My life's Adventure

Home from work. 8 more hours worked. 4 days and 32 hours of work left. I am half way to my time off.

I did work at my new job. I can not really describe it as the work is confidential. I can say I worked 8 hours this evening and had worked 24 hours this past weekend in my old job. I can also say that I can do the work involved in the new job. My partner ordered pizza when I got home and it was so good to eat. She was able to sell four copies of her poetry book at a Schizophrenia Society of Canada self-help group picnic today. She paid for our pizza as a special treat for my first day at work. Both she and my mom stayed up late to talk to me when I got off work.

I am just preparing for a day at work of 8 hours.

I am just about to leave for my new job. I have a lunch made by my partner. My mother is here cleaning. I just finished rearranging furniture so she can clean. I am fairly relaxed except for facing criticism from my mother for the nicotine smell in our apartment. I am drinking a coffee and getting relaxed for a day at work. I work until 11:00 PM tonight and I will update this blog around mid-night with a report about my first day on the job.

My dad just emailed me wishing me good luck on my first day at the new job.

Today is the first day of my new job. My dad emailed me wishing me luck. I just shaved for the day. I am still in my regular clothes but will be changing into nice pants and shirt around 2:00 PM today for work at 3:00 PM. I will be 15 minutes early today.

Mistakes with meds. Are double doses dangerous?

I am not sure but my partner may have double dosed last night. She was drinking last night. She may have taken her meds twice by mistake. I looked at her pill box and she seems to have taken her night meds twice. I immediately checked her breathing because she is still sleeping. She is fine and in a deep sleep. Sometimes she drops her meds on the floor or gets them wet and needs to take the next night's meds, and so I am not all that sure she double dosed. She should sleep usually to 11:00 AM. But usually she wakes up to void sometime early in the morning. I am fairly sure we don't need to call emergency. I will make a point of asking our doctor about the dangers of double dosing for her. I already know my own meds are not particularly dangerous at double doses.

I slept a good 15 hours on my day off.

I was very tired yesterday. I waited in line for bus passes and was annoyed with some engineering students having a conversation in the line behind me. When they said the word "schizo", I turned around and told them point blank that their converstation was offensive. I also pointed out their sexist conversation. I thought they would want to hit me but they instead apologized although they didn't realize why they were offensive. They then talked less offensively about bus routes. I got our bus passes and then went to meet the person with the router at another mall. I bought the router. I then came home and my comrade came by and picked up and paid for the router. I then went straight to sleep at about 14:00 PM and then woke up this morning at about 5:00 AM so almost 15 hours sleep. I was a bit groggy about an hour ago but am more awake now.

I bought another IBM Thinkpad just now on-line.

I decided to buy another IBM Thinkpad for 600$. It is a 1 Ghz model and I will put a 60 GigaByte hard drive in this Thinkpad and install Debian 3.1 ad Debian 4.0 next year. It will be my main Linux machine.

Yesterday before work I discussed my blog with my partner.

My partner and I discussed blogs yesterday. I was suggesting she have her own blog. I wanted to get her typing at the computer. She asked me what a blog was. I used Star trek and the Captain's log to explain the concept. I gave her a print out of four pages of this blog's most recent entries which she read. She does not read at the computer. She does have a web site of her own with her poems and short stories. We could upgrade her web site hosting account from free to paid and get a movable type blog for her. Today I am buying her a new notebook for her writing in pen and ink.

Another 24 hours of work done. Now I have 40 hours to go before my next day off.

I did another 12 hour shift last night. It was my last shift at that job. I have held that job for five years and a few months. I worked less there the past few years once I had a second job. I have the rest of today off work.

I have done a little Linux volunteering this morning but nothing came out of it. I was pricing the cost of making Linux CD's with labels to give away. But I don't know if I should spend the hundreds of dollars investment to do that.

I am up on time for my last day of work at my old job.

I have been in the habit for the past five years of being half an hour to a full hour early to work. This has given me a usually relaxed start to work. I often can drink a cup of coffee at work before work. I am again today up early for work and will arrive at work almost an hour early. I will work 12 hours and then come home and relax.

I am then going out around noon Sunday to buy a used router for another disAbled person. She has just gotten high speed Internet. She bought the iBook from me that I refurbished and upgraded. She is also a union activist.

Working begins.

I worked 12 hours of the 64 hours so have 52 hours to go now. I can't do much computing today as I will only get 6 hours of sleep and then it is back to work again. I might be able to post in the afternoon.

I am beginning 64 hours of work in 8 days.

