Disability?

It is almost a month since my collapsed-chair incident and about 3 weeks after I first become associated with this partial disability label.

There are many things I learned throughout this month.

For the first time in my life, grant me the opportunity to understand how inconvenient life must be for people with more serious or permanent conditions.

At the same time, it amazes me how wonderful it was to have a relatively healthy body.

So I thought to myself... what else could I learn from this incident-- in addition to the heightened awareness about disability accessibility due to personal relevance and the bodily understanding of why my mom or other grandma/grandpa have problem picking up their speed when walking.

Then, mama left for Taiwan and I am left on my own, for the first time since the accident.

For three weeks, mama made me drink tasteless chicken soup, pork soup, herbal soup and all different kinds of soup... Mama made me eat vegi, vegi, vegi... and a whole lot of vegi.

After my stomach started having problems, mama choped choped choped the collard green to make sure it would not be too tough for my stomach.

When we went shopping, I didn't have to do any carrying... Mama made sure she carried it all despite of my protest.

Before she took off, she made sure there still be food for her daughter--- meat, corns, and vegi as well.

Other than the aches, pains, my neumocephalon, and the inconveniences here and there, one biggest complaint I made was--- "I AM FULL..."

Then all of a sudden, mama is back in Taiwan.

I am still finishing up what she had prepared and the vegi she had bought.

Yet, it was last Friday, when I was about to buy some cherries from the market, for the first time in my life, I, sort of, came to appreciate what it meant to be disabled.

When picking the cherries, the only concern in my head was... "I gotta make sure they are not too heavy for me to carry." The .5 pound of cherries was still too much weight for me to carry with my hands. Ended up, I hang the cherries on my purse, using my neck to carry the weight instead.

From then on till today, I can't help wondering when I will be able to lift the 70+ pounds of weight again and my thoughts of pushing it to 90...

For the time being, more realistically, the questions shall be...

When will the deal of 4 boxes of strawberries for 5 dollars come back again and will I be able to carry them? How am I to get my supply of milk? When will I be able to carry grocery bags the way the others do?

After my meeting with the doctor today, it occurs to me that I must have been so spoiled that my golden branches and jade leaves now requires re-training (rehab? :-O) in order to regain their strength.

So when I went for my routine walk this afternoon, instead of hanging my purse around my neck, I carried it with my hands, rotating between my left and right hand. Really light-weight weight lifting--- as you might call it... lol

By the end of the trip, my back again, starting aching.

I apologized to my back... "Sorry to strain you but I have to make sure I don't lose the ability to carry with me my first cup of coffee in the morning."

What about my cognitive constipation?

Let me find way to deal with my physical constipation first before worrying about that cognitive in nature… Physiological needs are the basis- so said Maslow…

It doesn’t mean my cognitive problem is no issue at all. Rather, there is nothing else I could do than trying to cut down on my muscle relaxant again tonight and see how my bodily aches and pains would react tomorrow.

I had thought that it was bad to be cognitively challenged once, twice, and so many more times.

Yet, did I just realize that the above was actually better off than being cognitively challenged and physically disabled…. :-x

May this be my life--- hitting the bottom, for, literally, I got hit from the bottom up.... lol

The last miles to the house

Since the collapsed-chair accident, all that I do every day is eating, sleeping, napping, physical therapies, grocery shopping, painting pictures with Ratprincess in it, and, pill popping.

In addition to the stretching exercises I was finally told to, the only forms of exercises I am entitled to were walking and, at times, stair climbing (especially when subway stations are not disability friendly).

Other than a few of the emails I might have attended to take care of some business, I read nothing new and nothing intellectual. In other words, there is exercise deprivation for both muscles in my body and in my head.

On top of my dear Zoloft and Seroquel, I am also taken 2 Alleve per day, 10 mg of muscle relaxant, and two patches of Lidocaine on a daily basis. All of them seem to have something to do with modulating the movement of neurotransmitters. Since my neurotransmitters already do not listen to me and now that more cocktails work on slowing things down, as my walking on flat land starts to get smoother and smoother, my cognitive capacity grows to be slower and slower.

While physical exercises used to be a means to deal with the pharmaceutical-chemical-related cognitive constipation, there is no way for me to go workout so as to get the extra shut of endorphins to help me cope with the constipations. (And, if I am capable of working out, I will not be writing the mumble jumble that I am writing.)

I had attempted to get done with the muscle relaxant after discovering myself to be back to the state of cognitive constipation. Yet, the pains and aches are still too much for yours princess to take despite of my slowly but steadily gained dumb-dumbness. Call me a druggie as you will.

Now that I am still stuck with the muscle relaxant, provided that I am due to get back to work sometime next week, it might be a good idea for me to find alternative ways to do something about the growing cognitive constipation.

Apparently, there is only one way of handling it… through the adjustment of my antipsychotic medication.

