My life's Adventure

I seem to focus better on decluttering in the wee hours of the morning and night.

I end up picking up the trash after the guests are here. I also continue to pick up my office stuff and put things away only when I up late at night. Today is still Friday here for me. I am busy with computers and to a lessor extent books from the school library. I also started to read the thesis guide at my school.

Procrastination and time management.

I have not done much work on the web site I manage for the peer to peer group. I have occasionally, at least once a week visited the web site and read the blogs there. I have not needed to edit anything the consumers write there. Things are going smoothly. But I have not built the site much and have not been paid in a while. I think this evening I will write an invoice and bill for summer work. I should also bill for the hosting which I have been paying for with my own funds. It is largley procrastination that has kept me from this work. But also I have managed my time to focus on work.

My interview went well.

I was interviewed for a new job at work today. It went really well I think. They asked me some ethics questions and time management questions. I also had to answer questions about publishing in the government. I now need to prove I am bilingual.

Canada day in two days.

Wow Canada day and I am working for the Canadian government. My wife and I plan to party this Canada day and I have Monday off of work. Yes that means another long weekend which in typical Canadian terms means people drink beer. But my partner and I will not drink beer and will be sober.

Wow a psych student read this blog for his exam study.

Amazing but a post I made a few years ago here about a book I was reading allowed a student to study for his exam from the book. I am happy to help a future professionals study. I was paraphrasing the book in my post which means I am also an active psych scholar.

Not being supported but dinner was good over all.

I guess I am looking for storm clouds in my life. I am struggling with overspending. I felt the people I was talking to at the dinner were not listening. That was minor compared to being able to talk with peers and get our work done. I really had a lot of food as we ate at an all you can eat. I talked a lot about ethnicity. Our next meeting is our AGM. I need to send minutes of our meeting last night to the office. I recorded the minutes on my Palm Treo 600. So the digital lifestyle helps in more ways than one.

I have a board dinner this evening.

I will be attending our annual board of director's dinner this evening at our self help group. Right now I am busy getting ready for work today. I am also trying to pay bills and get the house ready for the day. I will take my vitamins now and go to the store to buy smokes.

I did not get into a lot of trouble on ebay this past weekend and did quite well, in fact.

I was outbid on an expensive item so that stupidity did not get me in trouble. I did win a pair of Nike shoes for my Nike + iPod system. The price I will pay is about half of the store price and the shoes of course are new so I did ok. Also the absolute amount of money is not too much about 65$.

I just bought my partner bus tickets for her trip to her GP today to have her blood tested. She has not been feeling well and is having her blood tested today. She can not eat this morning before the blood test. I am just waking her up before going into work.

I am up and quite ready for work today.

I am clean shaven and fully dressed for work today. I have my little briefcase full of job application materials. I am going in early to work on job applications. I have an interview at the end of this week for a new job at the same workplace. This new job will involve working on computers as the main focus and will pay more money. This week at work I may be doing more physical labour. I enjoy this task at work so it should be a good week.

Studying over night and now into Sunday

I have been studying all night and into the morning. I did some quoting of one book I am reading and wrote some statistics related English on the World Wide Web. I read a variety of art, research methods, statistics and computer work books. I read advanced material in aesthetics as well as, more basic statistics. The art book got me really focusing and when I read some statistics, it was relaxing; because for me, it was like review. Reading computer security was inspiring and I emailed some scans of what I was reading to another volunteer web master.

I also studied and organized work papers and organized our budget and my schedule a little bit.

I would like to write a paper for a conference now, so will read the conference call for papers, and begin research at home and then continue in the libraries of both school's today. So this weekend besides the grocery store I won't go shopping for stuff except on the net. Instead my time outside will be going to libraries. I will probably bus around to the libraries not bike.

I bought the milk and pepsi now I am heading out to the library.

I did get my wife milk before she woke up. She cleaned the kitchen and I put away my laundry. I also went out on the balcony and trained the cat to come out a little. I want to introduce her to the balcony gently so she can survive out there. I am going to the school library to pay a fine and return a book but the library does not open until 12. Then I will come home and sleep.

I have been trying to buy more of the Nike + iPod system meaning the shoes and iPod Nano using ebay. There are many Nike + shoes and iPod Nanos for sale new on ebay. I am also trying to by some more computer and entertainment items. The problem is we really don't have any extra money to spend.

I have to buy milk and pepsi this morning before my partner wakes up.

