My life's Adventure

I got off work and played a little Second Life.

I got off work and did some more furniture purchases for my little make believe house in the game Second Life. I had the TV news playing. I am now going to do some blog updating.

I am just finished shaving and am ready for work.

I did a little banking involved in getting our rent subsidy for another year. I woke up at about 11:00 AM. I reviewed the week's bills and the week's appointments. I just finished shaving and am wearing a light goatee. My partner picked up our mail for today. We got a hydro rebate and a few newsletters in the mail. I also got some biology books I won on ebay auctions. I was in a picture in a political newsletter for my volunteering at the convention. I did a little Second Life business and now I am just posting this and then going to work.

I need to sleep in the next few hours.

I am working tomorrow. I need to wake up about three hours before work around 12 noon. I have not really had any too long days recently since my long day Wednesday/Thursday. I was up about 22 hours on Friday. I am just taking my pills now so I can sleep. I took 1 gram of niacin, 1 gram of vitamin C, one fish oil capsule and 6 mg of risperadol.

My sleep is a little off now.

I fell asleep this morning without taking my meds. I am now up mid afternoon which is not good for tomorrow if I wake up at the same time tomorrow. I will try to take my meds tonight and get to sleep early not too far after midnight.

I did buy some on-line design tonight in SL.

I am playing Second Life right now. I hired a designer in the game and we worked together to build some cubicles around some desks he sold me. You see I have a make believe house in this game and I am designing a make believe web design office on the ground floor of the house. It was good creative fun and cost me about 5 dollars. I have a background in engineering graphics but have not been very big on design in my adult life so it was a good experience and I would like to do more of this.

I might have saved someone's life tonight.

I did one of those late night bus trips last night. I checked on the bus web site and found I could catch a last bus there and back to the 24 hour pharmacy. I was going there to buy niacin. I was in the check out line and an older Chinese Canadian was complaining that the pharamacist would not sell her some niacin pills and she could not afford a whole bottle. I didn't hear that she wanted niacin but heard her say she was going to have a stroke and needed some thing to reduce her colesterol. I suggested niacin is good for colesterol reduction and offered her some of mine. This is just what she wanted. She gave me a dollar and took about 14 pills from my bottle. She is a biochemist and we chatted briefly. Both of us needed to catch the buses leaving the mall. So did I save her life? May be at least I am friendly and share my material possessions. Am I a drug sales person or doctor who knows what pills work? Not really.

I did some arranging in my Palm of contacts for my voluteering activities.

I spent about ten minutes adding contacts and updating contacts in my Palm Treo. This was only for volunteers where we need to phone each other to do our volunteering. These are the only people who call me on my cell phone besides my partner.

R is coming over tonight.

I phoned R after waking up at 4:00 PM this afternoon. He was keen to tell me about a job opening he is being considered for in data entry. He will be coming over in about an hour.

I set some big goals for school but got less actually done.

I solved two sub problems in my exam study plan but had meant to solve more problems today. I will may be solve the others tonight. I did set up the file for the chapter solutions and did code in all the problem titles in a latex file. It was very interactive.

I was up all night computing

I stayed up late and just took my meds. I am going to sleep now. I was setting up my wife's iPod and my new Palm Treo. I also chatted at yahoo. I made some blog entries. I did some surfing of tthe electronics store looking mostly at audio stuff. I did a minor amount of tool on-line browsing and some iPod browsing but this helped me solve all the iPod issues. The case is good to go and the music and films are on the iPod now. In the morning I did some union emails. There is a big peace protest today and we are having a union planning meeting later today. I will sleep now until 4 pm.

I was productive again at work today.

I did leave half way through the work day yesterday. I had not slept on Wednesday/Thursday morning so was tired at work. I did manage to attend my class on Thursday and get the union volunteering done and buy the treo cable. Today I managed to buy a case for my wife's new iPod but it turned out to be the wrong case so I will return it this weekend. They don't yet make the Otter case for the iPod movie which is what my wife now owns. I worked well today and my production levels were up very high after having a good rest Thursday night/Friday morning.

I am up now setting up the iPod and installing software on the Treo.

I am working again today, Yesterday I left early.

I am just running out to work. I can't post much until after work.

