My life's Adventure

The drafting table is set up now in the bedroom.

We set up the drafting table in the bedroom. I need to move some papers off the floor in the bedroom on my side of the bed. These papers came off my old shelves when I moved the new shelves in last Christmas. They are still on the bedroom floor now.

R did come by last Friday and returned some binoculars he had borrowed

I did not hear from C and J last weekend. R did call. He returned some binoculars he had borrowed. He did not stay long. He is going back to school to complete his high school. I loaned him a book about the Hundred Years War.

We moved my partner's easy boy chair to the closet.

My partner had been bought an Easy Boy chair by her father years ago, when she lived alone. We had this chair placed in the bed room out of use from guests because some of our over weight guests would not refrain from sitting in this chair when asked. One chair was already broken too. The cat has been using this chair to sleep on near the window in the bedroom. We had been using it to dump bedding. Today we moved the chair into our hallway closet. I took out my bass amplifier to make room. My partner will now clean up the dusty space left behind from the chair and then we will set up our drafting/art table in the remaining space.

I bought a new school agenda book.

I went out to Chapters early last week and bought a school year agenda book. I have copied all my union phone numbers to the phone book section. I have also copied all my fellow and sister student's phone numbers and our school administrator's phone numbers. I need to copy some more volunteer phone numbers and then family phone numbers. I also need to copy in the phone numbers for the hospital, doctors and self help groups. I keep my phone numbers fairly well organised from year to year in these agenda books. I have used the Quo Vadis school textagendas for a few years now.

I am home sick with a cold.

I booked off work and came home sick with a runny nose and feeling weak. I slept for about 3 hours. My boss is ok with me being home today. I will complete my French test later in the week.

I am experimenting with Linux and Unix computers.

I am still tinkering with Linux and Unix computers but the hardware is costing me some money. I should not really be spending this money on computers, as my Macintosh computers are working fine. But this learning of Unix and Linux could mean some paid work in the future and certainly helps my school studies, as well as, my job prospects.

I have a bit of a cold.

I came down with a cold on the weekend. I am taking some pharmacy store brand cold remedy pills. I may have to book off work today. I will have to take my French test today. I will go into work in a few hours.

The schizophrenia.com site was down for a while.

I could not post here the past two days because the web site was down. I got a message saying CPU use was too high and that was all I knew. It seems back on-line now.

I am taking vitamins again.

I bought vitamins with my pay cheque. I started to take vitamins again. I am handling some volunteering right now. I may be able to relax with friends tonight or I may rethink that. I worked all week. I have worked a few weeks now with no time off.

My vitamins make an appearance at work.

I woke up just on time for work today. I felt tired and weird in the morning. I took some vitamins at lunch and a fellow worker thought I looked sick. I was flushed up from niacin. I told him I had taken vitamins and that I was ok because he wanted me to see the company nurse.

I am home now and need to pay the rent. I also need to buy an agenda book from school.

Vitamins purchasing today.

We are again broke on pay day. I am making no progress on debit. I am going out now to spend about 15 dollars on vitamins. I will then take some bus rides to do some ebay shopping from a local seller and come home and sleep at 9:00 PM.

I worked today and things went fine. I was productive again and even helped another new worker learn the job. I do this helpful behaviour from time to time.

I checked the school's fall schedule and know what I am studying this fall.

I checked the schedule for school and the one course I can study. I started to use iCal for my schedule. It can talk to my palm schedule so that is great.

I looked into conferences and other trips this morning.

I spent time over night looking into conferences and travel prices. I won't have any money from school for this work just yet. I may attend virtually an event this coming month. I am just getting ready to go into work early this morning.

Two consumer goals achieved this weekend.

I bought a book I had my eye on this weekend and am three quarters of the way finished reading it now. I also got a keyboard shelf for my new computer desk. I also got the keyboard shelf from the returns selection so only paid ten dollars for it. So two short term shopping goals were completed.

The living room floor is clear of books, paper and garbage now.

Early this morning I cleared up books and paper off the living room floor and put most of this on the living room desk. Garbage was disposed of and some paper was recycled.

Areas cleaned and progress.

These are areas we have cleaned up and kept clean or clear:

• Kitchen walls (mom, myself, partner, and ACT team)
• Kitchen floor (partner and myself)
• Bathroom cabinets and surfaces (myself and partner)
• Bathroom floor (partner and myself)
• Living room floor (myself and partner)
• Takeout flier drawer (myself)
• Balcony (myself, R, and professional pigeon cleaner)

You can see we are not doing everything yet

Two Friday nights go by with no friends visiting.

