about the social design of ICT's. I then spent about 20 minutes setting all my tutorial and lab hours into my Palm. I also met with the instructor for one course and we budgetted my hours for the summer.
I am writing this on my new Macbook. I got it at noon today after napping. My partner woke me up when the delivery came. I was only sleeping lightly. I spent the first part of the afternoon installing software and will continue to do this now this evening. I also managed to pay for our good food box fruits and veggies. As well I sold an older mac computer to a father for his son who is learning programming. The money from the sale paid for our the good food box.
Again risking bi-polar depresssion by partaking in mania and long days I am staying up tonight with may be a short nap. But I am going to prevent psychosis by taking my meds right now. I took my vitamins about an hour ago.
I first music I ever bought myself was the single of Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple. I enjoyed watching a film of that band tonight after work. I say tonight because I am still up from Sunday. I need to nap a little this morning before the laptop is delivered. I am working later today for 1 hour at school. I am enjoying going around with my iPod listening to music these days. In fact in 1998 I started to play Smoke on the Water with a band. I don't play it any more. In fact my PA equipment is all put away right now. In the movie the bassist Roger Glover used a mixing board to isolate tracks and thus instruments in their songs. These are songs I have heard for years. I study these songs.
I am working today starting at 9:00 AM. Rather than sleep in as I used to do, I stayed up late Thursday evening and slept at about 3:00 PM Friday and woke up at 2:30 AM today ready to relax before going to work. I had woken up late on Thursday at about noon. So my Thursday/Friday was about 27 hours long. I then just slept about 12 hours.
I managed to get a fair amount of work done Friday morning. I picked up the Mighty Mouse at the courier company in the morning and also did some grocery shopping after that. I also did one hour of health and safety work in the union office. I am making some mistakes with this work though. I also took back library books. It was a nice morning here on Friday and I began to write some autobiographical material in a small notebook. I came home at about 2 PM and slept.
Paranoia is a major problem in our world. Some would argue paranoia is a form of thought that one should encourage as it is a form of smart thinking that allows one to find out hidden relationships that could be dangerous if not known.
I would argue the paranoia leads to some accusational speech that might harm our relationships rather than help us. Jealousy is caused by paranoid thinking as well or paranoid thinking causes jealousy.
For instance early on Wednesday morning I worried about my wallet because I had had 200$ cash in it. I did not know at that moment where my wallet was. Whenever I lose something, the first part of finding that something is to remember the last place I had it. I thought and it was at the lumber store that I had my wallet. So my paranoid thinking lead me to thinking my friend had my wallet. I thought how awkward that would be for a good friend to have taken my wallet. You see this friend and I have know each other for 6 or so years and been rather regular friends. We are also both generous with each other and in fact the last thing we would do to each other would be to steal from each other. This shows how my worry about my wallet and my method of finding lost things could have made my relationship toxic. But in fact I think this way often from schizophrenia and know before I act on these paranoid thoughts to reality check and I did find my wallet soon enough too. Would it have been unlucky if I had not found my wallet? Yes it would have been and this goes to show that a person experiencing a lot of bad luck can through their normal smart thinking be seen as paranoid and accusational and not a nice social person.
I have also seen people on hospital wards get very jealous and think their partner was fooling around on them and then break the relationship up. Very sad! Jealousy and paranoia are not healthy thinking patterns.