Guilt management of time and tasks.

I use guilt management to manage my schedule. I decided yesterday with my boss to book off early tonight at work so I could stay up and get things done this morning. I was feeling guilty about missing class on Tuesday. Who says people with schizophrenia don't feel guilt?

I plan three tasks now this morning. One I will attend class. In fact I will leave for class in the next half hour to forty five minutes. Then from school I will go to a suburban mall and buy a palm treo 600 usb cable. Then I will come back downtown and do a union chore. Then I will come home and get ready for work. I will change my clothes at that point and may be shower too. Then I will work for six hours. In the end my day will have been just short of a 36 hour day.

Over night I have managed to read a little from four school books and to solve two problems in my next school work assignment. I have also swept the kitchen flloor. I also made some cabbage, rice and cheese. I also listened to some music quietly.

Focusing on work is good.

Our money situation is improving with my new work. I am clean shaven and ready for another day of work. I will go in twenty minutes early today. Yesterday I was only in ten minutes early.

All computers and gadgets working fine.

Except for a few old linux laptops all our computers are working fine. I have gotten my partner a new movie iPod and will get that in the mail in the next few days. I have set up an iTunes account for her using Libra an iTunes software. I will be buying my USB hotsync cable this weekend at a suburban mall where I have asked the store to set one aside. I also got a leather case for the Treo on sale as the newer models of Treos start to be sold in Canada. One of my union comrades also has gotten a palm cell phone now. He has the Treo 650 I have the Treo 600.

I need to clean up one dead pigeon.

I have forgotten about one pigeon that died on our new netting. I need to clean up this pollution hanging on our balcony.

I messed up a bit yesterday.

Yesterday, I did not in fact sleep until about 6:00 AM and woke up at 11:00 AM. I did not work my best yesterday but in a way I also set a new production record for myself. Today is another day at work.

I did not get the union business done but did follow up on it. I should have it done by Thursday.

I also missed class and my grades are starting to slip a bit. Not really bad but down to B from A now. I should make some good use of this slight relaxed time to study harder.

I also did get much further along with my new Treo and yesterday closed one cell phone account and closed two cell phones by adding the voice cell phone to the Treo and closing the Tungsten W cell account. I will give the Tungsten W to my father-in-law now. So now I have only two cell phones and my wife has one. The total cost per month for cell phones is about 100$ now. I spent over an hour on managing the new Treo yesterday.

I have gottten no further along with the microscope. I have not read the newspaper in a few days. I am not really following the US election but am following our city elections here in Canada. I know someone running for Mayor and she is also disAbled. I donated my iBook clamshell restoration project to her campaign.

Today I only need to work. I followed up on my weekend volunteeeing yesterday and don't volunteer again until Saturday. I also reported my income to the government income supprt office. So that chore is done too. I was planning yesterday on staying up long hours in fact 36 hours but in the end did sleep in the morning. I will also sleep this morning. This staying up late gave me time to study systems theory ethics and also sociology theory. I also used the time to complete income verification stuff and am almost ready to report income to our landlord. I am feeling good and will sleep in a couple of hours.

New used microscope works but not sure.

The new microscope is a researcher's microscope. It sure looks nice. There is a little paint that has come off it around the stage. I have spent about ten minutes now trying to resolve a prepared slide without success. That is all I will do today. I will now just put the slides away.

My new Palm treo is giving me more success. I paid about a third of the new price on this used palm. It appears in great shape and I activated with the phone company. I called the technical support at the phone company and the support person on the phone helped me connect to the internet. I need a data cable to hotsync the palm and need to be able to do this regularly. I can also transfer my old Palm Tungsten W data to the new cell phone palm. But first I must buy a hotsync cable. I might have time tomorrow to buy this after I attend class and get the union business done. This means I need to sleep soon and wake up at 8:00 AM. I need to be up by 8:00 am for school but actually shopping for the palm hotsync cable can wait until Wednesday or Thursday or even next weekend. Really all that I am pressured to do tomorrow is the union business which I could do at 12:00 PM and get home by 1:00 PM.

Sore stomach again.