My wife is still sleeping. I need to make sure she has milk for her morning meds. Last night, I bought Rice Krispies and bananas for her breakfasts. I also got ready prepared potato, egg and macaroni salads because these were on sale.

Yesterday I chided P about his lack of vegetables in his diet. I did this on the phone. P is living on his own and is highly religious. I was in hospital with P in 1990. He was really the first 'other' person labeled with schizophrenia, who has been in my home before. This was in 1991. I had at that point had no other guests over with schizophrenia. Also at that point I had completed a rehabilitation program which is still working for me to this day. The hospital recently canceled this program; and this is a big mistake on their part. So our health system locally can be said to be going down the drain now.

I went out again and I am now studying.

I am home from the grocery store an my wife is sleeping. I am staying up late.

I did sleep and then volunteer today.

My volunteering lasts a few more hours this afternoon but our main job is done now. I am home now and not likely to have to go out again. This is law enforcement volunteering so involved coffee and donuts. Just joking, but I did eat some donuts today. I slept this morning at about 4:30 AM and woke up at about noon. I had a good talk with another volunteer about government work and computer work.

I am now going to study some data analysis and do some computer work. I will stay up all night and sleep tomorrow early afternoon. We are broke now until my mother can help us out on Monday then Wednesday is a pay day again.

I am taking my risperadol and vitamins now.

I will now take 6 mg of risperadol, 1 gram each of vitamins C and Niacin. I will also take a fish oil capsule. Then hopefully I will sleep in a couple of hours. I am volunteering later today so must be up by about 10:00 AM.

Or I stay up until 4 PM today, and then sleep. If I do stay up I sleep at 4:00 PM and stay asleep until about 4:00 AM Sunday and then sleep too early 2:00 PM Sunday. So if I sleep today at 4:00 PM I need to have my partner wake me up at 10:00 PM Saturday and then sleep at about 2:00 PM Sunday.

R was visiting family but C and J came by this evening.

J and C came by and I gave J his own Mavica camera. I spent about half an hour showing him Windows Explorer in Windows 2000. I showed him how to copy photo files off of the floppy made by the Mavica camera. Then I showed him how to delete the files, then to create on his laptop's My Pictures folder a new folder named after the time-date stamp from the HTML file info page the Mavica creates. Then also store the html file and the photos in this new folder. We then deleted the photos on the floppy and formated the floppy for another use in the camera. I also explained about keyboard short cuts for copy and paste. I showed him also how to save his word file with the date in the file name and how to save as to the floppy. So he is richer for it.

C talked about her paranoia and I told her this was part of paranoid schizophrenia and to identify this next time it happens, and try to avoid this type of thought with other activities

Another short night on the couch but a great day at work.

I was assigned to learn a new task today at work. I worked with some experienced workers all day. Work was not bad today. One more day to the weekend.

I am slowing down my studies and feeling quite relaxed.

I did attend a talk today but it was more of a business presentation. I got a copy of a book and the author signed it. I have been studying social networking. I am posting this the next day. I have to give my wife her meds still and take some vitamins. I attended a talk today about development.

I worked a full day today.

I worked today and was fairly productive. I talked all day to coworkers. I am now at home. I slept yesterday at 4:00 PM and missed our board meeting. I woke up at 1:00 AM and did some email and writing then slept again woke up and slept again until I woke up an hour before work and then rushed into work. The neighbour who bought my Thinkpad at Christmas agree to pay off the purchase price so we had some money today to buy smokes. I am still fairly cut down with my smoking. I am trying to sell some other electronics and having some luck.

I am getting ready for work today.

I am getting ready for work today. I would like to attend a workshop this week about SAS and will ask my boss this morning if I can take time off to do this. I think this week my work will be more physical labour.

I did last night complete an application for a more senior job at my workplace. It took about 10 hours to write up the application. I also have some sample interview questions for this particular position in the government. I reviewed those this weekend. I am going into work in about 40 minutes to work on a different application.

I will then work 8 hours and perhaps go to our self help group board meeting this evening. But I have been awake since 3:00 PM yesterday so may sleep as soon as I get home. But today should not be more than a 29 hour day may be only a 24 hour day. I did phone our self help group and left a message saying I might not be able to attend because I might be tired.

I just made a pot of home brewed coffee for work this morning. I am dressed and clean shaved for the day. I am just going to drink one cup of coffee at home then go to work carrying a second cup. I will take some vitamins too before going into work.

I don't know anything about step programs for schizophrenia.

Some people have adapted 12 step programs to the treatment and recovery from schizophrenia. I really don't know anything about these and have not used them.