My psychiatrist told me that he could not make any change unless he sees me. After realizing that I am gonna be stuck with muscle relaxant for a bit longer, I made an appointment with him today. He decided that since he will not be in for the next two weeks, nothing should be changed until he comes back and until I am off muscle relaxant (what I don’t understand is that… “Why on earth did he tell me to coming knowing I cannot get off muscle relaxant and he, anyways, will be away???” And, of course, I was relative too spaced out, too focus on understanding what he was saying and too distracted by the movement of his hands to be asking this question.)

It was a trip I possibly will always remember--- the last miles to the house.

A walk that used to take me about 5-10 minutes must have taken me at least 30-40 minutes (if not longer) to complete in order for me to get from the subway station to his office (not to mention the distance I have to go in order to go from the cross-town shuttle to the A train going uptown at Time Square). The shorter distance to the bus station did not make the walk less arduous. Rather, the whole trip from my physical therapist to my psychiatrist had strained my muscles enough that each every little movement was strenuous and I was moving till I feel I was about to pass out (psychosomatic or not? God knows and I don’t care no more… lol :-x).

What I described in one paragraph and what took about 3 hours turned to be a trip that felt like eternity.

Why didn’t I simply call a taxi?

Other than I am a cheapskate from hell and I have the propensity of overestimating my capacity, I could not think straight given that the physical movement had captured all my cognitive capacity. In addition, I did not see any taxi when hitting the street and I didn’t feel like to grab one when the free shuttle could come any moment taking me 6 blocks away from my home, the final destination.

Like the nicotine to the hazard of smoking, the distance was not what killed during the entire trip.

It was those slopes, observable or unobservable by sight, that almost killed this rat (didn’t I tell you about my newly gained extraordinary ability in judging whether the land is flat or is tilted? lol)

Was this a useless trip that did nothing more than adding more parts of body to be in a worsening state of inflammation?

Actually, other than finding out there ARE elevators at the 168th subway station for A and 1 lines, I found out that that 99+% or the road between my doctor’s office and the subway station is tilted. lol

In addition, it was during my meeting with the psychiatrist did I find out that, while I could hear what he was saying, I could not help but look at his hands whenever they were moving… even the slightest motion unkown to himself.

It was when I finally got home did I have the eureka moment that answered his question, which I was unable to answer at that time--- “about how long I have been in a state of existential vacuum”.

When painting, I can only focus on painting. When watching TV, I could only do TV watching.

Earlier on, right after the accident, the TV was hardly turned on because everything physical led to my sensitivity to sound. Later on, when the treatment started to work, the TV was still hardly turned on because it results in unfilterable distractions that interfere with whatever I was doing… looking at a picture or finding a job for Ratprincess2 to camp and make some SL money.

In addition, it also occurs to me that, despite of my cognitive constipation, I have no problem learning to draw a rat or a pig. Shall the dual-channel kinda theory hold… It seems the disturbance was done to the verbal channel while the processing of the graphic channel endures lesser damage if not none. Or, would it be possible that the depressed functionalities of the verbal channels might have resulted in the intensified capacity of the graphic channel, aiming to compensate the signal deprivation?

So--- that’s what has been happening at home… which leads to my next few questions…

Laden with physical and mental de-capacity, if not disability, when will I finally be zu hause zein?

Where else to you find someone who has to go through the whole 9 yards for the sake of the American education?

Who else has both the above unique contribution and the extraordinary ability in judging whether the land is tilted? lol :-x

And, by the way, just because I seem to still have the verbal diarrhea at the end of the night doesn’t mean that I am not dumb dumb because it is almost time again to take my night time drug. In addition, the sheer ability to produce is hardly synonymous to productivity… I could produce as much garbage as I can… still what comes out possibly will not fall into the “scholarly, scientifically and peer-recognized” classification. lol

Slow

Because I could not stop to be slow
He kindly stopped for me
The carriage held but just ourselves
Stiffness
And stupidity.

We slowly drove,
he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

To be Ratprincess...

After days if not weeks of suffering the "afternoon-on fever," last Thursday, I realized that my stomach was not feeling well... Thinking back about my no-good appetite for those days, my mom and I concluded that... possibly, my dear stomach was starting to protest about the high dosage of pain killers I had been taken for 2 and half week... The fever finally seized after I started to take some of the stomach meds mom brought with her from Taiwan.

I had thought that it was me imagining up this fever thing or that was something psychosomatic... The observations that fevers eventually seized to occur after I started taking the stomach meds could either be nothing more than coincidence. At the some time, such observations could indicate some causal relation between stomach condition and the fever that was driving me crazy.

Of course, it could simply be the placebo effect...

Just when I thought... for once in my life, I could be focusing on complaining about my physical conditions instead of those of mental health.... I am proven to be wrong.
Nothing goes on up there in my head since the accident.

Other than mourning about the aches, pains and discomforts, I haven't been doing much for the past three weeks. Nothing much happens upstairs. Nothing much to be observed either.

