Depression and Anxiety

I have made it through a tuff period of depression and anxiety. I found it tuff to stay in bed and to get out of bed. I would toss and turn and would feel a void at the pit of my stomach. My muscles had been tight and my appetite was at a loss. When taking my 4am medications I was not able to go back to sleep. I would also be constipated for six-seven days.

I was recently hospitalized for these conditions and put on a new medication, Clozapine. I no longer have the depression or anxiety and I now rest easy.

Tentative move out date is still August 1st to the Lawson YMCA. I still have yet to turn in the application and pay the $25 background check. I will do all that this comming week.

The Lawson house rooms come with a fridge, microwave, desk, dresser, bed and TV. I can receive mail and there are laundry facilities in the basement. I will be renting for the community bath. It costs an extra $50 to have a private bath. But I am not too worried about it.

Moving out Skokie Meadows #1

My case worker Jill has written letter of recommending discharge to my doctor based on my stability. I spoke to the doctor and he said to let him know when I am ready to leave.

I am seriously considering moving in to the Lawson YMCA and finish my education at UIC.
My friend Urmil said he had to retake some classes when transfering to UIC. Had he known he would have transfered to UIC much earlier. I think it is 30 credits from general ed that transfers.

Living at the "Y" all the resources I need are within blocks walking distance.

I will be taking groups at Turning Point in Skokie which is about three blocks from the Skokie Swift.

I also plan on finishing my photo class. My contact at Oakton, Ann Marie, is waiting for a treatment plan from Jill before I can finish and continue at Oakton. That treatment plan will be written after some progress has been made at Turning Point.

I plan on moving out at the beginning of August. My check arrives on the 3rd. The administrator, Ms Willey, said she would cash my check (my checks are in Skokie Meadows name) when it is time for me to leave.

Ms. Willey gave me some assurrance not to worry about payback for the days I stay past the 1st which rate is $110 a day.

I have discussed with my ex-roommate Sandy possibly having a yard sale at the house to get rid of a lot of stuff I otherwise would not have the space to keep at the "Y".

At Turning Point, I had been seeing an intern therapist. She has moved on two weeks ago and I am on a wait list to see another therapist. I am thinking whether I really need a therapist and possibly drop down to a case worker that monitors my progress in groups.

I will start groups on Mondays starting next week. Groups I will be taking are:
Critical thinking-philosophy, coping skills, art therapy and cook skills. The first two I hope will improve my social skills, art therapy will help me realize feelings at thoughts and cooking skills I'm taking just to keep me busy that day.

Peace Fest...

I have been offered the job as videographer for the Chicago Peace Fest in June. I maybe using my own DV camera. It's a 3CCD Panasonic.

I have also finished uploading pictures of the Michigan Peace Fest at http://jasonpage.zenfolio.com/p427731057

Other options...

I am now looking for other places to move in. Maestro Phil will be moving out to move in with his girl friend in August and I don't want to take the risk of moving in and ending up with nowhere to go.

I posted an ad on craigs list yesterday and already got three responses. Two of the replies are out of Oakton's district and the other did not provide much details.

Skokie Meadows #004 (Moving Out)

My Doctor will give me the green light to move out once he gets a note from my social worker Jill recommending it. I am almost finished transitional living group with social worker Debbie. So far she had me work out a budget and type of a lease.

I have already mapped out transportation to and from Oakton and to and from my outside group and therapist/doctor center Turning Point in Skokie. Both commutes require only two buses each way.

I spoke to Debbie about moving out on June 1st and she said that would be timely. My friend Maestro Phil will allow me to keep first months rent in the amount of $300 so that I may replace my lost camera. This way I can continue with the job I did last year: Photographing the Chicago's and Michigan's Peace Fests.

At Skokie Meadows #003

The new anti-depression medication  kicked in about Wednesday of last week and today I was able to get myself out of bed around 8:30am with energy. Before that I would stay in bed until 10am or later.

The depression crept in towards the end of March and it put pain in my stomach. My appetite went down and I was starting to withdraw from people. After a week of it getting worse, I told the nurse about the depression and they were able to call my doctor and get me on the medication on the same day.