I did it again. I was not watching my health. I came home from work and started to test my new microscope and Palm. I drank two cans of diet pop and took my vitamins and in about an hour and a half had a sore stomach. I quickly ate a cheese sandwhich which always helps this situation. This is also a low energy state like diabeties and I have experienced this since I have had schizophrenia any time I lack food. It was also very bad when I was taking meds for the first year like this but that year I also took an anti-depressant. I am very used to this now and would say this is the burning out of schizophrenia where I have learned coping techniques to deal with difficulties. In the past also when poor I did not always have food in the house to avoid this low energy state. I am fine now. I will use my recent knowledge of diabeties to get smart and also eat two ripe pears. This should be a high quality sugar to restore my energy. I will then come back to the computer and post some details about my new microscope and Palm Treo.

I work another day and feel great now.

I worked hard again at work and maintained my production levels. I like this focusing on work because it keeps me in a good mood at work and I don't slack off as much. I am working four more days this week. I write a test in statistics on November 2nd for a better paid job in the same government department. My work will give me the time off to write the test. This reminds me I must email my boss the competition number to allow the time off without penalty to write the test. I also promised to mail her the test details.

Just focusing on work today.

I have outstanding issues with shopping including receiving the microscope in the mail today and a new palm cell phone both bought on ebay. I also have to do some union business. But all this will wait till after work or tomorrow as I need to get ready for work today. I can not afford to take time off now. The shopping items can wait till I get home to explore, test and set them up. I bought my wife a new iPod 30 GB movie model. This is all I can post now before work. I woke up at 12:00 noon today. I have to be at work in the next half hour. I am working until 11:00 PM tonight.

L is over today.

My partner's friend L is over today. They are watching TV. I just woke up half an hour ago. C and J may come over tonight. R is into watching the world series on TV.

I am volunteering this weekend but need to read some documents and also study.

I have spent the last hour reading. Before this I chatted at yahoo and also talked with R on the phone. I am going to volunteer this weekend. I also have a union meeting later today but should get some rest too. I have to be awake at 7:00 am and then have a meeting at 2:00 PM. I think if I nap now I won't wake up for 7:00 am. But I can nap from 8:00 am to 12 noon alright. I can also sleep after 8:00 PM tonight.

I am too enthralled by the electronics store.

I am too enthralled by the electronics store. I sometimes buy things like movies and CD's that I never watch or listen too. Again this weekend I want to go there and spend serious money.

Another day worked, one hour lunch reward.

Our boss gave us an hour lunch today because our shift the evening shift is always out working the day shift. Usually we only get a half hour lunch. But today we were rewarded with an hour lunch break and we ordered pizza. I seem to have done a good job all week. I did a good amount of work this week. I can now relax a bit over night.

The test went well.

I wrote my mid-term this morning and I may have perfect. It went well. I got some help from the teaching assistant with one question. I solved 12 questions.

I am up early for my mid-term.

My sleep plan worked fine. I woke up just before midnight a little early considering that I must work until 11:00 PM tonight. I have some union volnteering to do today. I also would like to take my landlord our income verification so we can renew our lease. The union offices and the landlord are all within a few blocks of each other downtown. I will do this after I write my mid-term. I just finished scan reading our textbook and I am confident I can write the mid-term today. It will only be 12 questions and we are advised to take only five minutes per question. The test is from 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM. I will then go to the landlord's office and then the union office. Although I can not go to the union office too early. I might spend some time at the school library and I do have to take a CDROM back to the library today. In the end the CDROM did not work on windows XP because the CDROM is some ten years old and the old video drivers could not be found by windows XP.

I was up all night and worked an early shift today at work.

I have a mid-term exam tomorrow morning. My plan all term has always been for this exam to sleep this afternoon and wake up at say 2:00 AM tomorrow morning with plenty of time to get to school. So at work I was planning on taking today off. Instead I had no vacation time credited to take the day off. So one supervisor said I could work the morning shift instead of the evening shift for one day. So I worked two evening shifts this week and then stayed up all night and went in today and worked a few hours in the morning. I was too tired to work so booked off the rest of the morning shift and came home. I will now do some homework including studying then sleep in a few hours. I did some of my web masterng work overnight and a little study. It was a short overnight and in the end I napped a little this morning before going into work.

I read a little bit about blood pressure.