This weekend I am working 24 hours in my old job. Then I get off this work Sunday morning. Then I start my new job Monday afternoon for 40 hours of a regular work week. This will be my first week at this new job. This weekend will not be too difficult work but the coming week could be difficult. I am already looking forward to next weekend but I am also extremely curious about the coming week's work in my new job.

I have been at my desktop computer for many hours today.

I often just surf web pages on my desktop computer. Yesterday, I spell checked and corrected two other blogs I keep under my real name concerning school subjects. I have been having some crashes of my web browser on my Macbook and on my eMac. As well my firewire hard drive seems to be non functioning yesterday and today. No I just checked it. It seems back on-line. I will prepare to do some back ups for Monday evening and the end of the month. But I will be working in my new job Monday evening until 11:00 PM. I will be working on a computer at my new job which may be good for me. May be in this new work my computer skills will mean I can advance further in the world of work. I know this new job offers much chance for advancement. I haven't really been able to find advancement in my present jobs because they were part-time.

I am reading over night now.

I am reading some psychiatry books over night and combining these with social informatics readings. I am thinking very clearly while I read but need to sleep soon. I have today off of work.

I am having trouble building the structure alone.

I really need another person to help me with this fastening of boards. I managed to clamp two boards together, so I could fasten the wood together with screws in the L braces. So I got the end of the balcony covered. The main front side though requires that I put together two more pieces of wood. I have to do this above my head too. I can not reach up and put together the two pieces and screw them together at the same time. I may just take a break and then attempt a second time to clamp these pieces and then screw them in. After this the other two pieces to go together are on the ground and I can do these no problem. Then it is a matter of reattaching the netting. But I am almost done. I will take a break now, and try again in a half hour or an hour when my arms are rested. I may have to wait until R is free and he can come over and hold the boards for me. R is working at a new job today he found through the local clubhouse.

I slept 12 hours and up to re-build the pigeon proofing structure.

I slept after my partner returned home from her blood test. She takes clozapine, so needs a blood test every two weeks. This is to test her white blood cells because of a rare complication from clozapine. I now need to build the pigeon proofing structure again as it was partially taken apart by the cleaners. It is almost 6:00 AM now. I woke up around 4:30 AM. I slept at 4:30 PM yesterday. I am just about to take my vitamins for the morning.

They do windows. The balcony is clean.

The professional cleaners are done now. The dung is gone. The balcony has been cleaned with disinfectant. I now must wait about 12 hours and quickly rebuild the pigeon proof structure which was dismantled for the cleaning. The workers were very friendly and cleaned the windows too.

I stayed up all night to study.

I managed a fair amount of studies overnight. Just the last few hours I added a list of books I have read in the 2005 to amazon.com. These were almost all school books. It will actually take two, 25 item amazon.com lists to list and write about all the books I read last year.

I also read some more books overnight including starting a book on social navigation of information space. I also chatted at yahoo. I also read some JAVA code from chapter 1 of a Java textbook for first year university. I also researched the public service a bit on the web. I also read a little more about gender and computing and what we can do as parents, teachers and just interested citizen's in helping restore the gendered digital divide. I sent a few emails over night to professors.

I just need to stay up a few more hours until the professional pigeon cleaner has done his job and then I can sleep at maybe 6 PM tonight. I can safely sleep until 8 AM tomorrow. I will have a union meeting tomorrow in the early afternoon. Then I will do some building inspection reporting before giving my last labs of my present teaching assistant career in the evening. I will be well rested for tomorrow's meetings and work. I then have Thursday off of work or volunteering. Then I am working on Friday's night shift and may be Saturday's as well.

The professional pigeon cleaner is coming tomorrow.

My landlord has arranged for a professional pigeon cleaner to clean the balcony. He will come tomorrow at 1:00 PM. I cleared off two old metal folding chairs today and some pieces of wood and threw them out. I had my partner open the door to the apartment, operate the elevator and open the garbage room door as I carried the green grabage bags containing the folding chairs, the old clothes I had worn for the work out on the balcony so far, and finally the bag with the old wood pieces. I then dumped these in the dumpster. I used playtex gloves and did not spill anything in the common areas like the hallways or elevators.

We had a bit of an emergency yesterday but we were alright by the end of the day.

We had a medical emergency but I let my partner take herself to hospital and then she came back alright. She needed to do this for herself. I did examine her first but then she called a telehealth nurse who told her to go to emergency which she did. The doctor there found nothing wrong so my partner came home. It was for a women's issue unrelated to mental health.

I had a good day off and helped someone with her computer.