I did not hang out with R, C, and J again this Friday. I needed to sleep and put being on time for work ahead of this consumer social circle. After reading a little of Schizophrenia Digest I may move beyond these folks. I need to support my partner's recovery more and these persons are actually not a good influence for her.

Instead, I am examining why I don't have other friends and she is not able to be friendly with C and J. She needs to start moving down the path.

I followed the right path to recovery that others have followed. I attended self help groups where I learned to care about other people's recoveries. Then through hobbies done with other consumers meeting friends without mental health issues or rather without treatment. These people were a regular social environment for 6 years. These people turned their noses up at me and me them. We politely stay in touch as I politely stay in touch with past consumers I knew.

I then moved into work as these persons were mostly workers. I am now able to socialise with coworkers but still this happens at work. Some of this work place socialisation is now becoming virtual by use of social networking sites. Here I will think both sides of the extreme possible outcomes even if this is not a probability experiment but a social recovery experiment. One side: my recovery could fall apart into shame and pain and may be even death or divorce; or instead I can move forward into wealth, health, fame, or high achievement.

I bought a book and some furniture and then came home and read.

I bought a book this evening. I also bought some discounted furniture that had been returned to the store. I do not need pride from new objects. I was able to put together the furniture and read the book. I also read more about my ethnic roots. This warfare book has caused some regression for me and my partner in addictions the past three days and thus this historical war was once again destructive. I also read more sociology. I will attempt to develop a sociology of recovery here but that may be a pipe dream.

I borrowed some more books today.

I borrowed some books on statistics and a French grammar book. I also borrowed some books about virtual reality and the Internet in French. I did some cleaning of the living room desk but need to do more. I may buy some books at a bookstore today. That will be my second trip on the buses today if I go.

I think my next clean up target will be the living room desk.

I hope today to clean up the living room desk we have. Right now there are piles of paper on it, but I would like there to be piles of books on it instead.

Being patient with thought and focused thought.

I need to be less reactionary and more of a deep thinker. In other words I need to focus. My dad wondered a few years ago why I was studying sociology and other subjects that seem tangential to my degree. I talked to him last night to discuss my grad study plans. We made a decision and planned my fees for the fall term. In fact, my workplace job applications require sociology courses as much as statistics courses. So in the end my course choices were wise. They were guided more by the subjects I study than an overt plan to gain work. Now I need to be patient with my thoughts and readings and flights of fancy and gain focus for work. I have a big event at work today and it is still 8 hours away. I will be sipping some refreshments and settling into an audience chair exactly 8 hours from now. I won't say what but my boss helped the company invest in me by allowing me to attend this important event today. In fact it is highly related to gender studies and I will review some books in preparation.

I will also focus a little over night now on studying for job application exams that are coming up for me.

Self esteem and being critical without being insecure.

To be a public speaker one technique is to never say anything offensive or too insulting. This limits criticism and does not allow for much anger in communications. Then when one is angry things flow out too wild, and then someone cautions us and then insecure we retreat with apologies into the shelter again and perhaps loose the critique. I was able yesterday to stick to my guns in calling a doctor a quack on-line and even if chided did not retract my critique and stood my ground.

This also relates to improving self esteem and escaping the negative talk and letting others negative talk us. This helps us become more secure for dealing with the other genders in general and others who we see as weaker and good targets for foolishness. Instead we can think meta thought and see the way we are acting and thus take responsibility for our actions. Which all takes some patience and wisdom. We get these by writing about ourselves.

I am going to try out Windows Vista a little now.

I will try surfing ebay for while with Windows Vista. I will try IE in Vista for some of my own and some client, web sites too. I will also test it with iTunes and Quicktime.

Political party meeting.

I attended a political party meeting this evening. I spoke a few times with excitement with perhaps mixed up or creative words. I did participate actively in the meeting. I have two public events now to attend as a volunteer.

I acted as secretary and kept the minutes at our AGM last night.

I kept minutes for our AGM last night. I also made a rule that people speak only twice during one discussion. This gave other people a chance to speak. Still some people managed to talk too much. While inspiring these people dominate meetings.

I just installed Vista on my Macbook.

I installed Vista on my Macbook this morning. I am just preparing for work now. I will go in early again today.

I could not go shopping after all. I now have a little time to relax and deal with bills.

We are so broke. I am just managing to pay some credit. I did not have to do the shopping thanks to my partner. I am just getting ready to leave for the AGM. I will not stay for the whole thing. I will try to relax and not get into any power struggles. There are actually very few power like struggles at our self help group, so I will be able to relax this evening.