After my conversation with one of my boss yesterday afternoon, I came to the realization that all the drugs, including the muscle relaxant and seroquel, I have been taken have made me a dumb dumb again...

Ya, I found it difficult for me to retain more than 3 things in my short term memory....

So I talked to doctors and doctors... Finally, it was suggested that, shall the pain be not so bad, I should try to take only half the dosage of the muscle relaxant cuz what muscle relaxants do is to slow down the traffic between synapses.

Just when I thought that was an easy way out... I found myself woke up this morning in pain--- the kind of unbearable pains that I used to experience 1-2 weeks ago....

Realizing it is the drugs that are masking the pains from me... I laid back down in bed after taking the remaining portion of the muscle relaxant in addition to the pain killer, --- wishing the pains would go away.

The pains did go away.... leaving the problem of my dumb dumb being unresolved.

Now that one side of the meds can't change... leaving me only two more options....

To see whether something could be done with the antipsychotic part...

Or, to remain dumb dumb....

Doesn't it seem like, to be Ratprincess, all lead to mental-health-related problems... lol :-x

How to kill a rat

Considering the number of rats crawling around our subway system and other places in Manhattan, no wonder I now have to go the extra distance to get to the end of my immigration battle. Perhaps, things would have been easier shall I have named myself dinosaur or other kinds of animals that are at the blink of seizing to exist?

In extreme discomfort today, I came to the insight that..

How do you kill a rat that is “die-hard”?

With the mere existence of physical pains, employment issue, mental health problem and immigration problems, the rat might limp but still stand.

Fever.... is all it takes to kill the rat.

Ratprincess and the Transformers

It has been two weeks since the accident.

Up to the first week or so, I could still laugh at it and say things like, “Thank God it was me who fell but none of those senior faculty members and the school principals at the meeting.”

Two weeks later, I have entered into the anger phase—perhaps, the natural process for grieving about the time past or wasted.

Two weeks of my life wasted inside trying to get better.

Nothing much went on in the brain.

No learn and no unlearning.

Ya, after all these time, finally it is summer.

I had wished to take my mom out to enjoy all the events offered by NYC and beyond-- the annual Shakespeare in the park, the River to River Concert, the Mid-summer night swing, the Governor’s Island, the day trips out of Manhattan, and the time share-related Atlantic City Trip that could have given me a free cruise plus trips to some other locations.

Yet, this summer, I am home jailed by my physical constraints. Unfortunately, my mother and many others have to endure the collateral damage.

I am filled with guilt about not being able to take my mom anywhere and making her feel worried.

Forget about getting down to Chinatown to do our low budget bi-weekly shopping, now my mom carries heavy items when conducting our higher budget grocery shopping in the neighborhood (even though it is my mom insisting on carrying even the lightest thing).

All that I do every day is eat and sleep and little nothing in between.

Worst of all, all that my mom could ask for is for me to get better before she finally goes home next week.

In addition, don’t you know that I have worked so hard on fitting myself into the summer clothing… :'-O

At the top of my lung I want to scream--- "I cannot and do not want to take it anymore… Who and How are you going to compensate for the temps perdu?

(Did anyone recall someone mentioned thing like to feel and not to feel, to see and not to see, etc? Or is this again the 八風吹不動,一屁撣過江 kind of phenomena? Yet, at the same time, wasn’t I told that I am no Buddha and I am only human? In other words, why should I be the one to suffer? lol)

At the same time, it would be interesting to see what’s going to be on my mind a week from now….

To die for

In my opinion, the act of overestimating one's own ability is the most sinful sin.

I ran out of cigarettes and needed to get some more from the store. Although my mom has now learned to get everything from the store, I did not think it was quite so appropriate to send her out to get my smokes for me.

Already feverish (although on drugs that should relieve fever), without the back support, I walked down the block with my wallet to get one of two things that I would die for... smoke being one and, meds, the other-- both are good at killing me slowly-- so they say.

The moment I hit the street, I realized that it was a major league mistake to get out of the house without the back support. Yet, since back paddling is nothing close to my nature, I dragged on to have the mission completed while being in awe about what an Idiot (with a capital I) I am the whole trip.

Back home, no longer do I know where to place the ice pack... Lower back? Mid back? Upper back? Shoulders? Neck? Or my fore head?

Thinking that it is an easy job to be Ratprincess the Invalid?

During my trip to my therapy today, I realized that I can now walk about the same speed as my mother and my gaits are much smoother than before.

However, like the princess having trouble sleeping on the matress with peas lying underneath, I can tell you easily whether there is a right angle between the road and the direction of gravity.

This makes me to have a second thought about maintaining my royal status...

For you, think again before you wish yourself to be me...

It might be great to be the prince of the Great Britain. Yet, it might not be all that to be the Ratprincess of Ratology. :-(

Woody Allen Film

Sometime, I think my life is very much like the story lines found in Woody Allen Film... filled with episodes of neurosis.

I sort of passed out the day of the accident.... Did I have an anxiety attack, did I pass out as a result of the impact and did I really become in coherent?

