My life's Adventure

My friend R helped me fix the balcony structure.

I was unable to screw in the higher pieces of my pigeon proofing structure. But with R's help I was able today to screw the pieces of wood together overhead. The structure is basically up again. I now need to buy netting again and attach the netting. I might be able to buy this netting tomorrow before work.

Right now R has gone and I am getting ready for my second day of work at my new task in my own cubicle. I printed out all these cubicle etiquette articles yesterday from the web and brought them to the work and gave them to my new boss.

I ordered my textbook for the fall course

I ordered my textbook for my fall course. My dad loaned me some money which I must pay half back to him out of my new pay cheques. I also must be taking books back to my old university. One book is overdue at my old university library. I must return the 10 or so books I am borrowing and start to use the library at my new school.

You must understand that learning is life for me. I fully enjoy studying and I continue to go to school in my forties because I love knowledge. Thus I am a philosopher of a sort.

The course I am taking this fall is the same material I have been teaching engineers for the past three years but don't actually have a good mark in my own studies. This course this fall and completing it will give this knowledge I have a good grade on my record. The course is in probability.

My own cubicle... at last.

I am getting my own cubicle at work today. I should be using this cubicle to work in for the next three months. I may bring some pictures of family to put up on the walls of the cubicle. I have been working regularly for five and a half years now and this is my first "own" space with my name on it. This is my first cubicle of the computer age. The last time I had my own work space at a job was in 1981 before I had the majority of my schizophrenia career.

My check up went well.

I had my annual physical and I am in fine shape. I also got a chest X ray which I have never done before. My lungs did not look bad but may be I don't know what to look for.

I read some of the Schizophrenia Digest just now.

I am tending to stay up a few hours after work. This morning after work, I read some of the Schizophrenia Digest. I also read some letters to the editor. I read about a young women who entered American Idol. I also read some tips for stopping over spending. One tip is to avoid malls for ten days after getting a pay cheque. I wish I could follow this until next weekend after the coming weekend.

I am home amd clearing out the locked files from my trash folder on my newer eMac computer.

I am just unlocking encrypted files so I can trash them. I am working on this and reading emails. I also checked the ebay auctions I am involved in right now. I am going to buy some movies and a school textbook on-line in the next few days.

I am up early and not in a rush to get to my doctors.

I listened to the phone message my doctors office left reminding me of my appointment today. I needed to get the street address as my doctor has a new office. This doctor is a general practitioner who has been working with me since the 1970's. Recently he has moved into a group practice and has moved his office after some 30 years. I have not been to the new office yet. The message also reminded me the time was half an hour earlier than I had thought. I was so worried I would sleep in and miss this appointment but in fact I woke up around 9:00 am. I don't have to leave for the bus until 10:00 AM. So I am leaving in 15 minutes.

Yesterday morning.

I did in fact not get to sleep until about 5:15 AM yesterday. My partner woke me up at noon. Today I must wake up at 9:30 AM or 10:00 AM. I have my annual physical this morning at my regular GP's new office. I am going to look up the bus times now but I will be in a rush when I wake up to make it to the appointment on time. Then come back to my neighbourhood and go to work for the French testing. Then I will work my last day for the work I have been doing the last four weeks and on Wednesday I start with my new tasks I have been reassigned to. Right now I am unwinding a bit before sleeping hopefully at 2:00 AM. I took my meds about 20 minutes ago. I am already feeling a bit tired.

Lingo Franca

I am attending an assesment of my French language skills and French language learning today at about 1:00 PM. I will be studying French possibly this fall at work. I will not be paid for my study time but I will be covered for the cost of the course by my employer. Merci, merci and salute.

I just took my meds and am getting ready to call it a night.

I took my meds and am hoping to get tired in the next hour or two. I am working later today at 3:00 PM. When we got in from the family dinner my partner quickly fell asleep. I worked on my Linux laptop.

I then decided to go to a 24 hour pharmacy to buy more niacin because I was out of this vitamin. I also bought something for my partner and some shaving razors. I also bought a small bottle of hand sanitizer to carry with me in my pack. I also bought some pocket tissues. So runny noses, messy hands and two day old beards will all no longer be embarrassing. Self care, self care, self care, I repeat self care at 12 midnight.

I updated my computer blog and study blog just now.

I was able to update my blogs just now and am hanging out at my newer eMac. I still need to unlock some files left locked in the trash but this is coming along now.

Reading old emails.

Some people don't think I have recovered from schizophrenia yet. Others thought I was recovered in 1993 or so. But looking at old emails from the middle 1990's I would say the Internet allowed me to continue to be wild and crazy for a few more years after 1993. I had delusions of power and issues with mass war and total war in some of my old emails which I am just reading here.

I missed my volunteer shifts today.

I volunteered to about 11:00 PM last night. I came home and took 6 mg of risperadol. I then slept until 11:40 today and thus missed my morning shift at the convention. My brother in law is visiting from out west so my wife has requested I attend a family dinner this afternoon so I must miss my afternoon shift too. I will now have to pay for the convention as I did not complete my volunteer duties. I also need this afternoon off of work and volunteering to recuperate.

I stayed up all night Friday and volunteered about 8 hours today with an afternoon nap.

I managed to stay up all night on Friday. I wasted a fair amount of time with on-line shopping this morning but bought nothing. I did read another chapter in the marijuana dependency recovery stories book. I also did some probability studies. I also did some file backups on computers. In the morning I went to volunteer at the green party convention. I was actually filmed a bit by CBC and CPAC while volunteering. I came home at noon and napped all afternoon. I then went back for an evening shift counting ballots and ate the dinner they served. The people doing the serving were on strike earlier this year and I had walked the line with them. I saw a lot of people I know only by email who are long time party activists.