I had a good day off. I did buy some groceries and we ate a lasagna for supper. I helped a sister worker with her computers. We tried to get a wireless router working but it would not even power up. I had given this sister a memory chip so while I was at her home I installed the RAM chip and she was pleased.

I did manage to install the latest Debian 3.1 revision 2 on my old pentium 1 laptop and it worked very well by the end of the day but is very slow. Now I may decide to buy a new battery for this computer but that would cost 100$. For 500$ I could probably buy a pentium III laptop with working battery. This would be a used Thinkpad from IBM. But that is more money and I don't have much money to spent.

I may not have to work next Saturday night because I asked to not work that night.

I just phoned a supervisor at work to ask to not work next Saturday night. I will find out about not working next Saturday this week. My supervisors will get back to me on Monday about this. It would be good to have Sunday off completely next weekend, before I work next Monday at my new job. This would mean I would work 52 hours in 8 days which would be better. I would only work the Friday overnight then get off work at 7:00 AM Saturday then have time off until Monday at 3:00 PM. I would start my new job on Monday at 3:00 PM.

The union meeting brought my working spirits up.

I am feeling good about being a worker after our union meeting yesterday. I am planning on studying up for my government job by reading about the government on their web site. I have no work until Wednesday and on Wednesday I give my last labs for my teaching assistant work. I will return the school books on Wednesday. I should also complete my health and safety work for the school this week.

I have some volunteering this week. I have an intensive services workgroup meeting on Monday where I am a consumer participant. The other members of this workgroup are professionals who give intensive mental health services to high needs consumers. There are also a few other consumer members of this work group and a family member. This is a government advisory workgroup. I also have board training for our self-help group on Thursday.

I have some more work in my old job on Friday and Saturday over night. Then I start my new job late Monday afternoon next week. I will then work five days straight. With both jobs, the one ending this coming weekend and the new one starting next week, I will work 64 hours in 8 days. It will be tough, but I am sure I can do it with my partners support.

I missed a protest today but am preparing for a union meeting.

I had planned late last night to attend an anti-war rally today. I made a protest sign last night. But this was all late night planning and then I slept in. I am just now preparing agendas and minutes for a union meeting today. After that I have the evening off. My partner got her beer for the day. I may go shopping at a mall after the meeting today. I might not buy anything but I like the riding around on the bus and light rail train. I might bring my laptop and hang out in a cafe and try the wireless internet there.

Work went well today, everyone at work was congratulating me on my new job.

I worked a good six hours today. Everyone was friendly at work. I told a lot of people that I was leaving this job and they wished me luck and congratulated me. I am working at this job next weekend for the last time before my new job starts.

My new job is regularly scheduled evening work. I think one factor that got me back into working and keeping a job was the flexible hours and ability to make my own work schedule in this old job. So I am slightly wary of this new job with regularly scheduled full time five days a week, 8 hours a day of work.

My boss at my old job allowed me to submit a leave of absence request rather than quit this job. This way if my new job does not work out, I can go back to the job I worked at today and can keep my pay rate. I have been working at this old job for five years so my pay has gone up five times. In fact, the rate of pay just went up again this month.

In my teaching assistant work my two supervisors have given me less work this week and next week. I really only have to give two more 1 hour labs next Wednesday. So I am having some stress free time off now.

I am just preparing to go to work for 6 hours.

I have a half shift today at work. It should be busy though. I will get off in the afternoon. I spent the morning checking email and getting dressed for work. I am just posting to the blog here and then getting an early bus to work. It looks like it will be a hot day. I will really enjoy my weekend off this weekend. I am working 24 hours next weekend.

We had a brief board meeting yesterday. We seem to have a fine board this year at our self help group. I also helped some union officals learn web mastering yesterday. I really enjoyed making them a lesson in HTML scripting.

I have to teach myself some Java programming.

The other students in graduate school will know object oriented programming. I have briefly looked at this topic before. I am learning some C++ programming this summer. Because of my new job I will need to study less. I will be only able to study a probability course this fall it looks like based on my work schedule. I will see about this closer to school registration time. I did get a spot in the first sonic design course but this may not be possible to attend given my new work schedule.

Two bags of dung but I can't finish it.

I mananged to shovel up two large green garbage bags of pigeon dung and then stopped. I only cleared about a 1 X 2 foot area. The grey concrete is brown under neither the layer of dung. I am going to ask to pay for professional help.

I am just about to shovel up pigeon droppings.