We are visiting my wife's father this afternoon.

We will leave by bus in about half an hour to visit my partner's father. I have typed up a poem she wrote for him on Father's day. I woke up half an hour ago and will take some vitamins now.

I will take my meds and sleep now.

I was up working on a job application. For the past two hours I read quietly. Now I will take my meds and sleep.

I bought a hydration system for my jacket today.

I did go out to one of my typical weekend shopping spots. I went to the camping store and bought a hydration systems for 12 dollars. This system is for my new Scottevest jacket. It is all rather bulky and awkward but it works and it was cheap. My partner tried to sell poetry today but had no luck.

Tomorrow is father's day and we go to my wife's father's house for dinner. I am not yet sure how I will manage my sleep around the father's day party and my work day on Monday but it may work out fine. Monday I have a board meeting at our self help group until about 8:00 PM. So if I wake up on Sunday at 3 PM I will have a possible 29 hour day between Monday and Sunday and a possible 18 hour day today if I sleep at 3:00 AM Sunday morning.

Um I just noticed something thanks to my Linux computer. 1987 was about 7,000 days ago. That was when I first moved out on my own.

I am home relaxing today and surfing the net.

I am home relaxing with computers and books today. I talked on the phone to a few union comrades today. I might do some shopping later today. It is getting to the point where I can not post too much day to day detail here because coworkers know most of this stuff and would find me here. I am trying to stay fairly anonymous here.

I worked a full week again and am happy to be more into weekends once again normalising some aspect of our lives.

I worked fine today. I am not very productive but I do very good work. Also I get along well with my coworkers and this is known to my coworkers who complement me and my boss who is happy with my interpersonal skills. I even gave a supervisor advice for his own job application because of my teaching background.

I stayed up all night so will sleep now and get a long rest. My partner made me some food and I just took my vitamins and risperadol.

Our immediate budget will be balanced.

I totally forgot that my dad sends us some money mid month. This money will keep us alive until the next pay day and balance our tight rent paying and shopping expense budget from this past week. I wouldn't normally write about money on the Internet but I think it fair to the readers here to let them know that I could not succeed without financial support and budgeting even with mistakes warts and all.

Apple computers are having a sale on refurbished iPod Nanos.

I had planned on saving 133 dollars for three pays to purchase a large capacity iPod Nano. But for a little more namely 145 dollars I can buy a refurbished iPod Nano in just the one payment. Either way I don't have this money right now. But one never knows when money might become available to spend. I did not have the extra 133 this pay to save for the large 8 GB iPod Nano. Instead I may settle for the smaller 4 GB iPod Nano refurbished from Apple if I can find the money to spend.

I have started get along more smoothly with coworkers.

I have some more positive relations at work now. The negative relations have passed by now and more positive results are occurring. And this is just in terms of facial expressions and greetings and general mood. But this subtle stuff is highly important for someone like myself who has schizophrenia and can be considered sensitive to the emotional environment.

I also have finally a group of people in this case coworkers and bosses who I interact with every work day who are generally positive about, and able to talk intelligently about, computers and the Internet.

I am reading more advanced statistics and critiquing a professor by email.

I have sent via email some criticisms of my probability professor to him. He asked me what was wrong after I emailed him about my readings this week. I have been reading more advanced books this past week. I do not read this material very fast. I also eased off on studying cyber culture.

I am fairly over spent and it is payday today.

I really got bite by customs charges when I ordered the Scottevest jacket and pullover. I am paying a lot for high tech fashion. I also bought J a camera he can use with the older laptop I bought for him. He needs to photograph his messy apartment as proof he is cleaning up. The camera I got him on ebay uses floppy disks to transfer photos. I also got myself a Makita 12 volt drill but it comes without batteries. I also got a video for my wife on ebay. As well I am catching up on rent. So in the end I am over spent but must also allow my partner to buy a summer dress today. I have also eaten away at a fair amount of savings now. I did get the electrical, phone and cable bills paid though.

We are having a picnic at work today.

I am attending a company picnic today. I am not going into work very early today.

I am off to a slow start for the day after some 11 hours sleep.

I am a bit sluggish today. I did sleep some 11 hours last night almost 12. I am getting ready to go into work. I will not go in super early today but I will go in early. I need to get dressed now.

I am at home preparing for work.

I organized my workplace notebook case. I organized my workplace papers. I need to shave today and also buy milk, pop, and bread for today. I will do more work preparing my application to become a statistician this morning and then go into work an hour early. So I only have about two hours left to prepare. I am up from noon yesterday.