I read a little bit about blood pressure but this was really an example from a book on teaching health information to low literacy patients. I am thinking of some of my fellow consumer survivors and the facts that we all have very different literacy levels. I for instance have very weak hand writing. My partner never reads books. I will not go on about others because there may be some shame and control issues with discussing this. The blood pressure example in this book was a way of showing that "fill in the blank" instructions may be considered interactive. So rather than reading dry medical latin and factual and complex written information a person can read something simple and write something on the same page.

I attended class today and we reviewed our material so far.

We quickly reviewed two chapters of our textbook today in class. We then solved last year's mid-term. I am still making mistakes but am also doing quite well with the course. I did a little shopping downtown after school and came home to get ready for work.

Feeling great today. I am ready to work and keen to work today.

I am well rested but not over rested today. I slept at 9:00 PM last night and woke up at 9:00 AM today. I helped my partner get her beer for the day and cigarettes. I have been arranging volunteer work this lunch hour. I am working today from 3:00 PM to 11:00 PM then again the same hours tomorrow. Then I will take Wednesday off to study. I will be up late Tuesday night into Wednesday and sleep sometime Wednesday afternoon and wake up very early Thursday morning for my mid term test at 8:30 AM at school.

Our new phones work alright.

Our new phones are now working. They have powered up over night. I tested them and they work fine.

I am just setting up our new phones.

I need to think out the wiring a bit for our new phones. I need to place them in the proper locations. Only one needs to be near a telephone outlet. The other phone just needs power.

I paid my library fine yesterday.

I did make it to the library and paid my fine. I also renewed my books. These books are about computing. I did buy a book about algae. Today I did a search for ecology and systems associations on google and found some intersting web documents/pages around the world.

I bought a quality microscope.

I finally did it I bought a quality microscope on ebay. In the last week I have bought a toy and a book on ebay. Tonight before sleeping I will also buy another book on ebay. Today I also bought new portable phones for our apartment. I did not buy an audio amplifier. I also did not buy yet another computer.

Not a quiet night here.

I have been listening to two CD's I bought today and then non stop classical music. My partner has been watching old TV shows all day and is now watching a movie on the new TV. I am about to go to sleep soon and took my risperadol about an hour ago. L made us Cornish hen for supper. I bought my partner a salad from a near by restuarant for lunch today. I am just up reading newspapers and recycling them. I have been up about 24 hours now. T did come by with another fellow named R driving him and the TV to the boarding house.

Electronics shopping again today.

I am getting ready to go to the library at my old university and pay a fine. I will then go out to an electronics store. I managed to not spend 700$ today on a wearable computer. I did spend some time though at ebay researching microscopes for sale. I always wanted to be an environmental scientist doing water quality studies. I also browsed on the web audio systems at the electronics store. Audio systems were the first things I was into buying in terms of electronics. I have not always been into this stuff but when I was very sick I did not maintain this interest. So now I am maintaining it again. I am buying new portable phones today as our old portable phones are breaking down. I will then give away the old phones. They are pretty grimy. I have a discount couppn for the electronics store where I will buy the phones. I am going to a different store in another part of the city. This part used to be its own city. In this part of town there are the offices and factories of the big global high tech companies. It is one of the global silicon valleys in that part of town. So I am doing something different this weekend if only to change which of the four stores I can choose from to shop at. I have only ever used the one of the four and today I will use a different store. I will go to the school library first and then make my way to the store. If I plan it right I can pay my fine and return one book and get the bus to the store all for two bus tickets. I can then pay another two tickets to get home. I might in fact buy more than just portable phones but ave not decided yet. I have to be home by 3:00 PM so that T who also has schizophrenia can pick up the old television.

We are getting the newspaper everyday now. And it is quickly being recycled.

Getting the newspaper every day is some kind of promotion. We were getting it only on weekends to get the TV guide. Now we are getting it free everyday and only pay the weekend price. Some of my spending on electonics and tools comes from Friday's paper, when these stores send their flyers every week with the paper.

I cleaned up my new tools today. I put all the hand tools into two tools boxes. So that cabinet in the kitchen I have used for tools got cleaned up today.

The newspaper has been read the past two days and mostly recycled now. I also watched the TV news all night and the weather channel. I just read the arts and books section of the paper and am slightly inspired to be more of a writer based on an article about independent book stores.