I am off work for another weekend.

I got home just before 11:00 PM. I took my second dose of vitamins for the day. I will now stay up until 1:00 PM and sleep until about 5:00 PM on Saturday. This will only be a nap. Then I will really sleep on Saturday at 11:00 PM until 6:00 AM Sunday. I will also do some studies over night tonight. I have a library book that is overdue right now and I probably owe 1.50$ in fines. I will be back at work on Monday. I am glad I did not take today off work.

I made it to register for courses

I don't have much time to post as I am rushing off to work today. I did manage to register for the green party convention and cast my vote for our new leader. I also was able to register for school and will study one probability course. I got my new student card.

I am up early today.

I woke up at 11:00 AM this morning. I am going to the political event before work to register for the convention. I am volunteering at the convention all weekend. If I have time I will also go to the school.

I really need to start reading probability studies more.

It would be great if I could prepare more for studying probability this fall. My job must come first but I will see if I can study the probability course too. I will hit the books a little tonight and may be do an all nightter to catch up on reading and go and register in the morning. Another plan might be to sleep a little in the next few hours and get some rest. Why can't I get to sleep earlier and always have to have longer days?

I am not taking tomorrow off work.

I was planning on taking tomorrow off work. But my boss gave me some trouble about this because other people are off work tomorrow. I agree not to take the day off. So graduate school will have to wait. Also things are kind of up in the air at work right now. I could be reassigned any day now so want to be around for that day. I won't be able to register for the convention unless I register Saturday morning or sleep early tonight or do an all nighter tonight. May be all this sleep management is no longer valid given I now have a regular work week even if it is late in the day. I need to do some recovery studies and some private journal entries and figure out my plans.

I was just reading chapter three in the marijuana recovery book and that affected the diction of this post.

I spent the last hour preparing my CV and cover letter for work.

We have been asked to send in our Cv's and a cover letter for reassignment at work. I spent the last hour preparing this and will send it via email this morning and then sleep.

Work plans for the rest of the week and the weekend.

Instead of working five days this week I have opted to take Friday off. I will instead do some politics and also sign up for graduate school on Friday morning. I will sleep later this morning and wake up later in the morning or actually early afternoon just on time for work. I will work Thursday's shift later today then stay up all night Thursday night Friday morning. Then I will sleep on Friday afternoon or early evening. On Friday morning I will register for graduate school and attend a political event before sleeping. Then wake up early Saturday and volunteer at the political event. Then have normal days but early morning days until Monday or Tuesday when I am back at work.

I had been writing this year about experiencing mania and psychosis when up long hours. I had taken some action to correct this sleeping pattern. This past weekend although I was planning on having a long day this did not happen. In fact, for the past week and a half back to about the 14th of August I have kept a fairly constant 16 hours awake and 8 hours sleep normal schedule. This is, in fact, not normal for anyone but just a supposed or assumed calculated normal sleep/awake cycle. No one actually does this. And, in fact, I did not do this exactly but I also did not have very many long long days or long sleeps. On Tuesday I woke up almost late for work but was, in fact, not late for work. But it was obvious to the first person I saw at work that day that I had just woken up.

I was more lazy this week at work. I tended to seek time off work this week culminating in my asking for Friday off so I could sign up for the school I was admitted to. If my job does not last I don't want to wait another year to start graduate school.

I read a little more of some school books.

I just spent about fifteen minutes reading about social informatics and also command, control, communication, and intelligence systems or C3I systems. I read books on this topic when psychotic in the late 1980's. Most of my psychotic little world revolved around intellegence delusions. I am now going to post something about my upcoming work and school daily plans in my next post. I took my second dose of vitamins at about 12 midnight and at 2:00 AM I took my risperadol. I will take another dose of vitamins before sleeping.

I completed chapter one and two in my newest self help book.

I did in fact follow through and read some of the book on marijuana recovery just now. I completed reading chapter one and got all the way through chapter two. I read Debbie's story of recovery. She had nine months clean and sober when she told her story. She is punk rocker or of that generation. It was good to read her stories of borrowing money too and recoverying from that. That is something I need to do still.

I am reading a book on recovery for marijuana smokers.

I like ordering books from Amazon on-line bookstore. I have started to order my wife movies when I order books. We got her Saving Isiah with our recent order. I ordered some Bruce Lee fitness books for building my body up a bit. I picture myself as a super fit senior and my health and recovery has always depended on my active life style and the fitness of my physical body. Thus I begin but also continue this fitness by studying some Bruce Lee.

Another book I ordered is The Truth About Pot: Ten Recovering Marijuana Users Share Their Personal Stories by Joanne Baum Ph.D.. I started to read chapter one last night and will continue to read it tonight/this morning.

I am spending an hour on our new web site.

I am spending an hour right now setting up blogs for our clinical psychologist and our peer supporter coordinator. I should be paid for this work tomorrow at the music group.

We all found out at work today that we are all being reassigned. I won't go into any more detail but I might be getting a day shift which should make school a little more easy. I could also lose my job as our work reassignment is not for sure but is only most probable.

Working continues still no first pay cheque.

I continue to work this week starting my fourth week of full time work. I am set up to get my first pay cheque in the next two weeks some time and start getting regular pay cheques near the third week of September. Work is going well and the last two days seemed short. It is actually shorter than my 12 hour security work shifts that I used to work at these past five years.