We are traveling on a train and I am surfing the net.

I went ahead and spent 9 dollars to surf the Internet on the train. This Internet access will be good for 24 hours so will easily last our 5 hour trip. We sat close to the end of the train where there are AC power outlets and with the help of some other passengers I got my laptop power cable to go from the outlet to our seat where I am using my laptop and thus power my laptop which was low on battery power.

We are in my brother's backyard.

My brother's family have a house with a beautiful garden. My partner is just reading her poems as we all sit in this garden. We are coming home tonight on the train and, in fact, we need to catch the train in 2 hours. I am on my Macbook using my brother's wireless network in the garden backyard.

Cutting expenses and giving away gadgets.

I canceled the email and internet service for my cell phone as I did not use this much these days and do not really need this service these days. I rarely bring home work like I did when I was a teaching assistant. In fact, besides my job applications and a few other irregular tasks at work I don't need to use a computer or email at my main job these days. This could change but for now I can cut some digital and computer expenses

I promised to send my PSP, and all the movies and games for it to my nephew. I don't use it all that much, and he would really use it a lot. I would also stop buying things for it. So this is overall a good exchange to make. I will mail it out on Wednesday or Thursday.

I am also going to try to sell my large iPod to R and then buy myself a smaller iPod nano to use with my Nike+ kit. I will also save up for this Nano and buy an armband case and a DVI adapter for my Macbook, all in one 400$ purchase from Apple. I hope to do this purchase by saving 133$ per pay cheque for three pays. Then may be in year or two I will buy a large iPod again. For now this is part of my expense cutting attempts.

I took some videos of kids playing and just put them on back up DVD for my dad.

I made some video of kids and the family playing hide and seek, as well as, playing on swings and throwing balls. I have about 20 minutes of video and put about 16 minutes from the MiniDV tapes into my Macbook and then burned that to disk for my father. He and my brother took still photos and my dad burned me a DVD of the photos.

Speaking of family exchanges. My brother gave me a tie to wear.

I gave my mother a loonie piggy bank made by her father, my grandfather. The piggy bank is the shape of a duck or a loon. My grandfather did some carpentry when he was older and retired.

My dad gave me back my family license copy of iWorks 06 and I then gave this to my brother.

We all gave the kids presents.

So very green here.

I was helping remove wasps from the sun shade umbrella on the back porch here. I have been organising my schedule until August and did record our accounts. I am having a lazy morning drinking coffee and smoking and writing in my notebooks.

I am studying AJAX this weekend. AJAX is a web programming application or language. I am working with a radical unionist who is also a young programmer. We are working on a union web site and I am pushing my knowledge of the web further.

I am also reading methodology and research practices books this weekend.

There are so many trees where we are here. They spread out from the houses and then to the parks near by and then up the mountain. There is a famous mental hospital on the top of this mountain or rather escarpment. On the sides of the escarpment a famous murder happened and the case made it to the Canadian Supreme court and was a defence of insanity case. I studied it in 2002 in my criminal law course.

We are away visiting family.

I am just up stairs at my dad's third wife's house. I was just reading iWoz the autobiography of one of the co founder's of Apple computer. I was smoking on the back porch here. We are visiting our daughter whose new family will meet us here as they do on each visit. My mother, brother and his family will also be here tomorrow. I really enjoy being here at my father's place. He is busy with his graduate students tonight. My partner is just finishing making egg salad for tomorrow's visit. We took the train to get here. I am so happy right now. I am going to take some vitamins.

I still have a cold so am staying home today.

I still have a cold so I stayed home from work today. I called my boss and he is alright with that.

I have a cold today so came home a little early.

I had a cold all day at work. My boss let me come home a little early. I slept four hours and then woke up to watch the hockey game. Now I am think of going back to sleep but may watch more hockey. This could be the last game in the Stanley cup.

I have been up all night and will now work 8 hours.

You could call me odd or crazy but I stayed up all night. I am now feeling quite relaxed. I just cashed a cheque from our neighbour who bought the laptop from me that I bought last summer. She has almost paid this off now.

I am just preparing to apply for another job at work. I have emailed some basic resumes to my work email address and will go in early to edit these resumes into a copy that I can ask for feedback on from other workers, before submitting it at work. You might be wondering what happens to all these job applications I make at my workplace. Well many of them result in no jobs right away. Others go further and, in fact, I am waiting on a promised interview this month for a web master job in another department at work. I need to study a bit more of Adobe Page Maker for this interview.