I also did a little more planning on the office furniture and thought of buying some furniture today but won't. The latest items I have bought were lights for the living room.

I need to finish the wood supports for the balcony structure and also take the AC out of the window. I also need to buy new filters for the air cleaner. I also need to put up the door way weather stripping to keep the smoke in our apartment and out of the hallway. I also bought some plastic for the windows to help weather proof those and that needs applying.

C and J are over tonight watching TV.

I showed off the TV and high defintion programming with a hockey game. J wanted to watch It Takes a Thief by Alfred Hitchcock with Gary Grant starring. I was watching with them but started to experience some anxiety so came to the office to study. I used Second Life a little today and did a search for mental health within Second Life and found a Second Life counselling place. I am not seeing my own psychiatrist for another month now. My partner is seeing him later this month. I have still been reading about recovery from addictions and chatting about this topic on line at Yahoo. I am also still reading about decluttering. Speaking of decluttering our old 27" TV is being taken by a consumer survivor who lives in a boarding house. He will pick it up tomorrow by taxi.

I read a newspaper article on the war in Afganistan.

I read an article about ordinary soliders posting battle experiences on blogs. The military would like to protect information from release. Some battles scenes were described in the article. It was a really awful story about war. It was written by Allan Woods.

I worked another full day today.

I worked the full 8 hours today and did a god job. Things were positive at work today. I got the required amount of work done. I am working again on Monday. I am hoping to take Wednesday off to prepare for an early morning mid-term test on Thursday. I will spend time this weekend studying for this test. I will also read library books this weekend.

I am using Second Life a little today.

I felt like I have for many years now at work. I was feeling excited that when I got off work I could come home and surf the internet. Right now I am using Second Life an on-line virtual reality role playing game. I am also going to chat at Yahoo tonight and also do some studying on-line. I will also renew some library books on-line. I will pay some bills on-line. I will also do some blogs and web mastering on-line. In fact, the peer support project has some web work for me to do over night now.

I am well rested for another day of work.

I am well rested having slept from about 8:00 pm last night to about 11:00AM this morning. I am just about to start getting ready for a day at work. On Fridays we work from 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM.

I managed to sleep for half an hour today.

I attended class this morning. I enjoyed it but was tired but did not yawn in class. I did hand in my assignment. I also got last week's assignment back. I am scoring a little bit lower with each assignment. I have a break for a few weeks now but a mid-term to write next week. I did a little union business at school for my radical union. I also browsed the library a little and borrowed a bibliography for systems theory in regional planning. I managed to come home and nap for half an hour. I am now going to meet a union rep in my new union and then work an 8 hour day. I have about half a days sick time to use if I am too tired at work today.

I got my home work done for another week.

Just now I am done my homework for school. I worked on it all week in the morning yesterday and this morning. I will be tired at work later today. I won't have a chance to sleep this morning as I have to go to class and hand in my school work. I am up since about 1:00 PM on Wednesday. So far today I have worked 8 hours. I have sold our old TV for 50$ to another consumer survivor. And I have watched some TV today. I may be attending an event before work about natives. I am also meeting my union representative at work today and may attend a union info session as well. Then I am working later today. I may use some sick time to come home half way through my work day.

Working went well today.

I did a good job today. I did a reasonable amount of work. My immediate supervisor assured me my contract would be renewed in February.

I am up late today after doing school work early this morning

I spent time this morning working on school work. I may not get this week's school work done on time. I have to work for 8 hours today starting in about an hour. I then have to hand in my school work tomorrow morning. I just woke up at 1:00 PM. I am feeling groggy. I slept at 5:00 AM. So I slept 8 hours.

I did more reading and solving math problems yesterday.

I am up early this morning. My sleep plan worked fine. I slept at 3:00 PM and woke up at about 2:00 AM this morning. I read more books and borrowed more books from the school library. I am reading a llttle about computers and health affects. I did solve some more problems and need to type set problems this morning.

I spent awhile doing some school work overnight.