I am concentrating on doing a quality job this week but last week I was concentrating on quantity. I can't go into detail about my work but I can say I am government clerk.

I looked at other government jobs but there is nothing suitable at present. I would hope to get a day shift by the winter or a different job. Some of these government jobs allow an educational leave.

I did not make it to register yesterday.

I did not make it to register yesterday. I am thus not offically a student right now. This matters for my conference fees and my up coming software purchase.

Vounteering went well this morning.

I volunteered again Sunday evening and this morning. I helped tear down the main stage of this festival. I used my muscles and safety was on my mind. I chatted briefly with the professional stage hands. I used to be a professional stage hand but obviously could not make as much money at that work as these guys are making. One of the pros gave me a lift home. I got in about 4:00 AM.

I am signing up for classes on Monday. I am working with a good sleep schedule this weekend.

I will work on Monday at 3:00 PM starting a five day 40 hour work week. I will again test my sleep schedule against a possible early morning course. This weekend volunteering worked out well. I slept at about 7:00 AM on Saturday morning but would have liked to stay up later. I was thinking all morning and the day before that I would be able to wake up on time for the union meeting on Saturday but I didn't. Instead I woke up at about 3:00 PM. I just made the bus to the festival and managed to go to the bank machine before catching the bus. I was an hour early for volunteering so I hope I left a good impression on my brother and sister volunteers. The really good thing about this weekend schedule is that I now have had a few hours at the computers and still can stay up until about 7:00 AM or 8:00 AM this morning. I will again wake up at 3:00 PM and go out and volunteer tonight. I will get home at 4:00 AM or so and have some more time at the computers or nap a little. A nap would be good on Monday morning because I will have to stay up until 11 PM and work 8 hours at the end of that day. I will also have time in the morning to go to school and register for courses. It will be my first time in the department and I will need to find out where this department has its offices on campus.

I decided to study the probability course and looking at the course description I already have studied this material back in 1999. In fact I am fairly comfortable with much of the stuff about random variables and adding random variables and even moments. I also know some of the work with maximum likelyhood estimators.

Another good thing about my present sleep schedule is that I can may be complete the registration in an hour and get home by 11:00 AM and nap until 1:00 PM with my partner waking me up for work that day. Otherwise if I don't nap at all I will have a 32 hour day by the end of work Monday. This will not be good for work but I will get my volunteering done and my school duties completed. I will be officially registered in graduate school and will be moving foward quickly with my education I will have switched schools and will still be a student and still be entitled to discounts on conferences, computers and software that have student pricing.

Volunteering again tonight.

I am volunteering on the same stage again tonight. Then I will help tear down the main stage. This just involves putting away all the amps onto trucks and packing up cables and other stage equipment. I am not paid money for this volunteering. This volunteering will last until 4:00 AM Monday morning. They fed me last night and gave me a T-Shirt.

My first night of volunteering went well.

I bumped into someone from the depression support group also volunteering at the festival. I also bumped in to a young union maid aslo volunteering. I worked on setting up a performance stage for music. I did not go to the late night party for volunteers. I came home about midnight. I have been chating on yahoo a little. I also have been doing some blog entries.

I spent some time shopping for vehicles on line.

I spent about an hour looking at vehicles on-line. My partner wants me to buy a minivan. I looked mostly at small vehicles and minvans. I took my meds about twenty minutes ago and will sleep soon until 2 PM this afternoon and miss the meeting. But the folkfest will go well. It turns out I now know someone in the headline act.

I am home and tired.

I worked again today for 8 hours. I relaxed a little after work with my new coworkers. I then came home and worked for about an hour on the new web site. I downloaded Dream Weaver yesterday to work on it. I did some computer files transfer to get the files onto my Macbook and to get some stuff printed like the pamphlet for the peer to peer support project. I will use some of this content to make the index page and the about page of the new site.

I am tired now and will rest up and relax until the union meeting this afternoon. I will then go out and volunteer. Therefore we need to eat supper early at 4:30 PM tomorrow. I should leave for the festival at 5:00 PM and get there about 6:00 PM for my volunteer shift starting at 7:00 PM.

Speaking of web work I got some pay from my other web master job today but need to photocopy the cheque before I can cash it. This is so I can report the income to the government disAbility support program as income earned. Soon I will no longer need to report income every month but instead just report it at tax time. Soon we will be off disAbility. I am looking forward to having more money. I am not really greedy I just want to be working full time and getting a decent wage. In terms of my new job my new coworkers seem to all agree that we are getting paid well at this job..

My workplace is right across the street.

The government campus I work at is actually right across the street from where I have lived the past 15 years or so. Walking to work and actually siting down to do my job takes about five minutes. I come home for lunch in my brief half hour lunch break. I almost forgot we are ordering pizza at work today because it is Friday.

Just getting ready for work. I just shaved.

I am dressed in black cotton pants and a heavy yellow golf shirt. I got my partner some cash to buy veggies at our local farmers market. She got that and now is buying her beer for the day. I am just relaxing with some coffee before work.

I will now take my risperadol and vitamins and then stay up another hour before sleeping.

I will stay up another hour. I am just going to write this entry and preview it and then take my meds. I will then come back to the computer and proof read the entry and then post it.

I am working again today.

I won't keep accounting my working days here once I settle in to my new job. I came home from work tonight and worked a bit on my Linux laptop doing a web page in Composer. I sent the page to my supervisor. I gave my wife her meds at about midnight. I have been up using my Linux laptop. I am chatting at Yahoo on my Linux laptop right now using Gaim a Linux messenger software but I am afk. I am working later today. Work is going well and I had no issues with my boss yesterday or other workers. But some of the other workers are presenting labour issues now in the third week of work. I won't make the union meeting today but will make the union meeting on Saturday I hope.