I sort of felt I was about to pass out on when attempting to go to work the first time. Did I really feel so physically weak or was it me who was trying to play sick and be lazy?

I had to lie down on the floor in my office the one day I got back to the office. Did I really have the need of lying down or was I putting on a show for the others to see?

For a few days, I limped around when walking. Did I really need to limp or was it me unconsciously try to fake my condition.

When walking, my pace is slow and my body looks stiff. Am I trying to play sick or is my body so very stiff?

When I went to see my doctor, I asked, "How could I feel so bad from falling down such a short distance? Are these symptoms psychosomatic?"

I constantly have this fear that... the aches and pains are not real and it is me who is imagining up the whole thing.... (It is my delusion or the inverse of my delusions?)

Last night, I put on a patch the doctor asked me to try on in addition to the pain killers and muscle relaxant.

I slept through the night and slept more till I needed to get up to see some friends.... in total, 13+ hours of sleep and I could have slept more.

Waking up, I found myself done away with most of the lower back pain and the muscles also more relaxed... less limping and funky way of walking.

I was able to walk, and check out shops, and, even move my body along with the rhythm of the music.

"I feel great! It is getting better and better each and every day." I told my mom.

Then, I helped carried a bottle of Cranberry Juice from the pharmacy across the street.

After I got home, I started to feel the aching and some other uncomfortable kind of feeling.

I ate, I took the pain killers, I took a shower, and I placed ice on my back.

Are the pains finally coming back after the effect of the patch finally seized after 8 hours or so (or did that patch really work in any capacity after I took it off 8 hours ago)?

Or, did I see something in people’s behaviors that forces me to put on a show to me and my mom while thinking the whole world is watching, including that investigator hired by the workers' compensation company?

Am I expecting that the words would get out after this writing is posted so as to justify my agile gaits and joyful being?

Are there really aches and pains in my being? :-O

Is it all but, in capital case, F-A-K-ing?

headache

It's been a while since the last time I had headaches so bad like this... It started yesterday afternoon. Pain killers did not help too much until the dosage got up to 2 pills per day and three times a day. Yet, the headache still lingers around up to this time.

If you ask me to chose between mental and physical health problem now... I guess I'd rather be a mental who is healthy like a cow.

Life and its unfolding: on extraordinary

An accident happened at work last Tuesday. I was at a meeting that attempts to bring the higher education and local school communities together.

A chair collapsed under me and I fell flat to the ground while munching on a piece of cookie while the participants were sharing their reflection about where to go from there.

After I felt on my butt and got up from the floor, I still have the remaining piece of the cookie in my hand.

All eyes were on me-- in shock, in concern, and in everything else-- regardless where they came from.

My immediate response was to look at that piece of cookie—in good health and in one piece. Then, I looked at the crowed with curiosity or else. “It seems like I am too heavy for the chair. I might have to stop munching on the cookie.” So I said.

They had a good laugh and went back to discuss whatever was in their mind.

I sat there still in shock while getting a bit woozy in my head.

It was later did I realize that, the point the accident took place, instantaneously did a partnership form among the rest of the participants with what happened to me in their mind, regardless how they went on interpreting the situation.

After the meeting, I went to check on the chair—realizing the chair was already broken before and someone apparently tried to fix it with a single nail.

My laughing it off might have dissolved the attention at the moment. Unfortunately, the impact of the strategy did not extend to the consequential aches, pains, discomfort and inconvenience as a result of the unfaultable fall.

Essentially, the impact of the fall finally hit me about 30-40 minutes later as I started moving. My back and neck started to become extremely sore. I started to feel like passing out and my speech sort of incoherent. When the paramedics came, I couldn’t even have my eyes open for long enough to take a good look of them—men in uniform. Stayed awhile in ER, finally got a few of the pain killers and muscle relaxant before they took all those CAT scan and X-ray.

Before they released me, high on the meds, they put me in one of those rooms for possibly observation purposes.

The last time I was in one of those rooms--- I, for the first time, almost di harm to myself because of the voices. It was also the day when I was told that I am only human and I am no Buddha. The world was in a state of apocalypse where nothing but annihilation. All things alive died and, later, so did Gods, spirits, ghosts, zombies, and anything else imaginable except for those demonic. They came through my body before proceeding to that state of evaporation, or, non-existence. It was one of those days when I would die a thousand deaths per day but I just could not die while everyone else was eligible for that congenital right. The only thing I could do to help is to have a heart so vacuous that nothing would get attached. So shall I see through all things in order to see no good, no bad, no in-between—no nothing. Where did I get these ideas? God knows… gotta have something to do with my cultural background.

This time, another one of those butt concussions, I guess. lol

Over a week later, I am still living the aftermath of the laughing-it-off.