I worked a full day and now must do one shopping trip and end up at our AGM for 5:00 PM

I just got home from work and have eaten most of my dinner. This post will be brief, as I need to finish my dinner, and then go out. I will attend the annual general meeting of our self help group later this afternoon. I will be home later today, and am worried about sleeping too much if I don't get home soon enough and get right to sleep. Well for now I must eat.

I am up all night to study.

I am up late today. I have only been awake six hours and, in fact, just finished eating lunch. I have been reading a law book and also using facebook. I am also digitizing audio. I also am updating other blogs. I have a very interesting book due back at the library on Wednesday, and I think I will read it now, and take it back to the library after work today, and renew it at the desk.

My partner cleaned the floors today.

Great news, I slept at about 7:00 AM and woke up at 6:00 PM, and was pleasantly surprised that my partner had cleaned the bathroom and kitchen floors. I woke up to a clean house.

The virtual friends chat went well. R borrowed some binoculars today for a concert tomorrow.

I did enjoy the chat yesterday.

I loaned R my basic binoculars today so he and his friend can attend a concert with them. I made R promise to buy me a new pair if he broke or lost them.

Virtual friends at Yahoo

I am just about to log into Yahoo and chat health problems with virtual friends I have never met. I do this sporadically these days. But I have done chatting day in and day out before. Now I can take it or leave it. But I keep coming back to it.

Teaching my partner fractions

I got some fractions flash cards from an office supply store. I got them to teach my partner first and then other possible students. Fractions are a sticking point in math education. We tried them out and my partner scored A minus on the fractions. Once she understood how to count the fractions she was doing excellent. She was so happy I got these for her.

Meanwhile she is helping me learn French.

Although I am a real person my anonymity prevents me from responding by email to comments here.

I got a comment here on an old post from a University of Alberta student or someone from that school. That person asked about my studies. While this may seem an innocent request and one in the past I might have responded too, responding by email would revile who I am to that stranger. I am in the future and now going to be more careful about how I respond here.

I reviled myself a little at work yesterday and the joking kind of youth curiosity that my coworkers put up to me was awful. I don't want that trouble and believe Canadian society is not ready for out of the closet mental health yet, even if a former prime minister's former wife came out the closet.

I slept after a long day and C, J, and R could not visit.

I had wanted to sleep two hours after work but slept from 5:00 PM to about 4:00 AM. I missed my friends the other consumers. I am also trying to do too much today. I am trying to attend a grad student BBQ with my wife and also attend a union meeting later in the afternoon.

I have a lot of books out from the library but am not reading whole books.

I am feeling that I am not reading enough. I do not read enough statistics and mathematics books. I do read a fair amount on the net but like my library use I download more articles than I read. I will try to read a book now and read all night. I also need to complete an on-line computer coding tutorial.

I just dealt with some union web issues.

I just did some changes to our union web site. I am home from work now and surfing the Internet.

I read a little of a book this evening.

I read some studies this evening and then surfed the net a fair amount. I hope to study more over night now. I am learning more about computers and telephones.

I did not go back to work to study. Other issues these days at work arise.

I did not go back to work to study today. I am aware that some at work know I have mental health issues. But some also know I am wild and crazy with out the labels needed. Otherwise, I am a well respected member of our workplace team and have many solidly friendly relationships at work.

Work this week as usual. And studying after work at work.

I am working again this week. I slept at 12:30 AM this morning and woke up on time for work. I was just on time but had a good day after all. My partner makes it easy for me to work. She makes my lunch.

I need to study at work for a test at work for a promotion so am going back to work after a little rest. I had some veggie hotdogs just now and am checking email and updating blogs before going back to work to study.

My partner has had 2 beers in the last three months.

Good news, my partner and wife has kept her sobriety basically intact only drinking two beers in the last three months. She only drank one while on two separate visits with family. So she drank socially, only. This is great progress for her. Yesterday, we worked on her education talking and reading. She has only completed some high school. She has read more advanced English novels in the past, but is not able to read much these days because of her spirit voices, that distract her from reading much.

Another old high school friend works in film these days.

I will call her L. She was a daughter of someone with schizophrenia. I was friends with her brother in high school. I had not heard from her in years. She now has raised some children, and is also working in the film business these days. Wow, such famous friends. Her father was a bit kooky. I never learned much about schizophrenia knowing her father, who worked on his schizophrenia with religious changes. He earned a middle class salary.

So where is all this working leading?

I want to think and envision my longer term horizons with work. I have worked almost one year now, but should aim for five years at this workplace. I am in my late forties and should plan on working another 15 years.