Working again today. I got my marking done this morning.

I am just preparing to go to work now. I got my marking done this morning. I am looking forward to some web work when I get home from work tonight. I also have a union meeting tomorrow around lunch time before Friday's work. I am not sure I can make this meeting. I also have a union meeting on Saturday.

I got a welcome newsletter from graduate school in the mail today.

I am looking forward to graduate school even though I may have to delay my admission. I received a newsletter in the mail detailing the activities in the first week of school. These are a few lectures and BBQ's and orientation events but they are optional in a sense.

Timing of things to get them done.

Once I installed Linux which took me just about 1 hour, I got to marking statistics homework. It seems I had to get the Linux stuff done before I could lift this procrastination cloud. I got all the assignments fully marked now. I am now going to get some well deserved rest and then wake up and go to work for today. I will wake up around noon today.

I worked another 8 hours and have 16 hours till the weekend.

I did work today. I am sort of having trouble with my boss but it is just a minor irrating of him that I am doing. I work again tomorrow at 3:00 PM. I am staying up late to do some marking from my old job. I am also installing Debian Linux on my new refurbished Thinkpad laptop.

I have been continuing to study social computing.

I continue to read very interesting books about social computing. I am continuing to test my sleep schedule to see if I can study a course this fall term at the new university. I was able to wake up this morning at 8:30 and get downtown by 10:00. I was taking a slow bus this morning and there are faster more frequent buses directly to the school. So the Tuesday class from 10:00-11:30 should be possible. I will test tomorrow to see if I can wake up at 6:00 AM and get to the university at 8:00 AM. On Monday I need to go to school in the morning before work and register for courses but this may have to wait until Tuesday because of my volunteering this weekend. My volunteering won't end until about 4:00 or 6:00 AM Monday morning. I might decide to wake up at about 4:00 PM Sunday and stay up all Sunday night volunteering, come home and nap then go to school in the morning Monday and then come home and go to work in the afternoon Monday. Then I would sleep right away Monday at 11:00 PM when I get off work. I guess I could test waking up again early at 8:00 AM Tuesday next week.

I did some very good shopping today.

We need to buy some food. I was today able to buy a nice pair of work pants for 8$ at the department store where I picked up the Thinkpad. I also bought vitamins and other toilet supplies at the pharmacy and everything but the vitamins were on sale. My partner is downtown now selling books. I am home now doing some accounts and maybe doing some marking before going to work. I tested the Thinkpad and wrote down some of the specs so I can install Linux on a new hard drive I will put in. I won't work on this Linux install until my marking duties are completed. I am really pushing the deadline with these marking duties and something is wrong. I am glad I am quitting this teaching assistant work now. I am really not that quick at marking these days. I leave for work in about 2 hours and will work 8 hours and then come home and mark some more.

I worked again today and have 24 hours left to work this week.

I could not update this blog this afternoon before work for some reason. The posting editor would not show up on the web. I am now using a lot of moveable type blogs.

I was back at work today. Work went fine today. I got home at about 11:00 PM from work. I got my partner her meds and then updated my accounts by telephone banking.

I write down everyday's transactions from all my accounts and my credit cards. I write them in a loose leaf book with one page for each day. Every week in the book is a page, where on this weekly page I list the next weeks days and then the next weeks expenses and bills are detailed. Also I note pay days on this list of days for the coming week. I seem to manage our money with this system. It gives me advance warning of bills and money flows. I look forward with this system one month or two months and fill in details as they become available. I should though be making more of an effort not to get further into debit.

I working again tomorrow and then Thursday and Friday as well. This coming weekend I have some heavy labour volunteering as I tear down a stage used for our folk festival. I also might go to a volunteer party on Saturday night and play my bass guitar. This is my only volunteer work this weekend. My political convention volunteering shifts have been finalized today. This volunteering happens the weekend after this coming weekend.

Tomorrow I need to pickup my new used refurbished Thinkpad in the morning. At the same time I will take the bus with my partner to a local market, where she and her publisher will have a table and sell her poetry books all day. The department store, where I will pick up my Thinkpad ordered on-line, is in the same area of town. The local market usually only permits handmade crafts but have a one day exception to this rule that her publisher has become aware of and applied for and now it is happening tomorrow. I hope to be back home by about 11:00 AM tomorrow morning.

But I must stay up a little now and do some more marking but I will take my pills and proof read this entry and then relax a bit more before starting marking. I am getting sharper at remembering when I have taken my pills so am not risking double dosing or no dosing these days as much. I need to remember to buy some more vitamin C when I get back to our neighbourhood tomorrow morning at our local pharmacy.

Also my new work is giving me a more regular time structure to my days and as you probably know time structure is good for those of us with schizophrenia.

I got hired to work on the peer to peer support project as the web master/publisher.

Yahoo I have yet another job as a web master. I have been hired today as the web master for the peer to peer support project. I opened our web site and started a moveable type blog right away with pictures. I am being supervised by my old clinical psychologist. This is a great job to have and one that I really believe in on multiple levels.

My marking duties progress slowly but moving along.

I got the first question marked now and started to mark the second question. I am able to mark these fairly fast but have a heavy feeling that keeps me procrastinating on this job. Also I do this work at home and there are many distractions including shopping on-line. I am just about to check the mail box and then get back to marking. I am also going to watch a little live stock market news to get a general idea on the economy.

I took the day off my new job to complete work in my old job and attend our board of directors meeting.