Thought I could have gotten over the whole 9 yards and back to live my routine life. Today, the aches and pains have gone from ranging between “the head the lower back” to from “head to heel.” Never knew that my body could be innovative to such an extent… lol And, although I could work on days when I am drugged out like a walking zombie or on days when old drugs got me poisoned to the extent that my body retains not a drop of water, for once in my life, I really have to take off from work and be home to stay put for more than a day or two—or more exactly, for 1 week and more.

The good thing about ordinary workdays is that it is possible to take time off the working mode after work. The bad thing about being sick on workdays is that, paid or not paid, you cannot take time off the pains you want to get rid off. Moreover, new injuries seem to have triggered the old injuries—as a result, the new and the old injuries, together, trying to compose my life’s symphony or cacophony at their own chosen time and their preferred forms.

Just when I was thinking about how much time I have wasted the whole year on mental and physical health-related issue, a mail came to my lawyer’s inbox from immigration, stating that, to show that I am an extraordinary alien, they need me to show them more and even more.

They want to see more of the honors and awards be granted to me national or internationally.

They want to see more of the peers to praise me and cite my work, publicly, in print, on TV, or on Radio.

These are the ordinary criteria needed for a streamlined selection process of alien inclusion.

Yet, shall ordinary be the synonym of normal, given that no longer am I aspired to be normal (actually given up), neither is it of great consequences for me to be abnormal or extraordinary.

I don’t want fame and I don’t want name. I don't want to learn for the sake of writing but write for the sake of reflecting on my learning. I don’t want to publish for the sake of publishing and being recognized for being what I am not entitled of. All that I want is (in addition to make a good living lol) to to love, to live and to work (lieben, leben und arbeiten)—and, perhaps, to envision a world without boundaries (lol).

10 years of my adulthood is not a short time. So, by the time the immigration ships me home, let me sing you, America, this song, “Don’t cry for me America, the truth is I never left you… ” lol

35+ change years old. Perhaps, it is time for me to stop cheating myself and say no to not living up to my life’s standard.

Just as shit happens… shift also happens.

I shall say yes to baking, painting and enjoying life and its unfolding (such as the headache that would not go away since this afternoon’s physical therapy session lol).

No longer shall I wait till God let me get knocks down to the floor or poisoned by my old drug—to pick up that paint brush to make a thank you card, green card or not, married or not, healthy or not, full time job or not, rich or not, everything I want and its counterpart or not, and, most importantly, vacuous or not.

Also don't worry about me sitting to long typing... for it took me over 5 hours on and off to finish this writing for the love of writing.

Pains and aches... time will take them away eventually.

Green card? In God's hand and the evaluators' hand. Have mercy... please.

again-- to live

I was told by an esteemed gentleman the other day that he likes my philosophy.

I was not quite sure what my philosophy was but I happily took the compliment with me.

While I was taking my shower, I got an epiphany.

Shall there be anything I could conceive of that is close to a philosophical statement... that would be...

To live, to be in phenomona, in health and in sickness, in good thing, bad thing and everything else in between.

It then occurs to me that what sustains my life is phenomenology- to see and not to see, to hear and not to hear, to sense and not to sense, to feel and not to feel. :-O

Yet, the most important thing now is-- to sleep (especially when my mom is not to spare me with her nagging). lol
  

10 o'clock in the morning

I don't think that this is for the first time for me to come to the realization... after all these years, symptoms like computers have become, if not merely part of me, part of my family.

During my meeting with my psychiatrist today, my old pal came out again... the psychosomatic symptom of anxiety that start from making me stuttered and gradually mutes me.

The new psychiatrist hadn't seen things like that before and asked me whether the phenomenon was scary to me.

I, to a certain degree, really did not understand the reason why I should be scared.

After all these years, all phenomena are but part of my being.

What is to be scared about and what is to be concerned about?

Physical conditions could really kill you.

Thank God I am merely well experienced in mental health problem and I am in no rush to have more physical conditions to enrich my understanding of phenomenology. lol (and knock on wood)

Regress back to my childhood? Anxiety tightened the vocal cord? Meds gone crazy? Or the feeling of me getting overdosed again and the anxiety induced by the anticipation about the coming struggle with my psychiatrist about the dosage adjustment?

It doesn't matter why I lost my voice.

What matters is my understanding that... with or without you, symptoms, I live. lol

Gotten back to my office, my voice came back (i.e., I could speak.) although I was still trying to get over with the extra amount of stress introduced by the experience…

I thought, then, to myself…

What a busy life.

10:00 o’clock in the morning---

I had begun my day rushing to see my psychiatrist, experiencing some anxiety-induced speech pathology, getting the voice back and loosing it again, adjusting to the after-effect as a result of the experience while running back to the office.

It’s 10:00 o’clock in the morning. Just got into the office. Have you had a few rounds of anxiety attacks in psychosomatic forms yet? lol
    

A whole lot of nothing day

Today is quite a day for my head although nothing really happened today.

Found some old meds that I cut out from before…

One piece must have been over 170 something mg due to the imprecision of my pill cutting skill.
Last night, I thought to myself… to hell, nothing much to do tomorrow, might as well take this super sized one.