I am up from 12 noon yesterday and plan to stay up to about 2:00 or 4:00 PM. I solved most of one problem in my school work. I will complete this problem in the next half hour and then solve two more by 4:30 AM then read the textbook. I will solve the remaining problems from 5:00 AM to 10:00 AM. While I do this my alternative task will be reading. Reading will include other school books, web pages, journal articles and product descriptions at on-line shopping web sites. I will also clean up a bit and after 10:00 I will read more and watch some TV and may be chat on-line.

Family Thanksgiving

We are just taking a bus to visit family for a thanksgiving dinner. I just got off the phone with my brother's family. I phoned my mom and will call my dad later tonight.

I slept 16 hours and dreamed of working.

I slept at 8:00 PM last night and didn't wake up until 12:00 noon today. So 16 hours of sleep. I dreamed of working as I woke up. I was worried when I woke up and started to use my laptop to do school work and read blogs.

The Turkey is ready but C did not come yet with cranberry sauce and I forgot to buy gravy.

Just like this from fellow consumers to not come through with the fixens. R volunteered or was volunteered to go out and buy cranberry sauce and maybe gravy at the 7-11. C was supposed to bring the cranberry sauce but I haven't heard from C or J all day. Since I started this post I have served the turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing with the cranberry sauce R bought for us. I am now going to eat after a 31 hour day.

The TV came early and I set it up and tested it.

I have never had a entertainment system with so many cables. I read the installation guide for the TV carefully and plugged in all the cables and it works as it should. My partner woke up and we watched some PBS high definition show on science and we learned about genetic obesity. I then turn the TV off for most of the day while I studied. R is over now and R watched a little baseball while I blogged and we are now watching Stargate SG-1 together on the new TV.

Studies went well today.

I have been starting my weekly school work later and later in the week. But the last three weekends I started the school work on Friday nights working over night into Saturday. I did this again this weekend. I usually have nine or so problems to solve and typeset. I have my fourth assignment to do this weekend and then the fifth is two weeks away as we have a break in assigments for a mid term test. So this fourth assignment I started working on today is the last in a while. I haven't actually yet solved a problem today. I did read how to solve three problems and read the problems and know I can solve them. I am also starting to study for the mid term and need to spend time with my agenda book planning my study times this week.

I read a section of the textbook today carefully and will read more sections carefully now before the mid term. This section I read today is also the basics that will be covered at a more advanced level in a graduate level course I will take next term.

I am also reading book and journal articles today to move the whole school learning process along not just the scoring of high marks but also the learning new topics. I am taking this initative to learn more in graduate school because this is what is expected of me at this level of studies.

I am not just up to study tonight.

I did go to the electronic store on Monday and get further in debit and bought an LCD high definition TV. I asked them if they could deliver it by Thanksgiving and they seem to have managed this with the delivery scheduled for this morning between 8:00 AM and 1:00 PM. This is something else I am up for this morning. I have all these other stereo and video equipments ready to go and all the cabling etc all ready to install the TV. I will have two DVD players. One has a VCR as well for recording video and playing our VCR tapes which includes all the tapes from my second year courses in legal studies that I studied in 2001-2005. That was three full year courses and one final half credit third year courses all on tape. In some of these tapes I am in the audience. The other DVD player is new and will upconvert DVD's into high definition viewing format. I also have a high definition cable box that will give us 15 channels of high definition TV. This new TV will also allow a computer VGA connection. It is a big screen TV but at that it is a modest big screen by today's standards at 32 inches widescreen. It should be here and I should have it set up in the next nine hours. I am fairly excited about this all. I did manage to get some pay and pay off the debit for the new DVD player already. I have one year to pay for the TV without interest being charged.

R, C an J are all invited over tonight for Turkey dinner.

It is a Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. I give thanks to those Canadians who pay me for working in the government. I also need to thank my mom and dad for raising me. Also neighours and friends for criticising me so I could get it right. I should thank all the workers here at schizophreia.com and all the users and my readers for keeping this an interesting fact based site where I enjoy blogging too.

I have the turkey defrosting now in water. It has defrosted in the fridge for about a day and half. It should have actually been defrosted in the fridge for 3 days. It is a 6 kg bird this year so a bit smaller than the 8 and 7 kg birds we have had in the past.

I read a little more school work this morning and am going to do some studies over night.