I am currently keeping busy working on the pictures I took for the Michigan Peace Fest. Friday's pictures I finished and uploaded six months ago on http://jasonpage.zenfolio.com.

The difficulty on the pictures is finding where I put them. I found Friday and Saturday pictures on my photo bank device and I think Sunday's photos were backed up on another hard drive. There have been lots of duplicates and that's been a headache to organize. But I have been able to distinguish which ones are from what days by doing a search by date. Nothing for Sunday July 15th came up on the photo bank device except for clean up pictures. I will check the other hard drive tonight.

Making the move:

I am planning to move in with my friend Maestro and I am looking to get in on June 1st. Maestro has agreed to allow my first months rent go toward a replacement Sigma camera. That way I could fulfill the photo work for the Michigan Peace Festival or perhaps in time for the Chicago Peace Fest in mid June.

The apartment would be just two buses away from Turning Point and two buses to Oakton D.P. And there is a small food store just across the street that would meet most of my food needs.

The room I am renting already has a bed. I will bring my plastic shelves to keep my clothes and misc and my laptop. My desktop computer will be donated to either a friend or the Unity for a Change organization.

The administrator at Skokie Meadows has agreed to cash my check (since it's in Skokie Meadows name) before I leave.

I would leave on the 1st to prevent Skokie Meadows charging $110 for each additional day. 

The location is just three blocks from the Jefferson Park blue line station. I bank with TCF bank and there is a TCF bank just a block from the Jefferson Park station.

I am pretty much covered except with being out of Oakton's district. But that should not be a problem since I plan on moving back in the suburbs, either Des Plains, Niles or Skokie to share a house or apartment that is within my budget. Staying at Maestro's will allow me to save up for moving back in the suburbs.

I will also go visit the Evanston house in the months ahead to decide what's trash and what I would be keeping. My ex-roommate Sandy and the landlord have been nice about keeping the stuff at the house. I will reduce the amount of stuff as much as possible--basically get rid of anything I don't use.

New Feel

I had been falling into a depression. I started on a new medication and today is the first day it set in my system. I am feeling better and have already started processing photos from my trip out west summer of 2005.

Bad Rice...

On Monday I had finished some rice that had been sitting around since Sunday-- Chinese food that was a reward for helping Gary with a new computer device he purchased.

The next morning I vomited after taking my medications which included a lot of fluid and popcorn I ate the previous night.

Some bug had got into my system. The nurses put me on a liquid diet because anything solid would not be good.

My friend Michael bought some pizza last night and I was only able to eat half a slice.

Today I vomited again just after swallowing my medications which caused me to gag.

Staying inside all these days in bed had a toll on me. I was getting a little depressed. I have to keep busy doing productive things to keep me from depression.

There is some video editing I could do for a film and a short music video. I have DV tapes from a film I did in 2002 and I never got around to editing it. I also have my first live performance on tape and I want to put something together for that.

Keep your eyes set for the film Synchronicity and my first trapezoid video.

Sample photos from Peace Fest's 2007

Last year I took around 3,000 shots for the Michigan Fest and 1,000 shots for the Chicago Peace Fest. Some of the photos are already up.

Chicago: http://jasonpage.zenfolio.com/f193218208/
Michigan: http://jasonpage.zenfolio.com/p482384152/

(Digital: Michigan Peace Fest)

(Film: Chicago Peace Fest)

At Skokie Meadows #002

I have been feeling much better the last three days. I have been keeping myself busy on the computer. I have also sorted all my old mail today and acted on the important ones.

My uncle helped me out on a Radio Shack credit card balance. A very high APR% was really bothering me. An original purchase of $80 got up to $197 in four months. I called customer service and they were able to revert back to a mere $109 if paid in full. The customer service rep said that I need to be with my uncle to make payment by phone. My uncle paid the balance at a Radio Shack store, however that won't reflect in their systems until Monday.