I planned to shovel pigeons droppings this morning just as the sun rises. I promised the lanndlord I would have some of it cleaned up today. I will take a stress break then to go the buildings garbage room and get the janitor's shovel and prepare the bags and old clothes, masks and boots. I will also clear a path to the front door. I will use playtex gloves

I worked last night and now have an over night period with no marking to do.

I have some time off. That's the thing with working a variety of flexible part-time hour jobs, I have to take my time off when I find it. I will read over night and then at about 4:30 AM when the sun comes up I will do some cleaning of pigeon dung.

My marking work continues.

I am still marking this morning. I have only two questions left to mark. Then I can sleep at about 6:00 AM to about 2:00 PM this afternoon. I will then go to school and give some labs and a tutorial and some office hours. I just took my second dose of vitamins for the day. I will be up tomorrow at 2:00 PM and then stay up all night until about 6:00 PM Thursday. I will then wake up at about 2:00 AM or 4:00 AM Friday when I am working for six hours. On Friday I get off work mid afternoon and can relax and have R, C and J over Friday night. I then have the whole weekend off. Well not quite I will have a short marking assignement I will bring back from school later today. So later tonight and Thursday morning I will do some studying and reading and should also clean up some more.

I was offered a full time job today and I am taking it.

I am taking a full time job with the government. I just sent my two weeks notice to my present employers. Both of my present jobs have some work still to do. But in two weeks I will start a new full time job working evenings from 3:00 PM to 11:00 PM every weekday.

The storm left and I got back to marking.

This storm did not really sacre me, as I took precautions and felt in control. I got back to marking and got some more of that work done. I am making my last pot of coffee for the day and will sleep in a few hours. We ate shrimp for dinner and ate cookies for desert. We also ate Tabuli salad all day. I am probably going to have a sandwich or soup for some food in about an hour. Right now I am getting back to marking. Even with all this work we are fairly broke because I have been over spending.

Intense storm just came through here and my computer froze up.

Well speaking of distractions, an intense storm just came through our city. I have never seen such strong lightening. So this distracted me from marking. I shut some things down and made a five minute video of the storm, but didn't really catch the most intense part. I was worried about the new balcony structure but it did not move at all. In fact, it did not seem that intense other than the strenght of the lightening, this storm. It is still going on outside.

I was distracted for most of the day and am now finally gettting some marking done.

It is not that I was lazy today. But I did not do any marking during the day. There are too many distractions in the day time. I did find out the cost of the graduate school courses and let my father know this. I also did do some signing up for green party volunteering. I helped my mom clean a little and just two hours ago I scrubbed the bathroom floor on my own. I can get the stains out but it will take a lot of elbow grease. I finally got marking around 8:00 PM tonight. I will continue to mark until about 4:00 AM tomorrow morning about 5 hours from now. I am almost half way done this marking assignment. I do not have any more assignments at the moment. But should be getting one more to mark this week. So other than that one up coming assignment, I will have it fairly easy for awhile now in my teaching assistant work.

Tomorrow in the late afternoon I am getting recertified in CPR for my main job. It is good to know CPR for volunteering with law enforcement and similar type volunteer jobs. Speaking of law enforcement I am reviewing the video tapes from my introduction to criminal law course that I recorded when I took this course a few years ago. That year was my first year of not drinking alcohol. There are 24 lecture each 3 hours long. I did fairly well with that course and it informs me of the criminal law process in the courts in Canada.

Sleep plans did not work.

I had planned on being up all night, last night but went to sleep at about 2:00 AM. I was going to do marking overnight but now must do this today. I am not as able to stay up long hours these days. My mom is coming to clean in about an hour. It is very hot here today.

Scheduling works well.

I am a bit behind on my schedule for overnight. I did use the schedule to hurry up my work and keep me motivated and got one Q done. I also used my schedule to limit my on-line chat time and my on-line gaming time.

I learned from a book last night something interesting. In knowledge work which is what I do when teaching and when studying, there are no time limits. Meaning one can continue to work forever to improve one's work. Thus one needs to set limits on work so one gets it done. This is perhaps why some people even people I know take some ten years to write their doctoral dissertation.

In Second life just now I learned about scripting and tried a little demo out. I did not spend any money. I will sign on to Second Life, again later this morning and try to attend a class or event with other avatars, meaning other real life people.

I just planned some tasks and scheduled them for overnight work.

I scheduled completion times for each question I must mark on this assignment. I woke up at 4:00 PM today. I watched the end of Edward Scissor Hands with my partner. Then she watched Indian Jones and the Last Crusade and is now watching The Motorcycle Diaries in French with English subtitles. She took a break after the second movie and I helped her make a Tabuli salad. We will give some salad to my mom on Monday. My mom is coming over again to help us clean. My mom drives here from her house and it takes her two hours. So yes, family make quite an effort to help us.