We have a board of directors meeting today at our self help group. I had to book today off work at my new job so I can attend this meeting. I also have some marking to get done in my old teaching assistant job. I am about a third of the way through marking one question now. I have another 20 or so students to mark for this question then two more questions to mark.

Three weekends of volunteering to do. One weekend done.

By volunteering we interact with people and practice being in the real world. I managed to volunteer this past weekend. This coming weekend I will work on music stages volunteering. Then next weekend after that I volunteer at a political convention. Then the following two weekends I have off all volunteering unless some is scheduled in. We will be visiting family on the labour day weekend. But on labour day itself we intend to go to the labour day parade and take part in the picnic. Then the following weekend school will have started and I have a conference to attend that first full week of September. My mother is coming to help us clean that second weekend in September. I am also working every week until then and every week afterwards. Also the first full week of September I must attend the orientation sessions for graduate school at my new university. In fact, I must register and pay for courses next week starting August 21st.

I went out shopping yesterday.

I was looking at miniatures for role playing on the web. I was thinking of buying some terrain pieces or little village pieces for role playing. I looked at some descriptions of sets people had built and thought of buying a tool for building these sorts of things myself. Then checking the hardware sales on the hardware chain store's website noticed a rotary tool with accessories was on sale at 1/3 the full price so went out and bought one of these tools. I also bought some low energy light bulbs and a new goose neck lamp. I came home and slept early last night and am now up early in the morning ready to do some more marking.

We are running low on food supplies right now. I will do some more shopping for food mid week. We have enough food for a few more days anyways.

My wife and I decided we did not need a big screen TV. Instead we may get just a high definition TV of mid size or I may instead buy a data projector that we can use sometimes to watch high definition TV.

I completed some volunteer training today.

I trained today for helping with a political convention. There was another volunteer H, who used to run the more informal self help group for schizophrenia in the late 1980's and early 1990's, also volunteering. We chatted a bit about what we were up to these days. We also were assigned to work together a bit and enjoyed discussing things for our assigned duties for the convention. I was still a young adult when H and I used to meet at that self help group in an old school that had become a community centre. Like he said we used to talk about everything and anything even things you're not supposed to talk about. H had no formal qualifications to lead this group. In fact, he had no relatives or really any connect to schizophrenia. As he used to say he was only a sales person. He was humble. I really have to thank all the other consumers who used to attend this group. This group helped me make sense of my illness. Also it taught me so much about humans and the diverse membership of the group taught me schizophrenia happens to all kinds of people.

Another week worked. I am settling into the new job.

I stayed and ate lunch with my sister and brother workers and we ordered out. I usually bring a lunch. I am settling into the new job. I am home now doing some grading of assigments. I will try to complete this work over night tonight. I have marked one part of a problem now for all the students.

Dressed down Friday's

I am wearing jeans to work today. I will be staying for lunch and ordering take out food with my coworkers. Work is going well. I have been sworn in as a government employee now. I will get ready for work in about an hour. I am just going to the bank machine to get some cash.

Last night I took some of the last trains to school and back right after work and picked up my marking work for the weekend.

I am just about to take some vitamins

I woke up at noon today. I am just about to take my morning dose of vitamins.

Well one more day of work worked. I signed my contract yesterday at work.

I signed my six month contract for my new job yesterday at work. Yesterday is only 27 minutes ago. A strange feature of night shifts being on the time line for the days change. I worked another 8 hours yestersday and have one more 8 hour shift until the weekend. That work will be much later today. I will sleep first. I have worked for 64 hours now in this new job.

Again I have kept my Macbook off all week.

I consider my Macbook a fun machine. I am now using it only on weekends. I have not used it all week. It is snuggly wrapped up in its sleeve in its own laptop bag. I have only used my desktop computer all week. I might be getting another computer this weekend or next Monday on my day off. So either I pick it up Saturday just after noon after my volunteer training or I pick it up on Monday evening after my BOD meeting. I will be installing Linux on this new used refurbished Thinkpad. I hope to have this up and running by the next weekend.

Another 16 hours to the weekend.

I will work 8 hours today and 8 hours tomorrow at my new job then I have to do some teaching assistant work this weekend. I also have some training for volunteering at a political convention at the end of August. Right now I am planning on staying up late tonight and then all night on Friday night. I will stay up until the early morning training Saturday and then nap Saturday afternoon. I will pick up the new used Thinkpad when out training. I need to pick up my teaching assistant work tonight or Friday or maybe Saturday morning. But I would like to start this marking on Friday night/Saturday morning. I don't have to be up early tomorrow morning. I did wake up at 10:00 AM this morning but not 6:00 AM. I gave up on trying to wake up at 6:00 AM this morning and just aimed for 10:00 AM which worked out fine for the web master interview.

The interview went well. I should hear about this job by next week.

I was interviewed by the hospital web master and a rehabiliation nurse for the position of web publisher for the support project. It went well. It was interesting answering the questions and it was more of a conversation about myself and my internet work.

I finally after 5 months have an interview today for the web master job at our peer to peer support project.

It has been a few months now but I am finally being interviewed for a job of being a web master to support the peer to peer support project between our self help group and the local major psychiatric hospital. The interview is scheduled for noon today. I don't know if I need this extra work now.

Strange perceptions at work. Work continues and lots of summer time volunteering ahead.