Only to find out today-- a day of dumb-dumbness as a blatant consequence of my own dumbness.

In the afternoon, around 1, I picked myself up wanting to go to the gym. After picking up my cup of coffee from the usual joint, on the street, I found myself sleepy and decided to come back home to get some more sleep.

When I got back, mama was still in the kitchen.

I told her what I did last night and I told her that I was going back to get more sleep. And, I went back to sleep.

Staring in the air or the TV set with nothing on.

Making no sound and wanting no sound either.

No speaking and not wanting to eat much.

Slept a whole lot and wanting nothing but to sleep a whole lot more.

Mama found me wired while knowing the cause.

“You looked “loosing soul” today.” She said.

While at the same time, no much to cause her worries, “You always adjust well.”

“Never mind of me today cuz all you see is the meds. Go back and do what you are doing and I will do a little bit of walking around myself.”

Mama got back to check on her stock market and resumed her ordinary self-talk.

I walked around and come back to the computer to finish typing these sentences out.

I will get back to sleep in an hour or two. So shall I end the day of losing soul for the lost soul in limbo. Lol :-x

The moral of the lesson... don't play with drugs or the drugs shall play ya.... lol :-x
  

craving and meaning

Meaning meaning and craving for more meanings.

Other than the unnecessarily excessive amount of air in my ratty brain that is supposed to have shrunken and shrunken more as years go by... as the neurochemical imbalance eventually turned into organic abnormality… :-O

This is the reason why it is of even greater importance for me to find meanings in my lives… first, second, up to n.

The other day, as I was standing there having my smoker’s first cigarette for the day, whatever it is came down like it always does and started whispering to me…

“Don’t think about the..”

Before hearing the whole sentence, automatically, my head tried to complete the sentence for whatever it is with the phrase, “bad things.”

Only to realize that the sentence it started to repeat was actually…

“Don’t think about good things. Don’t think about bad things.”

It didn’t really make sense and, for a moment, I felt a bit disappointed by the decreased mythical level of my delusions. lol

To make sense of the voices, I pondered, stopped thinking of it, and, back to my mind again these thoughts this evening.

Think about nothing essentially because you need to first find something to think about before you could put forth efforts to think about it.

The toughest job, in my opinion, is to find that something that will add into my life an integrated sense of meaning…. (and what does that mean? 8-O)

The Unbearable Meaninglessness of Life

It was not until the past week or two when the engine of my head finally started rolling again.
Through out the past 3+ months, I had been dealing with the adjustment of medications and its consequences.

The period of 3+ months constantly attempting to adjust to the chemically induced neurochemical imbalance was a long time wasted.

At the same time, one could also see it as an express process to go from the dosage of approaching 450 to 175 mg on Seroquel within a period of 3+ months.

Week by week, I waited for the state of homeostasis to come back.

Time and again, I had to live through the yearning, tearing, and fatigue attacks in the middle of the day.

For quite a while, the only way for me to walk on my two feet with my head up was to go to the gym to get a good shot of endorphins.

But the impact of the endorphins could only last so long and the days had to go on without it.
Other people might not notice it.

Yet, I knew it.

I lost my ability to attend, which led to the disability to comprehend and perform other higher level cognitive functions, followed by problems with my short-term memory.

The motivation level was off and far too off for me to make attempts to attenuate.

Yet, other people couldn’t have known it because I could still uni-task and things intact with my ability to retrieve information from my long term memory.

The awakening

The more cognitive functioning and motivation I regained; the more upset I felt about the time lost and wasted.

The prolonged state of being…
almost like trying to start a car while the engine just doesn’t want to start.
like knowing your car could go much faster while it only moves at a snail’s pace.
It was my awareness of the gap between who I could be and what state I was in that was driving me crazy—though already crazy by default

Then, one day, I really made up my mind.

The sharing through my blog only provides a case study with limited generalizability to the experiences of the others.

So, getting paid or not… I am gonna sign up to be a participant for the schizo kinda studies.

Social Loafing

Let me still be researchable.

Let me be that row in your dataset.

Let me be that dot in your analysis.

Let me hope that to be a useful dot in your sea of data. Outlier or not.

Let me give you the burden of understanding our collective being for I might have stopped kicking before we get to connect the dots.

Let you be my extended cognition to off set some of my meaning craving so that I could go back to my life working on deadlines to be made and tasks to be accomplished (including finding a good paying job and a rich husband who lets me use my money lol).

Plan B

Would it work?

Always could find some slacks to come up with plan Bs except for how could such efforts translate into meanings?

Time and again

Time and again, I wonder through life thinking much has been moving forwarded--- only to realize that back to the ground zero again…

After my last posting… up lifting and so forth…

The reduction of Zoloft had its effects kicked in.

I did not realized it until the full-blown episode of the depression manifested itself in the form of anger etc…

It was only until then did I realize that I had wasted away a whole week of my life unmotivated and allowed myself accomplishing nothing.