I am being recertified in CPR this week. This time instead of St. John's training we are using Red Cross training. Speaking of the Red Cross my volunteering this weekend is coming along fine.

I am just going to take my second dose of vitamins for the day and then begin marking. I will get the first task completed before turning on my laptop or coming back to this desktop computer.

The pigeon problem and what's left to do.

I still need to add a few more boards to the pigeons proofing structure. In doing this boards at heights over my head will need to be screwed together. Then finally I can hang the netting over the top. Yesterday morning a couple of pigeons got inside the structure.

Before I do much more carpentry though I will this weekend shovel one large green garbage bag of the droppings up and put it in the building dumpster. So that is my main scheduled cleaning task this weekend.

In other cleaning, I spent about 20 minutes this morning cleaning up four of my office bookshelves. I put the ten new magazine boxes into two shelves. I also stacked and organized some books along the shelf in a better fashion. I have a math textbook shelf, a math general reader shelf, a social science and politics shelf, and I now have a magazine box shelf. Generally this 2% of the office looks neater now. And this 2% of the office is better organized for finding books and magazines. I used some of the magazine boxes to store non-profit, union and school documents which makes it also easier to find these documents later. I have one box for self help and disAbility papers, reports, and zines/newsletters.

I am doing a little web mastering overnight

I uploaded a meeting schedule to the self help network web site. I need to test the upload and the new layout changes. Then correct the French pages. Then I am done this work for today. I will then need to write up an invoice and email that to the coordinator of this self help network.

In other work, I am getting started another marking project. My boss has contacted me and asked for this to be done by Wednesday. I spent last night/Friday morning, preparing a marking scheme based on the winter course.

In other work related news, I am volunteering this weekend but this is coming along smoothly. In my main job I have work scheduled for Friday this week and then the next weekend after that. On Friday, I am only working a half day or six hours, but it will be very busy and stressful. The last time I worked a Friday it was very stressful. Then two weeks from now I have 24 hours of two overnight shifts. But these are my usual type of shifts when I do my best work, so they should be fine.

I just took my second dose of vitamins for the day but ended up with a sore stomach. I ate some fruit and drank some pop and my stomach is now settled down a bit.

Quiet night here again.

It has been a quiet day. I have not gone outside today. My partner bought our pop and milk for the day. We ate corn and brussel sprouts for dinner. R, C and J did not come over. J is out volunteering on a local music festival.

I did buy a high definition cable box last night.

It was pay day yesterday. This was for working as a teaching assistant. I was slightly put off by the fact that some of my work at school was not covered by the cheque but instead of staying upset, paranoid, and speculating what had happened to this work/money, I called the office involved and made an inquiry. They said they did owe me the money and thus I rested my paranoias. They will look into this, and I should get this extra money on my next cheque, I would hope. So that is one solution for paranoia: communication with authorities, social workers, bosses, coworkers, etc. This communication should be to clear up issues and reality check feelings.

My partner was having one of her beer days. I decided to go out shopping. The digital terminals for high definition TV were on sale this week, so I decided to buy one. We do not yet have a high defintion TV but now we have the terminal with the signal. This digital cable terminal also does the normal TV digitial cable so we can have two digital terminals now at no increased subscription costs. The only cost has been this terminal last night. It took about an hour waiting on the phone with the cable company to get the terminal authorized to work. But it is working now. The remote control can also control the TV and the DVD player, as well as, the terminal and I have that all set up now.

I also bought some food after my partner made a list. I got us some fruit like grapes, organic bananas, and lemons. The lemons are for my partner to make tabuli salad, a Lebonese salad. I also bought lemonaid, yogurt, cottage cheese, and a specialty cheese my dad used to buy. I had a craving for this cheese in the store while looking at on sale items. I also bought some health food soups in one serving packages. I also bought mint, parsley and tomatoes for the salad.

I had been surfing the camping store coop web site on Wednesday night/Thursday morning and saw that a fanny pack was on sale. So I also went to the camping coop before the grocery store and bought one of these large fanny packs. These two stores are walking distance apart. But I took a bus to that neighbourhood and then back with the groceries. I carried some groceries in bags, some in the new fanny pack, and some in my old napsack.