Day in, and day out, I write here about daily details of the practical aspects of working that might be common to others who might also have schizophrenia and be working. But where does this leave the voices of caution of the psychologists and nurses? They have in the past denied my ability to work. This was an older style of protection style therapy. But modern research on workable methods shows that we should not be protected but allowed to fail and take risks.

So we must look for work. This is the classical problem of the age beginning in the middle 1970's and heightened at each recession. But there is more to job seeking than simply reading classified adds or searching jobs available databases. We must look inside our self and choose what we really want to do or are comfortable doing. We must network and remain social to find openings and this is where those of us with schizophrenia fail. We must also study hard to develop ourselves for this knowledge intensive job market, they say.

I am studying for my next position and two other next positions.

I built the magazine boxes and put away school work in these boxes.

I did clean up the office a little by putting a pile of papers that was school work into the ten boxes. School work uses trees that we know. The apartment is still a long way from being clean.

The rent has been paid, movies have been bought, and we have ink again,

The shopping I did last night was on credit. I did get my wife a movie when I bought ink for my printer. I got the rent looked after and it will be paid again this Wednesday. I have to give the landlord more cheques this Wednesday. We are getting caught up on the back rent but have also missed some payments so need to catch up on that too. I also have all the minimum payments made on the credit cards until after our next payday. I did not buy books from Amazon. I do need to read more and I read on the bus as I did this shopping. I also went to the grocery store and bought us a little bit more food. I bought some food for union comrades too for today's picnic.

J an old friend is working on a Blockbuster movie.

I have a friend who was close to me when I was first hospitalized in 1980. He is now a film worker and got a job on a major motion picture. I can't give any details beyond that. We did compete for the same women friends when younger; I will say that much. I also don't have much to do with him anymore although our parents remain friends.

I did very little cleaning house this weekend.

I cleaned almost nothing this weekend. I did buy ten magazine holders to use to store paper in my office. I also bought some place mats and used these to cover the living room coffee table to protect it from constant use. I also bought some steak knives and an ice cream scoop. We lacked decent and matching knives and this is a six knife set. My partner had also asked for the ice cream scoop and the knives.

To do some cleaning I should build the magazine boxes, put them on shelves, and then, put some papers in them.

C and J are just leaving now.

I was showing the Internet to C and J again. We did mostly Internet surfing tonight. Of course we talked too.

Instead of buying I am selling things.

I sold my iPod Photo 60GB music player today. It was a good 1.5 year run with this music player. I enjoyed many podcasts. In total the cost was 475$ and I got 200$ for it today. That includes the newer ear buds and case. So I paid 275$ for the use of this iPod for about 1.5 years. I can now pay a credit card bill that is due.

I am home for the weekend now.

Work went well today and I was more productive today at work. I am now home. I have some volunteering to do this weekend and a picnic to attend.

I have been offered a thesis topic from a supervisor.

I am just getting ready for the last day of work this week. I am cleanly shaved and just getting shirt and socks on.

I was offered a thesis topic by a professor and am considering this topic suggestion now. I will print out his email and take it to work to read and share with some coworkers. I did a little reading of the professor's summer papers at his wiki. I will do more later today after work. C and J should come over again tonight.

I am making final preparations for work today.

I checked my email and searched out some political files and responded to someone. I need to read these files more carefully later. I have a chance to go into work early today and study for my test. I have my morning coffee made. My partner has money for the day.

I can't shop for weeks now.

I did get some more Nike+ iPod stuff in the mail yesterday. I am having to sell my 60 GB iPod if I can for cash. I promised my partner I would stop buying silly things. Not sure I can keep that promise.

The rent cheque is almost covered now we are about 50 dollars short. I have to make a deposit today or the cheque bounces. I am up over night now and am basically dressed for work expect socks and shoes and pocket items.

I have been without vitmains for about one week now.

I have not afforded vitamins for one week now. I am struggling to pay bills and have not afforded really any extras and have not bought vitamins yet. I sort of plan to buy them after the rent cheque clears but I plan to buy a lot of things then.

I read some Internet law studies just now.

I based the later part of my legal studies degree on law and the Internet which lead me to studying the Internet some more. I borrowed books last night in the area of Internet studies and also one book on law and the Internet. I am just reading this book now and am quite relaxed reading this old friend of a topic.

The last two days of work were positive.

I was told I may be hired permanently at a new position at work. There is one more test to complete but I passed the first test and interview now. I was so excited by this news everyone at work now knows. You may know that those of us who have schizophrenia can become quite excited as I have been since yesterday when I was told the good news. I am staying up all night tonight to study for this test and then work tomorrow then sleep at 4:00 PM tomorrow.