I will work today then sleep at 3:30 PM in the afternoon after work, and then may be wake up at 7:30 PM to watch the hockey game and then sleep at 11:00 PM for work on Thursday.

I did some volunteering tonight. I think volunteering is a great treatment for schizophrenia.

My partner went to a volunteer job interview today. She was told she would be on a list. I myself went to a meeting with an executive director and a two person film company. There were two other volunteers there. We planned some events and I was given a DVD film that the couple had made a couple of years ago. I tried to make it to the camping coop afterward to buy a thermos but there was no time to get to the store before it closed. So I tried going to the library but they have reduced summer hours so all I could do was return books through the overnight return slot. I was hoping to enjoy some time browsing in the library but it did not happen. I did some reading later in the evening after getting home. I also did some internet surfing. I had some problems connecting to the net just before midnight but am back on-line now.

Talking with youth at work.

I was talking to other workers today while we all worked. These workers are in their twenties. I attended a meeting of the disAbility committee at work. It was not a very stressful day but I do have a cold today. I am just preparing to go out to a music volunteering meeting. After that meeting I will go to my school library to return a book. I will also return some other books and borrow some more.

I am relating on-line with other activists in my city.

Facebook is helping me connect on-line with other activists in my city. It is interesting to interact on-line with people my age who are also active in other areas of politics in a local sense.

I worked today and did well at work.

I worked a full day today. I did my usual tasks and came home. I am surfing the net at home now and will soon watch a hockey game, game 4 in the Stanley Cup Finals.

I am reading about computer security and tinkering with computers today.

I read some academic studies of computer security today. I listening to Mozart on my iPod playing through our living room sound system. I am tinkering a bit with computers today and may boot up my Linux laptop and may also surf ebay for computers.

Cheers the home team won the game. We are back in the series.

Well the Ottawa Senators won the game. Great news. Getting into sports and actually doing sports like I did riding my bike to the grocery store on Friday night is part of my fighting cancer plan. But I did smoke a few cigarettes during the game.

I had a good day with studies and am relaxing with TV hockey now.

I read books this morning after sleeping on the couch at about 5:00 AM. I woke up at 11:00 AM. I took the bus to school, later in the mid afternoon and paid a library fine at the old school. I read on the buses I took.

I bought a community bus pass. The community pass was my first only successful political lobbying. I had helped lobby for this cheaper bus pass for disAbled persons on limited incomes. This was when I volunteered at city hall. One politician I worked with is now our provincial minister of health. She is also a prominent local Francophone.

I talked with someone today at school I will call P. P also works at my old school tutoring and doing other tasks for the disAbled student's centre. We chatted a bit and then I came home.

The hockey finals are in my city tonight. The city is going crazy and as I write this entry the game is on break between the second and third period. The home team is ahead by one point now and if we can hold the lead we win and are back in the series with a better chance. Many commentators are predicting the home team will win tonight. Of course, I am cheering for the home team. I know the city will go wild if we win tonight. I am actually on call in my volunteer work too. I wore my hockey shirt out in the city today and I also am wearing it now as I watch the game on high definition TV.

I will study more after the game. My wife just watched a movie based on H. G. Well's story The Time Machine and is now going to watch a Star Trek movie. She is telling me to yell every time the home team score.

I napped and today I will study.

I am reading books today. If you are a student you might want to check out the library thing at www.librarything.com. It helps you quickly search out books your reading and create an on-line catalogue which you can then post to a blog. You can even use this to sell books for Amazon and make a little money. I have the library thing working on my studies blog now.

I bought groceries and a Scottevest jacket today.

Both my partner and I did shopping today. I biked home from the grocery store. I ordered a Scottevest jacket on sale over the Internet. With this Internet shopping I obsess a lot with tracking packages. The bottom line is I get further into debit.

R, C and J all made it over last night. We read newspapers.

C had gotten a free Friday paper on the bus. I read more hockey news and the usual front section and business section. I also read the city section. J read too and so did C. R can not read well without his glasses and he doesn't wear them regularly. R is trying to get into normal sleeping hours and sleeps at 10:00 PM these days. So R left early and then called from his place and warned us later that it was raining heavily and then C and J left in the rain.

When they left I read more books and surfed and read the Internet.

I am preparing to go to work today.

I have a nice pair of pants on and am just getting ready for work. I did a little email. I made coffee. I took my vitamins for the morning.

Last night I attended a political meeting. I volunteered in politics a little more.