I have been having some strange perceptions that the 15 or so other people who also just started working at this job are known to me. Some seem so like I have known them before. This is now happenng less as I get to know them better. I have worked 7 days now. I have worked two full days this week including an extra three hours yesterday. I asked for next Monday off so I can attend our self help group's volunteer board of directors meeting and I was granted this day off. So this week and next week will only be four day weeks of work. I am volunteering this weekend but will only be on call not on location anywhere. I am also doing some teaching assistant work this weekend. Another possible task this weekend which is more of a hobby and does not have to get done is installing Linux on my new used Thinkpad laptop computer. I also am volunteering the next weekend after that in music. I am then volunteering the next weekend after that in politics. The first weekend of September I have off of volunteering except on the Monday, Labour day when I have promised to take my partner to the parade and party. Other than my remaining teaching assistant work this weekend I no longer have to work for money on weekends.

I tired to wake up at 8:15 AM but failed.

I am testing whether I can wake up early after getting home from work at 11:00 PM. Last night I took my meds at about 12 midnight and slept at 12:30 AM but woke up at 10:00 AM. I set the alarm for 8:15 but did not really wake up and get out of bed until 10:00 AM. Perhaps I just needed more rest given my long day weekend. I will try this again tonight. I have a web master interview for the peer to peer support project tomorrow at noon at our major psychiatric hospital. So I need to wake up at 10:00 AM or earlier tomorrow. I will try for 6:00 AM.

Ready for work and getting the home looked after now.

Well now I am clean shaven and have just about done everything to prepare for work today. I still have about five hours until work. So now I can look after the apartment a bit. I need to take the garbage out. I also need to get some money for my partner to spend. She needs to make a trip today to the hospital to get her clozapine and have her blood test. She likes to buy lunch and she will buy herself some beer for later today. We know she shouldn't drink beer with her meds but she is an adult and she chooses to do this. Only her clozapine comes from the hospital. I also so far this morning have phoned our pharmacist and left a message asking them to deliver my partners other medications today, tomorrow or Thursday. I also need to empty the water pail from the air conditioner before I go to work today.

The files have been deleted.

I got all the files deleted by leaving the computer on all night. I did my back ups. I spent a little time doing some spell checking again of blogs. None of the on-line blog editing softwares I use has built in spell checkers so I need to copy and paste the blog entries into a word processor from time to time and correct all the entries. I did play some Second Life yesterday but really only looked at one piece of land for sale and did not spend more than an hour playing that game on-line. I also did not chat at yahoo yesterday. I was in too fragile a state to face a possible conflict ridden chat. Yesterday I worked on some work related resume and professional credential word processing files. I also signed up for a conference related to statistics which is sponsored by my new workplace. Mostly I spent time at ebay buying stuff yesterday and did not pay too much for anything. Like I said earlier I bought toy sets this past weekend. But I also bought an older Linux compatible PCMCIA wireless card for the new laptop I am buying.

Ready for another day of work.

I put some blank lined paper in a work notebook. I wrote down the names of my coworkers and bosses in this notebook. I am meeting so many people these days I forget some of the names right away. I am taking a brief training course today before work. So today will actually be about 12 hours long. I hope to sleep right after work today. I also hope to sleep right after work tomorrow as I test the schedule so see if a course in the early morning will be possible this fall. I have three weeks to test this out; to practice this schedule.

I am presently dressed in some neat work clothes but have about 5 hours until work starts. I still need to shave for the day. Speaking of hair I no longer must have a brush cut for work, like I needed in my security work. I did enjoy at times having a brush cut but may now use a bit longer style of hair although this will mean perhaps I have to pay for hair cuts.

My planned sleep worked out anyways.

I had planned to sleep about 12 hours and maybe 14 hours. I did sleep at about 3:00 PM yesterday afternoon. My partner did my laundry while I slept. I woke up this morning at 4:00 AM. I now have about 8 hours to study before work. I have to be at work early today at noon. We have some training before work today. I am going to read some more books from my school library this morning. I took back about 7 books yesterday to the library and did a little union business as well yesterday.

I am drivng myself psychotic with these hours.

Yes, I am still reading Gwen Howe's book. I am also realising that both other times I was hospitalized part of the problem was lack of regular rest. I did spend the last five days of the work week sleeping regularly but this weekend I have been awake only 2 long days instead of the three days plus the Friday the weekend was. I think I am spending too much time planning my sleep and allowing myself too much leeway in this sleep management. I am always going to sleep extremely tired and mentally excited. I need to practice more regular sleeping anyways for my new job. May be I can have normal weekends too. I am just too used to being up all night on my own. I don't want to be forced to make this sleep change I want to choose it for myself. But may be this is all the result of reading this book. I am going to take my meds and get to sleep in the next half hour. If I wake up too early for work tomorrow so be it, I need rest now and can nap in the mid morning if I wake up too early.

Life is not all work and study.

I really enjoy writing well on blogs. I lke writing here and hope you find something in this blog. On this blog I hope you find not something about me but something about schizophrenia that you can use for helping yourself or someone you know or love with schizophrenia. Quite a few people with schizophrenia I write to on the internet like to read me, because I give them hope that they too can work or continue in school. I am not also supporting successful relationships but I am living with someone and do have many social relationships so I hope I can give you hope at least to overcome basic social withdrawal.

But my life is not all writing blogs and studying and making money. In fact, last night in buying those Fisher Price toys for my role playing game hobby, I explored my childhood and it felt good to have a childhood and a past that others share(d). Also I enjoyed this morning watching the pilot episode of MacGyver. And on Saturday night, although I did not like to watch all the suspense and battle scenes, I did enjoy the ending of the Lord of the Rings movie and ended up crying quietly at the tear jerker ending of that film.