I put a budget together on a spread sheet that I will show to case worker Debbie. She runs the transitional living group for people planning on living independent. I will be meeting with her today at 6pm with Michael whom I plan on moving out with.

One of the parcels was a letter from Bruce Oates about my Photo Class Incomplete turning to a F. The letter also said that I could contact my teacher about completing the course. Since I have to be in a treatment plan before going back to Oakton I may have to finish that class once I am in the process of my treatment plan.

The treatment plan is attending and having a safety net at Turning Point in Skokie. Turning Point offers a bunch of human services including groups, therapists, doctors and social workers for all ages.

I have had two appointments so far. The first appointment I saw the intake worker and discussed my needs. The second appointment just last Monday was with an intern therapist that will be at Turning Point till May. She gave me a six page questionaire that I was very happy to fill out just last night. It asked questions that would direct my care taking.

Last week I helped a friend (Gary) I met at Panera Bread getting Windows 98 to work in a virtual environment on his XP machine. His National Geographic DVD's would only run under Windows 95/98/Me. He said he spent a lot of money on those disks and were useless to him once he was using a Windows XP laptop. I have helped him out with otherstuff on his computer over the last two months. I meet Gary every Sat and Sunday at Panera Bread and he rewards me.

The first time I helped Gary with his computer he bought me lunch. Another time he bought me a Panera Bread mug. With the mug you pay once and drink all you want, Coffee, Pop etc. Last time he bought me heigen products from Walgreens to help with my dry skin and sculp. He bought two products for my sculp: Selsem Blue and Head and Shoulders. He also got me two bars of Nutregena soap, a brush and colmbs.

After helping Gary to get Windows 98 to work in his Windows XP environment I decided to search for VMware for my Mac. I found a free one called "Q" based on QEMU for the Mac. I was able to install Windows 98 on my G4 Mac desktop (PPC-600mhz). First install I got a BSOD but managed to install it again. Man is it slow. Takes 5 minutes to boot to the screen and there is a 3 second pause for the start menu to come up. There are different methods for processing the graphics. One mode allows you to render the graphics through the central processor. I set it for OpenGL which gets rendered through the graphics processor on the mac freeing up cycles for the central processor. I will try it back the other way and see if that speeds some things up. There is a really good Billards (Pool) program for Windows that I like to play (Pool M Up). I found two free one's for the Mac but they are not that usable. The one for Windows (written as freeware in Germany) provides much better control over how you hit the balls and there is more accuracy. I am going to see if I can get that to run in my Windows 98 virtual environment.

I also learned about an Easter Egg in the Unix native Emacs text editor in OS/X. Go to terminal and in Emacs and press [ESC]+"X" at the same time and enter in "tetris" to play tetris or "pong" to play a network version of pong. Maybe that will get me using Unix tools in OS/X. Emacs is praised by all Unix Administrators and Computer Science majors and geeks for Emacs simplicity and extensive functionality. A close comparision would be the once popular Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS.

At Skokie Meadows #001

I am doing fine with just a little trouble getting the motivation to pull myself out of bed. The place I am at is not very motivating. But I manage to get myself to Panera Bread (Wifi Internet) almost everyday, clean shaved and well groomed.

It turns out that I will need to be at Skokie Meadows a few more months. Having a 3rd party like I once had at Wilpower is important and my case worker has setup appointments for me to go to Turning Point (Skokie). I chose not to go back to Wilpower. I learned from my ex-roommate that they have a power play on the members. Also, my doctor and caseworker left Wilpower.

It is troubling for my mind to stay much longer. I had an intent to move out May 1st regardless. But that would have been a foolish mistake. I just don't want to be stuck at the nursing home, and the more I spend time with healthy people, the better. What I need is to be involved in productive activities outside of the nursing home. Something that is productive for me. Oakton can offer this where I could work on the student paper, work at the gallery and be able to spend time with friends. Go on nature walks. Make music. Do photography.