After the meeting with the psychiatrist, I came straight home and took the dosage that was missing in my system.

The effect kicked in immediately.

With exercises, I was able to get on with my everyday life and continue with lab-rat kind of inquisitive explorations.

The whole week of slacking did not help in the need of meeting deadline.

I was supposed to send in an assignment for this course I am taking.

In an email, I explained to the professor, “I have been sort of under the weather” and will have to hand things in a bit later.

Another week went by.

I gradually came to notice the growing sense of detachment from the world and, thereafter, the loss of ability for me to concentrate.

It occurred to me that… possibly, what the feeling of the world is not real might have something to do with my inability to concentrate….

I shouldn’t have waited another 3 days before the adjustment in the meds to take place.

However, I thought to myself… I should be able to hold it till my Monday meeting with the doctor and to show this other state of my routine life.

Ended up, it was a bad judgment call on my part because, by Monday, my short term memory had shrunken a few digits and my reading comprehension was gone.

Walking down the street from my day job to my night job, I looked around the detached surrounding, only to realize that, the last time I felt this way, in the coo-coo’s nest I was on the 8th floor.

On Tuesday, after the minor decrease of my dosage, I sensed an increase in the motivation level although, still, despite conscious efforts, my attention span only allowed me to read 5-6 words each “span,” which did not really help me in comprehending the texts I was attempting to read.

To compensate for my reading disability, I eventually came up with the coping mechanism of switching from concept grapping to key word scanning when making my attempts to read. After trying for God-Knows-How-Long to beat my shortened attention span, I found out that, although I have difficulties holding on to external inputs, I have no problem accessing my long term memory. In response, I started to force myself to divide sentences into chunks of 4-5 words, scan for key words and use the key words to for force out some relevant prior knowledge.

Assimilation and accommodation--- Never knew before how synchronously these two processes play out in my everyday life until then.

In retrospective, it just occurred to me that such must be what starting and/or struggling readers experience in their everyday life and I am blessed to not having to be stuck in that state of frustration--- I guess.

That day, I considered all options, reflected on my progression so far, and felt that I was still too much drugged out. Yet, my doctor’s worries don’t seem to be too aligned with my anal retentiveness about keeping my cognitive capacity (and that’s what I said to the doctor at the emergency room the very first time I got myself admitted into the hospital).

For the first time in my life, I turned myself into a patient, non-compliant.

I had the dosage lowered by another 25 mg that night, waking up still feeling all drugged out-- yet, with reading disability of lesser degree of severity.

Overnight, I found myself transformed from a chicken without a head to a headless chicken (with higher degree of energy or one might pathologize it as hyperactivity).

Today is Thursday.

On my way home, I found myself still stuck in a sense of disassociation from the external world.

I got home at 7:00 and felt I was gonna go directly to bed to take a good nap.

Yet, I knew that I have a choice that patients in the psychiatric ward do not have.

I could go to the gym and I know, on the exercise machine, my head could focus and I will be able to read.

And, I went to reclaim my cognitive capacity—temporarily—Yet, I got it.

On my way home, it snowed… or flurry, what you might call.

I looked into the light and watched the flurries coming down.

With the contribution of endorphins, I stood there—realizing that, it has been a while, since I felt, in this world, I am alive.

Earlier in the day, I went to a talk where the speaker referenced to a poem by W.H. Auden regarding the merciful mechanism in the human mind.

For me, I would rather deconstruct that mechanism of mercy in search a state of living.

I do not live to be shortened on my cognitive capacities—be it the result of psychiatric problems or the side effects of medications.

So, it was yesterday, on my way home. It occurred to me that—what a waste of my life… all these attempts and slacks put forth to cope and to survive. It was also yesterday when I had to send the same professor, again, another email, “It is going to sound like the dog ate my homework again…. But I have been sort of under the weather again this past week or so and will try to get the homework out asap.”

Why can’t I be like anyone else?

How could I be under the weather while I am healthy like a cow?

Then, the thought came up reminding me that, no matter what I do not have, I have my blog.

I don’t know what good my blog could do. I could only wish for some good for the collective.

And, I guess, that would be the only way for me to make sense of my life so far—the tearing from drug withdraw, the amotivation, the decapacitated cognitive ability, and the whole 9 yards.


This is, I guess, the only thing I could hold on to, when it snows in April—it is ground zero again and, based on the progression so far, the cycle will, very likely, never end (at least until I stop kicking)…

Depressed?

Well, not too depressed. Just a bit of sentimental in my reflection in action. lol

The selfish me, also, beg you to live your life, for, your life-- I shall hold it as mine (and that shall be taking vicarious learning, collective cognition, extended cognition, relational self, interdependent self, and the collective cultural values to the highest degree 8-O lol)

Also, the inability to identify the problems earlier on tells me to be humble-- before the mental God... lol

The theme

I went back to the lawyer, trying to pick up what we started about two years ago, dealing with my immigration issue.