I think that last paragraph is about my emotional recovery from negative symptoms. Life is about the fresh cup of coffee I just made and sipped.

I read about positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia today.

Reading about schizophrenia keeps me well.

I read about the difference between chronic and acute schizophrenia and the misuse of these labels. I read that perhaps using the terms type 1 and type 2 is a better typology. Type 1 is where positive symptoms dominate and type 2 is where negative symptoms dominate instead of associating the label acute schizophrenia with positive symptoms and the label chronic schizophrenia with negative symptoms. This was in chapter 2 of this book,

Howe, Gwen. Working With Schizophrenia: A Needs Based Approach (London, U.K. Jessica Kingsley, 1995).

This chapter describes positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Positive symptoms are symptoms added to the normal personality and negative symptoms meaning symptoms that take away from the normal personality. Normal here can simply mean what one was like before one's episode.

The three basic types of positive symptoms are

Altered Perceptions

This is where hearing voices fits in and seeing things and also the distorted perceptions like weird faces and smells and tastes that are may be over sensitive to certain characteristics of the environment.

Delusional Ideas

This is where people feel they are being watched or are at the centre of attention. This can also be constructed with ideas of reference. In my own experience this happens when one is tired after an abnormally long day. Thus this symptom could be connected with either stress or physical health. This symptom can also results in sexual confusion or lack of clearly defined sexual boundaries. Also here perceptions of illness and health can be distorted.

Abnormal Thought Structure

This is a symptom where ones thoughts jump all around or some detail like a license plate on a car in front can be meaningful when, in fact, there is really no real meaning to it. This can also result in having one's attention taken by an object where one appears to be staring into empty space or at a table or object on a table. This would be greater I believe if one was high on marijuana. This is also the symptom where the ideas of intrusive thoughts can effect someone. Also beliefs that one is a very bad person can effect someone with these symptoms when the person is actually not a bad person or has no intention of acting on these thoughts. This can be quite distressful and cause an anxiety in my experience.

Negative symptoms can be more debilitating. The negative symptoms tend to be around lack on enjoyment of life or amotivation. This lethargy can be also confused with withdrawal and lethargy of marijuana smoking.

I was able to gain a little energy by eating. But still going to have a little nap.

My 3 mg of risperadol was making me sleepy and then when I took another 1 gm of niacin and 1 gm of vitamin C I was feeling tired. I then ate some food and got a lift. I ate a tomatoe and cheese slice sandwich and also a black bean instant soup. I also steamed some broccoli as this broccoli was going bad and needed to be eaten right away.

But I am still going to have a little nap now on the living room couch.

Mixing work and school in the new schedule.

In the past five years I have mixed working part-time with studying part-time. I am now taking up full time work but I also very much want to pursue graduate school. Thus I need to see if I can arrange a schedule for this and see if I can cope with this increased load of activities.

I want to see if I can work my 3:00 PM to 11:00 PM shift all week but be awake or wake up at 8:00 AM Tuesdays and 6:00 AM Thursdays. If I can test whether this is possible in the next few weeks, then I can study a course this fall while I work. The course is a prerequisite for the graduate school program in systems science. The course has lectures from 10:00 AM -11:30 AM Tuesdays and then 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM Thursday's. Thus I want to be able to wake up at 8:00 AM Tuesday's and 6:00 AM Thursdays. This would mean I would need to sleep as soon as I get home from work on Monday and Wednesday evenings. The added advantage is that I would have time between the class letting out and then having to go to work at 3:00 PM.

Planning my sleep for Tuesday back at work.

I have to be to work three hours early on Tuesday. I was having trouble figuring out how I would sleep at say 10:00 PM tonight and wake up on time for work on Tuesday. I woke up at about noon on Sunday. I took 3 mg of risperadol just now and am more relaxed and can figure this out now. I just figured out I can stay up today until about 4:00 PM and then sleep to about 6:00 AM Tuesday.

I had to change my social get together night.

I had to change the night we get together. We used to get together on Friday evenings but now I work Friday evenings so the night will have to change to Saturday or Sunday now. I tried inviting friends over for Saturday but only R came by on Saturday. He brought The Lord of the Rings films and we watched the third and final film on Saturday night.

"We" in this case is people I have met at self help groups or through people I have met at self help groups. R lived in a supported housing program when he met me and became someone who was allowed into our apartment. When R and I first got together it was with one other felllow and we all drank beer. Then R and my partner and I would get together to play music and we played a couple of shows in pubs and cafes. Then we began a role playing game get together every Friday night. This is when I invited J over and he brought his partner C. I have known J since 1990 or so. I met J directly at the self help group. J is a real loner and only likes to be friends with women generally and is a bit of sexist. I shouldn't really say that about him but he like me is mischievous. He actually gets banned from some self help groups and programs because of his pranks. So I welcome him here much as the mission in our city allows people shelter, if they have been kicked out of group homes.

Lately I have been working a lot so this Friday night get together has not been happening regularly. Yesterday and the day before I bought some old Fisher Price play sets that I remember playing with as a kid. There are plans available on the web to make these old 1970's play sets into sets for role playing game miniatures. I might do some of these modeling projects. These role playing games are about fighting with guns and drug taking gangs etc. As well, these games are set in the near future where the world is more corporate and there is less social order. So these games play on street life that exists these days. Also there is an element of fantasy and also cyber space fiction. We have played this game with the four of us in the past with me playing narrator of the story in the game and I have spent a few hundred dollars buying the rule books, miniatures, paints, dice and some stories for this game. The game allows an excuse to invite people over.