I read a little more about modeling reality in a systems theory book. I missed my class Thursday. I am home now early from work. I am understanding more about the actual process of data gathering now because of my job. I also read a little of an old book by a biologist who wrote a statistical theory book.

I attended a mental health awareness talk at work.

I work in a large enough workplace that I was able to attend the mental health awareness event today without seeing any of my direct coworkers. Also the workplace is so large that they have events like this. They just started the workplaces mental health working group there which seems a little late to the party. I heard a bi-sexual women talk about her struggles and recovery from depression. I am just home having a drink of pop before going to work today. I took yesterday off to manage finances and get my school work done. I am refreshed and ready to work today. I have 8 hours ahead of me and I will leave now only slightly early for work.

I started to take omega 3 capsules.

There was a feature on the TV news about Omega 3 fatty acid supplments. I decided to start taking these. I bought some on sale and gave about a 50 day supply to L as well as she has bipolar depression. So I have a 50 day supply for myself as well.

I did stay up over night on Tuesday into Wednesday. I went into work at 3:00 PM and booked a sick day off work. I came home and slept. I am now up in the wee hours of Thursday getting ready for my morning class and then going to work this evening. My workplace has a mental health awarness week event today. They are having a talk at noon on depression and I plan to attend this talk before my evening shift today.

I completed my school work just now.

Well my school work is one day early rather than two. I may have to take the day off work because I did not yet sleep. L just called as she does in the morning mostly because she needs someone to talk to. My partner is still sleeping. I am geting ready to take a bus to school to hand in my assignment. I am just going to phone the professor's office right now to make sure I can hand in the assignment this morning.

I have been refocusing on recovery literature.

I took my vitamins about half an hour ago. I am realising I still have a lot of recovery to still do. I am still young at being clean and sober having only five years. I also need to focus on not spending so much money on credit. I also need to keep cleaning up our apartment and deculuttering. I also need to work on my romance relation with my partner more. I have started to read more recovery literature and think and journal more privately. This has less to do with school or work learning and more to do with medicine and healhy lifestyle learning.

Issues with school work run deep.

I have some major mental health issues with school work. I get quite upset about grades and geting math problems solved. Even in my legal studies I took my grades very personally and would become upset easily. I hold some high standards for my school work and my school is almost hoping to hold me to high standards. And I don't like all the elitism of school it certainly isn't recovery friendly.

Two days of work done, three to go to the Thanksgiving long weekend.

I have just finished my second day of work this week. I have three days left to go. I did a good job today and yesterday. I don't see any problems with the rest of the week and scheduling. I could even work some over time this week if I go in early.

I just thought of commenting on this blog today about people at work. I worked with 21 people I had never met before in August and I have no knowledge of their mental health beyond knowing them at work. I also am now working with nine people, five of whom I worked with in August. I also see the day shift during the first few hours of the night shift. I have had about 8 new bosses at various levels of the government organisation. One boss has moved elsewhere and my immediate supervisor from August is no longer my supervisor. I don't know if any of these above people have mental health issues. I have volunteered to be part of the disAbility committee at work but I have not heard back about this yet.

R is going out in the country to help his family with yard work.

R is going out in the country to help a family member cut firewoood for the winter. I am hoping to invite R and a C and J over for Thanksgiving this coming weekend. Pay day is this Wednesday and I hope to buy a Turkey for our freinds.

I am also still thinking of buying the high definition TV and DVD player. I willl buy this all on credit and then pay off 1000$ before buying the other items on my hi-tech shopping list.

I am copying documents, desktop folders to back up hard drives.

I am doing my monthly back ups. I rotated back up folders of documents off my main desktop machine and deleted a months old folder and then copied a new copy of the documents folder from the desktop this morning. I also just copied the Desktop and Documents folders from my Macbook laptop to a firewire drive. I am just starting rotating back ups of the Macbook laptop. I also copied the 3rd quarter of the year blog entries by month to word files for most of my blogs and I keep these on my eMac, my main machine in a folder in the documents folder.

All this backing up saves my work. It saves my school work including research and my writing.

I have only four more problems to solve/typeset and I am done school work for the week.