I have done a fair amount of networking, reading, and thinking this weekend. So graduate school continues.

I did some networking with other scholars including some royal society members. I will not be able to attend the annual conferences of either of my professional organizations this year. But I can network via email and the web.

I read books this weekend and Internet posted articles, and borrowed books last week. This reminds me, I need to renew some books today, or I will owe fines. I renew over the web, so will do that now, before my final "getting ready for work" activities. I will also go to libraries this evening after work.

I just swept up the floors a little.

The hallway and kitchen floor were very messy. They really need a good cleaning. Instead, I swept them up and picked up a dustpan worth of dust and little bits of garbage. We are lucky to have a hallway. F a new union comrade with the schizophrenia label and also a grad student has only a one room apartment.

My work on the balcony needs to continue. We are growing a Chilly plant on the balcony now. We plan some more veggies and flowers to grow out there, but this will take some research and a little more money. We might need some money for soil and pots.

I also need to continue to pick up paper off the office floor. I am trying to sell some books or give them away. I found out I can sell some books back to the student book store, if I need too. But selling things is just wrong, because in the end people don't buy used stuff that often and often the amount paid is so little compared to the original price. My collectors items might be worth more now, but these are very hard to sell in my experience.

I am getting ready for another day of work.

I am dressed in neat clothes for work. I need to shave still and wash a little. I also need to put on some socks and shoes, as I am wearing sandals right now. I am going to present a very professional image at work and hopefully behave in a very professional manner. I will again go into work 1 hour early today.

My computers are working fine, and nothing is broken.

My two computers are working fine now. Both are Macs. They both run windows as well if needed. They both also run some open source software.

I had spent a lot on credit to support these two computers, and keep my printers supplied. I have no more credit right now, and need to pay more credit back. For now I can not really print that much. I am applying for more credit at the electronics store, and this will allow me easy access to computer stuff. But I will be getting into more trouble with debit. You may know this is a typical problem for those of us with limited incomes.

G and W are two other consumers who know computers well. G needs to return a zip drive to me. He was sick for awhile. He offered me a hard drive to make up for this issue. I had to buy another zip drive, while I waited for him to get out of hospital and get back in the consumer scene. He is back but we need to connect a little more. He has made a generous offer for restitution, but I don't want to take advantage of him.

I did not quit yesterday but I am still trying to cut down my smoking.

I did not quit yesterday. I slipped a few hours after my blog entry that day and then smoked a lot. Later in the morning I bought more smokes and my wife and I went out to celebrate Canada day. When we were out I smoked less again. Then I slept at about 4:00 PM and woke up around 2:30 AM. I did not smoke much this morning. I have continued to smoke less today and trying to cut off my smoking. I will sleep at about 6:00 PM today so I can wake up very early for work tomorrow. In fact, I will take my medications in the next hour or so so I can calm down and get ready for a very early bedtime.

I helped bag all the paper recycling and my partner took the recycling down stairs.

I woke up and it looked like we were collecting garbage. You may know that this is a symptom of schizophrenia in the medical books. You see I try to lead a green lifestyle. My wife agrees with this. To recycle we have a recycling area in our dinning room where a metal tube frame holds grocery bags i.e. what people call plastic bags here. In each bag we place pop bottles, other plastics and cans. In one of the other three bags we put newspapers and non-sensitive papers. Each day almost my wife takes this downstairs to the recycling room in our apartment building. This is really the garbage room but there are some massive blue bins in there for all the different recycling waste streams. She separates everything and puts everything in its proper blue bin. Our city does not recycle everything, so there are instructions sent in the mail from time to time with the rules for recycling.

This morning when it looked like the recycling was over flowing, I took all the paper and put it all in a large green garbage bag. My wife thanked me when she woke up, and then did the recycling right after she took her morning medications.

I checked the balcony and and it is looking usable now. In fact, my wife sat out there last night to watch Canada day fireworks while I slept. She is fairly sensitive, so if she is comfortable out on the balcony, it is getting better out there.

Canada Day is Q day.

The technique that will work for my quitting smoking is I hope a Q day to quit cold turkey. That day is today, and I have not smoked in the last three hours; so I have not smoked today. I am not certain I will achieve my goal but I do hope I never smoke again. This was one psychiatrist's plan for me that I would like to accept. It is also my GP's advise for the mouth cancer.

Every sip of coffee and every use of the phone brings a craving but I am also aided by nicorette gum to chew when I feel a craving. I am just finishing a cup of coffee now and a glass of pepsi, and then will switch to a glass of water and chew a gum piece. Nicorette gum is chewed differently than normal chewing gum