I paid bills and credit, as well as, new shopping, so we are almost broke now until Monday. But we have food and entertainment. And because I went to a mall I strolled down a sidewalk, where a clothing store had a sale on pants and I bought a pair of jeans and a pair of black pants, I can wear while teaching, or at formal places, and both pair were 10$ each on sale. I put the jeans on in the store, because the jeans I was wearing when I went out were torn at the bottom. I am aware that because of having schizophrenia I need to make more of an effort at self care and part of this is wearing clean clothes that are in good condition.

The horror in the middle east.

I am against all war especially war to protect captured soliders if that war results in the deaths of many innocents. Enought politics my next post will be about me and schizophrenia, but we can not ignore the world out here just because we have a disAbility.

I am looking into high definition TV for our future.

I looking at getting another cable box for our living room and might just buy a high definition box. I might then later buy some sort of high definition TV for the living room.

I am in a union meeting today and then working at labs tonight.

I am well rested after sleeping a regular night. I did some computing this morning. I am just getting pop and laundry money for the day. I have a union meeting in the afternoon. Then I give office hours and also labs later tonight.

The pigeon structure is built now.

I finally put the structure together today. I did need to make another trip by bus to the hardware store to buy more screws and angle braces. I also bought two more 2 by 2 8 foot pieces of wood. It is now together on the balcony and the nettings has been placed on it. It needs some more pieces to fully support it but basically the balcony is now covered in plastic netting. I need to clean my boots off again. But this project can wait now as I get back to marking tonight.

I am having a lazy morning looking at Palm software.

I am just relaxing looking at some medical software on the web for the Palm handheld computer. I am also preparing to build the pigeon proofing frame today. Our landlord wants it built soon in the next two weeks. R is on his way over to help me do the carpentry.

I won re-election to our self help group's board of directors.

I won re-election to our self help group's board of directors. I just sent an email to my old legal studies professors letting them know this and telling them I would be pleased to come in and talk to their classes if they need me too.

My marking is done Harra!

Bare with me if your not aware of what goes on at a university. Maybe skip to another posted entry.

I got it done.

Maybe one week late, but actually it took two weeks which is normal for marking. Also it was a very big marking assignment. Close to 100 tests. It was not as long, or as difficult to mark in terms of the length of questions, as other work I do, or might do this summer. But now that I chose to take this on midway through the term, I have less marking to do for this course remaining in my work load. This is because there are other teaching assistants who will mark the next test and the last assignment. In fact, I now must only mark 1 more assignment for 30 or so students later this month and I am done. So no drawn out end of term marking in August in this course.

The tests are ready to go back to the boss now. The marks are all recorded and I am just going to enter the marks without identfiers into a SAS program as I sometimes do and analyse the class performance. I think I will take a shower and shave and then take the bus and train to school and hand these tests in to the boss.

We ate some oven made frozen pizza tonight.

I made some frozen pizza just now. I am about to take my second dose of vitamins for the day. I am still doing marking but slowed down for the past two hours. I need to pick the pace up a bit. I wasted about an hour shopping on ebay but bought nothing. I was interested in a Palm pilot that comes with medical software already to use on an Secure Digital (SD) card. But I don't really need this. It might be nice though to have a Palm Tungsten C for wireless access around town to the Internet. Right now my Tungsten W is very expensive for wireless Internet access to the Internet so I don't use it for that except limited email access.

I need to a little corner store shopping then continue to mark and can stay up until about 6:00 AM tomorrow morning. I should leave for school at about 3:00 PM and get there by 4:00 PM and then to our self help group by 4:30 PM for our AGM at 5:00 PM.

I did not watch the world cup but do know that Italy won first place, Yahoo for Italy!

Momentum happening with grading tests.

I am near enough to the end of marking these tests that I have some momentum now. Even with the world cup game today and my household tasks I am progressing. I am also spending a fair amount of time on computer file managment today. Still I am making progress with almost 2 hours work done today.

Communicating calmly about cleaning up.

One way I tend to reduce conflict in my schizophrenic life is to "communicate to calm levels of interaction". My mother always seems to increase the stress or I do. In fact, in dealing with the authorities I also especially over a phone or now email increase the argumentative level to a heated conversation. In other words conversations often become arguments. In this situation of cleaning our apartment, I need to communicate clearly and calmly. Today I talked to my mother about getting her cleaning supplies. I also talked about ways to organize our CD's, DVD's and video's in the living room and also ways of moving my books and papers to the office room. The office should ideally also be a place where we can live and work. At present, I do most of my computing in the living room.

I am up again today about 11:00 AM.