I have only four problems left to go in my school work. I slept at about 7:00 PM last night and woke up at about 7:00 AM this morning. I was groggy and a little sleepy this morning. I may go to my French class because at this point I may not be able to drop it. I would though like to take this morning to work on the remaining four problems and also read some systems sicence theory.

Scottish roots

Someone asked if I am Scottish, in fact, my partner is almost fully a half Scottish with her mother being a true Scot. Myself I am a part Scottish having a mix of UK ancestors. So our daughter is very much more Scottish then we both are. I look fairly Irish myself having freckles and reddish blond hair. It is actually my European heritage too that gives me fair features. But on my mother's side we are Loyalists having left the USA when the revolution happened. I don't want to say too much about this because one, schizophrenia happens to everyone regardless of race and two I am trying to remain slightly anonymous here. I will say I am drawn by the bag pipe music and in Canada we use pipe music in our military and when younger I thought of being a future devils brigader, i.e. being a brave Canadian solider.

I solved some more problems and started to proof read my school wok.

I solved two more problems and started to proof read the homework. I have just four problems left to solve. So it works out that I spend my weeks working and my weekends on school work. This is kind of a simple divison of my time.

I applied for some scholarship funding.

I applied on-line for some financial support from the University scholarship list.

I did not buy anything this morning.

My plans to borrow more money didn't work right away then they did and I had second thoughts about going into further debit. I don't really need the printer it would just be another piece of technology that I would use only a little. Even if it goes on sale again and becomes very cheap the use I would get from it would be limited. The TV and DVD player are just too expensive for our present budget. I know I can't control my spending but I can try to make it reasonable. I feel the same way about tools from the hardware store today. Even if on sale they take up space and get little use.

I went to an electronics store last night and got further into debit.

I did, in fact, start to buy a high definition TV last night. I have one picked out that is on sale and has the features I want. I browsed the stores web site for hours until I picked this model out. I then went to the store itself to actually see the TV working. The clerk in the store is someone I recognize now. He tried to get me to buy what I wanted plus even more stuff like cables that cost hundreds of dollars. I came home and tried to buy the TV at the stores on-line sale. First, I tried to buy the portable printer. The new credit card would not authorise, perhaps because I had not quite paid off the previous account with that store. So I bought nothing yet at this on-line sale. I plan this morning to use a regular credit card but must raise the limit on that card before I can do this, and for that I need to wait until the morning and the official days beginning in terms of the credit card company. So my debiting continues and might get very expensive this morning. I will then have to sell my 27" TV.

I bought a PSP movie last night and some blank CD's for data storage. I also bought some cases for PSP UMD disks. I also bought my wife a CD by the Beastie Boys. All this was paid for with credit too.

My present shopping goals include the TV, a new DVD player that will improve DVD's on the new TV (called upconversion technology), and a portable printer ( that is now finally on sale). This is a lot more stuff to fill our apartment and a lot more debit. Right now I am thinking that the only real thing that would get use is the TV. But the less expensive solution would be to purchase only the printer.

I also bought food using an overdraft.

I solved another two problems in my school work.

I worked on school work since my last post. I also listened to radio from a foreign country over the internet. It is a country that is one of my ethnic homelands. Speaking of ethnic homelands and roots I have been looking at England as a place to do my Ph.D.. The City University of London has some good math studies. I read some Indian newspapers today on-line too. I still need to read some paper newspapers from Thursday, Friday and Saturday still. I will do that this morning.

I solved two problems in expectation and one in random variable probability mass function basics. I need to write up the second expectation problem. I also looked at the remaining five problems in this week's homework and can solve them all. There are no real difficult problems remaining this week. But I do have to now type set six problems. I scored A on the first assignment so things are going well so far. I will hand in this assignment, the third one on Tuesday's class this coming week

The walk from the bus stop to class is only 3 minutes and every time I have gone to class this term I have been at least ten minutes early. This allows me time to smoke one cigarette and use the washroom at school.

Reading, surfing the internet, and TV.

I have been surfing the net and watching TV news. My wife just finished her movie and is going to sleep. I just read some philosophical views of systems theory. I need to get working on some school work in probability. I had a nice talk with my dad using Skype. I think Skype is a socially useful technology. I will probably spend the next ten hours on my computers and also do some reading and studying either on the computer or aided by the computer.