This June and July I am invited to do photography for the Chicago Peace Fest and the Michigan Peace Fest. I could still do that while at Skokie Meadows. They would write me a pass for three nights for the Chicago Peace Fest and two weeks for the Michigan Peace Fest. What I am missing is my digital camera for photographing the event. My uncle has a point and shoot he is willing to offer me. But what I miss is the quality and speed I got out of my Sigma SD9 dSLR. I left the camera on the Metra and no one at the lost n found returned my calls. I will schedule a day that I go to their office to claim it.

My case worker (Jill) wants me to go to groups at Turning Point for a month before I plan to move out. She wants to make sure that the groups are working out for me first.

I am currently seeing an intern therapist there every Monday and will begin groups shortly.

Turning Point will be my safety net for when I move out. I have a form of schizophrenia and I had gone off my meds before my hospitalizations and eventual residents at Skokie Meadows. I exposed symptoms of delusional thinking and paranoia. Turning Point has a 24hr hotline. I may refer to that if I have problems that require assistance in judgement.

My uncle Chris has helped me out with a few things. More recently he helped me move my computer to Skokie Meadows and helped with the purchasing of a small plant, one for me and one as a thank you to a manager at a jewler at Old Orchard Mall who paid to have my broken classes replaced.

I have a girl friend and more classes at Oakton to look forward too. I don't want to haste this one and instead get the treatment that has been advised.

Apart from Skokie Meadows I am also going to my friends house in Chicago to make music every Friday. This sort of thing keeps my mind in a productive frame of mind.

I expect for everything to fall in place by August 1st, my tentative move out date. It is up to me to find a place to move into. Currently I have plans to move out with one of the veterans at Skokie Meadows (Michael). We have pulled ourselves together pretty well. I visit him in his room everyday because he is the only person in the facility I could relate and talk too and put my mind in a healthy frame.

DP1 Reviews

Sigma introduces the first compact camera to use a full frame Foveon sensor. The camera takes full color stills and 320x240 video with audio. Some dub this camera has high definition and others compare it to medium format.

Carl's first impressions [here].

New battery keeps the charge...

A new rechargable battery introduced by Hama holds it's charge over time:

Read more [here].

Digg Aleatory Records

Aleatory Records can be dug. So digg away here:
http://digg.com/arts_culture/Aleatory_Records_Unveiled_2

Aleatory Records sets out to bring aleatoric forms to the mainstream consciousness by promoting the genre through a global approach.

Time

At each intervel of time everything moves in the universe like a jigsaw puzzle.

Can you identify the social patterns of yesteryear today?

Holocaust Surviver Aaron Elster speaks at Oakton:


He has a book out and he asked that I post it here and elsewhere.

http://www.aaronelster.com

Freedom of Education against standardization

A culture of thinkers requires schools to allow teachers to write their own books on the topic so that every child graduates with a variety of understandings of those notions while meeting those notions requirements to function in society. The benefit of this type of structure is that learning continues past graduation because everyone becomes a different puzzle piece of that same knowledge and can share with each other differences that in the process results in change of ideas for the betterment of the quality of life.

If we do not have a culture of liberties of thought, then we enslave ourselves to the powers that be.

The "All is Number" of the word tangent

Chapter on Evolutionary Learning and Adaptation
---
This is primal I think that thought lends it self to tangents.

A child plays with tangents and that is observed as just play.

Geometric thought will tend to the same tangents, only the player is aware of what axioms support the structure, for they are only tangents for those who observe catagories as non-transperant or bounded.

Since there is a transparenthood of thought to behavior, both child and geometric thought lead to non-normal behavior patterns for those who observe catagories as non-transperant or bounded.

Bounded non-transperant is often seen in todays lexative as "structure."

However what is structure of chaos to an eye that seek comfert in repetition becomes observed as random.

It is this observation of random that tends to the primal fear of uncertainty.

The uncertainty leads to the requires of law and order towards control of the scalar invariance of the natural order of things.

It is this combined with the foot of categorizational observation (knowledge) that lead us to negative momentums and directions.

The axiom of "All is Number" is thus, not philo- of knowledge, but of observation.

For observation results in art from the heart, and in a society of those teachings the people become self governed in the most individual sense.