I woke up today about an hour ago. My partner has already left for the afternoon to visit a friend. I am just doing some studies and will then get back to my teaching assistant work. I worked last night for another three hours doing marking. I would like to do three hours this afternoon as well. I am going to get started in about half an hour but will eat some breakfast and also take some vitamins. I just updated my other blogs.

I did do some volunteering today.

I am on call for my volunteering with law enforcement at the moment. But I have been home marking. I got another goal done in this marking but still need to mark more today. I wasted a fair amount of time trying to install a Linux operating system on an old laptop. I am now going back to marking. I am about half way though this task and would like to have it done by Monday. I will post my progress here over the rest of the weekend.

I am just waking up today early in the morning

I am just about to take some vitamins this morning. I woke up at about 4:00 AM. I need to get started on my marking this morning. I also want to do some cleaning today.

I am tired and have been working at home most of the morning.

I did finally start marking at a good rate this morning. I got to my goal from last weekend and thus earned my rewards finally. I did a fairly detailed plan of work and break schedule and basically stuck to it this morning. I worked from about 3:00 AM to 10:00 AM. I have about half of the questions on about 100 tests marked now. I would mark a set number of tests, break to listen to one song on an MP3 player, may be do a little dish washing, smoke, and refresh my drinks. I would then pen and ink journal my marking progress then go right back to marking trying to avoid the computers.

I am tired and not working more today. I may do some grocery shopping but am asking my partner to do this instead of me. I want to relax and read books now for the rest of my day. I may sleep at about 2 PM today and probably whenever I sleep will not be awake to have my friends over tonight.

I also did a fair amount of basic computer file transfers, blogging, and banking, this morning but did not really do a lot of shopping as that is a real time waster that on-line shopping stuff.

I got home from the meeting and put together the vacuum cleaner.

The meeting was very nice and we are well organized. Everyone likes to talk but no one really talked to much. It was well organized and stayed in the time limits. I used my laptop to record minutes and display our progress on a wall with a data projector.

I got home and put together a vacuum cleaner our father has bought us. I tested the vacuum and it is noisey but works.

I am just doing some blogging and will soon do some budgetting and reading then some marking.

I am up mid afternoon after doing a lot of computing this morning.

I slept at about 7:00 AM this morning. I had this morning sent some emails to our self-help group to prepare for our AGM. I need to run for election again this year so sent in a biography. I also had to do a president's report. So those got sent out. I also did some marking this morning and will do more over night now. I am attending a local political meeting this evening. The meeting is being held near our place. I am bringing my laptop to this meeting as we need to do some work on files at the meeting. We will try projecting the laptop at the meeting.

I got the iBook, I sold, a battery and just gave that to the sister worker who bought the iBook from me. She also paid me back for the battery last week. She is also disAbled.

I am up getting ready for the night ahead and organizing my schedule and it is quiet here with my partner watching TV. I do not have any volunteering shifts this weekend or working except for the marking so I can concentrate on the marking this weekend.

I didn't smoke for three hours but am back at it now.

I did manage to not smoke for three hours this morning. I gave up again. I am off to sleep having done some emails for the day. I am just preparing to do a file transfer for an email to my laptop for a meeting later today. I took my vitamins about an hour ago and my risperadol half an hour ago. I am becoming very sleepy.

I am trying to quit smoking again this morning.

I haven't smoked since midnight. I have chewed two 4 mg pieces of nicorete gum so far this morning. I am marking tests. I have about one tenth of what I would like to get done this morning done.

I am just taking a second dose of vitamins for the day.

I made salmon steaks for my wife and I. I made a mayo/egg white sauce for the first time in my life and even used butter and herbs on the steaks for broiling. These steaks were delicious. I am about to take vitamins, as I start a long night up until about 4:00 AM.

I am just now preparing to mark tests.

I took a day and half off marking. I had the union meeting to attend and office hours and the tutorials to do in this time. I just brought the 100 or so tests out to the living room to mark. I will get started just before midnight. I have one of three marking assignments done now. The test is the second one I want to get done.

We are not being evicted after our second inspection.

I was sleeping while we were inspected by the landlord this morning. My partner reported that the landlord's inspector said it was improving but there was still lots of work to do. Last night before sleeping I put together an Ikea shelf for my partner's CDs, DVDs and video tapes. It is very nice. The glass doored cabinet is not full yet but all her present entertainment is in this now. I also ended a long day cleaning the kitchen floor and washing the dishes ahead of the inspection.

Today I bought some photo's of our second day in the hospital with our child. These had been waiting to be developed for three years and we now have prints and a digital images on a CD. I also bought lots of toilet paper. I put together a bathroom shelf my mother had bought us. My mother is here cleaning the fridge out.