Lately instead of the game we have been watching movies and tv shows together. So this is an artifiically created social space with only those with mental health issues being allowed to attend.

My second day off I am relaxed.

I know one of my doctors said he was concerned with feelings rather than other factors in our lives. I am feeling relaxed today. I don't feel too hot or too stressed. I am working with my desktop computer deleting old back up copies and making new ones. I will also turn on my laptop today and play some Second Life. Yesterday, morning I chatted at yahoo with some people I only know on line by nick names.

We had a BBQ dinner at our father's place.

We just got in from dinner with my partner's father's place. He cooked us BBQ steaks. We don't usually eat red meat. This was the first steaks we have both had in years.

This blog was backed up just now.

Using each months entries on the month web view of this blog, a Word doc file has been created for each month and saved to the local computer here. These now need to be spell checked and then the pain staking process of spell checking this blog can be completed. This blog is over two years old now.

My oldest and first blog is three years old now and was started in July 2003 with my real name and is now my personal computer related blog. I also have other blogs for different themes such as a general school work blog, a radical school work blog and I have a few other blogs which get less frequent posts like one concerning my music and my partner's music. I have some other academic blogs that are updated less than once a month but concern more specialised themes of study.

I have wanted something like a blog to keep since early on in my web writing career when web diaries were such good quality web stites for self expression. This of course was before there were softwares for keeping blogs and I might believe before web diaries were called blogs.

The 64 hours is done now. I can enjoy a three day weekend.

I have now worked 64 hours in the last 7 days. From 5:00 PM last Friday to 11:00 PM this Friday I have worked 64 hours. This is the most I have ever worked in my life for money. It is not that I have not studied all the time or worked as hard in the past but all of this was trading my labour for money. I am now about 1000$ richer.

Clean shaven and neatly dressed for last 8 hours of work for week.

I am ready for my last 8 hours work from my 64 hours in 8 days. I will stay up late tonight. I will probably post an update when I get off work at 11:00 PM tonight. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow at noon so can not stay up too late. There is a worker's memorial on Monday I will also attend this weekend.

One of my coworkers studied economics.

I usually just write about my own success with school on the Internet. This means I seem positive mostly. I wanted to mention that one of my coworkers also studied geography but he managed to a degree in it which I was not able to do. He then switched to economics and did really well with his grades. He also studied geography with professors who meant a lot to me when I was struggling with school work in the 1980's when I knew very little about schizophrenia and was not coping at my best. This was the long unemployed period in my life and I basically had only a handful of jobs and much less than a full year worked for the whole of that decade. I only reentered the work force in the 1990's and even then worked very little but instead did many hours of self-help attendence and focused on recovery.

I began to work really in the 2000's and it is only this past week that I have held officially a full time job. This is really something to celebrate.

56 hours worked in 7 days, 8 more to go till the long weekend.

Well work is going well. I tried a new task at work today. I worked another 8 hours. I have one more 8 hour day tomorrow to work till the long weekend. I am thinking now that may be graduate school can wait and I will keep working at this job for the full contract. I will also try to find a better job at the same workplace and this is being encouraged by my supervisors at this new job. But for now I am earning twice the money I was earning in one of my previous jobs. I am earning only a few dollars per hour more than my teaching assistant work but I have many more hours.

I am up earlier today and managed to do some day time shopping before work.

I did go to sleep before 3:00 AM last night and woke up before 11:00 AM this morning. I managed to go to the local pharmacy and buy niacin pills. I also bought us toilet paper, bread, pop and water, and some cigarettes for the day. I did a little bank machine banking and came home with two hours to get ready for work again today. I talked with my father on the phone about the new job.

My partner is just seeing her ACT team worker at the moment and I am relaxing in our air conditioned apartment. This reminds me I need to empty the bucket that collects the water from the air conditioner. I will preview this entry then empty the bucket then proof read this entry after emptying the bucket.

I am experimenting with email applications on my eMac.

I am just trying out ThunderBird, Eudora, and Evolution for email but I can't get any of these working at the moment. I took my meds about half an hour ago. I hope to sleep at 3:00 AM this morning.

Another job interview.

I have been scheduled for an interview for the job of web master for the peer to peer support project between our self help group and the local hospital.

Got another 8 hours done, 16 more to go.

A commentor posted that I seemed dedicated to my job. I think I am and I want to do a good job. But the jobs I get seem to be routine and not very good jobs in terms of quality of work environment. I am not sure I will keep this job I am now trying out. I have about two weeks now before I must decide on keeping this new job or going to graduate school this fall.

Also I have a job interview for a web master job with the peer to peer support project.

Another 8 hours done in the first week of work.

I successfully worked another 8 hours today. I have three 8 hour days left to go. I have 40 hours worked and 24 to go. I also am aware now that the coming weekend is three days long where I live. I also have no law enforcement volunteering to do this weekend. I also have no formal studies to do this weekend.

Ready and neatly dressed and shaved for another day of work.

I don't usually shave two days in a row given my beard does not grow very fast. But this new job is professional office work with much chance for advancement so I want to keep myself professional in appearance. There is not really a dress code and one can wear jeans at this job. But I am following the dress for the job you want not the job you have orientation. This is making me feel very positive too. It is called self care in a psychosocial rehabilitation way of speaking.

L came by to help my wife make lentil burgers.

My partner is just seeing her ACT team worker. Her friend L just came by. L paid us back some money she owed us which is great given our government disAbility end of month cheque is very low this month. It will be low now for a while and then we will be off disAbility in a few months given my new job. I invited C over in case the heat gets to her. C lives near by. I talked with C today and she is a senior.