I am working tonight with some other disabled students while they write a test. I also have more marking to get done. But after tonight I am off work for about a week except for marking at home. I am really enjoying the summer weather and always like being around my mom and she says she enjoys visiting us. My partner just got in after the groceries she bought were delivered. My computer gadgets I got myself on the weekend as rewards to motivate my marking also arrived today.

Life is good, but I need to protest the Democratic Republic of Korea's missle launches, so am asking people in the peace movement if there will be an organized protest.

I read a bit more about gender and computing.

I have been reading a book on gender and computing. It looks at the differences between girls and boys in school computing.

I had a very quiet morning and just did some marking in a relaxed frame of mind.

I was able to fully relax this morning. I listened to some classical music and updated blogs. I am just about completed some marking for my teaching assistant work. I will take this work to school in about two hours. I will then attend an all day union retreat where we will plan our year ahead. I am joining the bargaining team this year. I will gain valuable experience doing this volunteer work.

I am not cleaning up today but might do some cleaning tonight.

Happy US Birthday, today!

Have a good Independence Day in the USA today if you live there.

It is nice when scheduling works out.

I just read our self help group monthly newsletter which I enjoyed reading. I signed up for a group by leaving a late night phone message. I am up late evening for some early morning marking. I also have an all day union meeting tomorrow. I did sleep at about 1:00 PM or 2:00 PM today and am well rested. Money things should come together later tomorrow. I am also working on clearing out some old computers and computer parts. It is nice when my sleep management plans work out, I get enough rest, and I make it to my appointments,

Going out to buy our bus passes.

I didn't think anything was open today. I turned down working today because I am tired and I have a lot of marking to do in my teaching job. I have been up since yesterday at 4:00 PM so will sleep in a few hours for an early waking on Tuesday morning and plenty of sleep for the rest of today. I just checked the budget and I can buy bus passes and the bus pass office is open today even with the holiday Monday. I don't have any extra money but my wife would like some beer. I will also buy some brocolli for supper and my wife wants more green onions. I might also buy some zuccini. Yes, the whole bus route and trip is forming on my mind now. I will try to have some time on the bus for reading my PSP and listening to some Ginsberg poetry. I won't take my pack though I will try to go light and relaxed for my trip. I will go shopping at the hardware store for anything cheaper than 20$ that might be useful. I won't be buying those solar power panels or battery packs today. On Thursday I will buy my wife's media shelf.

I am putting my laptop away now.

I have been asking my partner to go to the store more and she did again today.

Speaking of motivating my wife I asked her to go to the store this morning figuring this would get her up and moving for the day. Last year and the year before she rarely left the apartment. Now she went to buy pepsi, as soon as, I asked her. I did have to tell her that if she went right away she would get back just on time for her favorite TV show. So I did motivate a severly depressed person this morning.

Wow, she just came in the door. She is even getting faster these days at walking.

I am ordered some on-line shopping over the weekend. That was that reward for marking. I ordered a carrying case designed especially for my new laptop model. I also ordered a case for my PSP, and some new earphones of the PSP. I also ordered a silion keyboard cover for my desktop eMac.

How do you teach people who have low moods?

I have difficulty engaging my wife. We listened to an opera this morning. But now she has gone off to the TV and left me alone out here. I want to be alone but I also want to share the world with her. I want her to benefit from the computer age.

I ended up working for a few hours and got some work done.

I did some marking overnight. I can't seem to continue now. I need to do a little more no more than two hours and then I am done one assignment. I will start this ending of the work in about half an hour. Right now I am going to do some scheduling, bloggng and budgeting.

Relaxing and working

I got started with some marking and reported to my boss by email. I found some work documents that I thought I had lost or shredded. I just went to the 7-11 and bought a coffee. My partner is just watching Jesus Christ Superstar. Then I am washing her hair. I will work until late tomorrow afternoon.

Work week ahead.

I did work last night. I then came home and did one hour of marking. I then slept at about 10:00 AM. I am just up this afternoon. I have a lot of marking to get done by Wednesday this week. Tomorrow is a holiday. On Tuesday we have an all day union meeting. On Wednesday our apartment is being inspected. I work Wednesday late afternoon early evening at school. On Thursday I meet at a political party meeting. I am taking Friday off.

Happy Canada Day everyone.

Today is Canada day our countries birthday. I will not do anything special today. I did do the union work yesterday. I am up way to early for work tonight. I need to take a nap today. I may do some marking this morning.