Since I am not to bet on my part time jobs to turn full time in time, I have to go on and do this self-sponsoring thing.

This project, interesting, forced me to look back at my past and revisit some places I would rather not to revisit.

Isn't it so interesting? Just when I think that I am down with being psychotic-- the outcome of my mental health condition, the past brought back the process of getting to my current state of being, and, I, unfortunately, could still hear my dear heart breeding.

Upon my initial episode, I thought the whole world knew about me-- they were gonna give me a honorary degree, a full time job, and, a green card. Such belief remained strong months after I got discharged from my first hospitalization. Since I had no access to the computer, let along the Internet, I was unable to perform my TA duties for some online courses for almost a week. When I got back online the day I was discharged and till today, the only excuse I gave to my boss was that I was sick and could not find a way to reach him (and he surely was not too happy and is untitled to not be happy about it.)

Just when I thought I knew what it meant to be psychotic and I was doing a pretty adequate job in self-monitoring, I got hit with the second major episode while under the treatment of medication.

The second time I finally got shipped back to the 8th floor-the coo coo’s nest, I was supposed to teach at another college in the morning. The night before, I was busy being killed in all different way, revived by all different means and, despite all, I remained undead and, telepathically, communicate with Gods, ghosts, demons, CIA, FBI as well as the presidents of the college I taught at and that of the University I was attending.

During our telepathically communication, I indicated to the president of the college that I might not be able to teach that day and I hoped he could relay the message to the department. He told me to stay put. He told me that he understood. He also indicated that he would relay the message.

Much more happened that day. Essentially, the day started with me informed that I was no Buddha and I was only human. Later on, the apocalyptic. Gods died. Spirits died. Ghosts died. People died. Demons died. Everyone died. All because of me.

The people on the street were not real people. Some of them were dead and had turned zombies.

When talking on the phone, the voices were real except for they were recording.

Early in the evening, I felt I was about to die... more correctly, to dissipate and evaporate. I felt my heart was stopping to beat and I finally could leave.

My sister insisted on escorting me to the hospital, knowing it was not my heart that had the problem. However, she and I stayed in the emergency room over night and in the cardiac ward for an additional night rather than being treated as a mental health patient.

They came for me every night and I was always informed in advance, before sleep. Unfortunately, instead of taking my life, they, by mistake, often attacked patients next to me or they would kill me while leaving me undead.

So many a night, I laid there, waiting and waiting for the inevitable to occur--- with the wishful thinking that I could finally be able to be killed and eventially die, rather than to be killed so many a time, yet, remaining to live.

I could go on and on with these mumble jumbles. The only thing with any significance was that, unfortunately, the message that I was unable to perform my teaching job was never relayed (guess that would be the short-coming of wireless communication lol).

It took me, again, a few months after my discharge, to unwilling come to the understanding and appreciation that-- all was vain except for there went a full time position with potential tenure track plus green card sponsorship. It was then, as well, did I went, "Oops... what happened to the class I was supposed to teach..."

Unable to face the reality, it took me a long long time and a lot of courage to pick up the phone and called the person that hired me.

Over the phone, I apologized and told him, "I was under the weather" and that was why I disappeared irresponsibly.

Today, back to the immigration topic, I came face to face to a past that I have no intention of revisiting. I unwillingly sent out emails to ask for their letters of recommendations while thinking to myself--- how come the only thing I remembered was my irresponsibility.

The theme, here, I see--- immigration. lol sigh

Life does play tricks. Doesn’t it?

At the same time, so many things happened; yet, there was nothing. Nichts.

Doesn't it mean this is all that anything I do could amount to-- nichts?

No wonder disassociation shall be one of the side effects of the medication.

The good old days…

This morning, when I was giving a brief introduction about the information processing model, I used the expression the good old days in my discussion and context involves racism. .

It was supposed to be a means of expressing sarcasm. Like the good old days when chinks and dogs were not allowed into restaurants. Or, the good old days when I felt/feel like a lost soul in limbo without a status partially legitimate.

However, with my flat affect, it did not really feel like that.

The whole day, I was haunted by the perceived impact of that expression.

People everywhere knew about it and they showed their disapproval about it. More specifically, people in Harlem and its vicinity, including the campus and the neighboring streets.

This is why, on my way home, I gradually come up with the decision.

Today is the day when I am taking a paradigm shift and speak directly to the facts I am observing and the ensuing beliefs. This could only be done by directly itemize the beliefs.

People are watching me and listening to me from everywhere.

All the cameras installed are functional in capturing my moves on campus, at work, and on the street.

In addition, somehow people have found a way to record my conversations either with the others or my self-talk. The closest guess I have is by hiding some kind of recording devises on my personal items. In addition, the laptop’s recording capability also makes it one of the best candidates to perform the task of spying.

Remember that I used to tract the hits on my blog site, visitors’ duration and even the IP from which the visitors accessed my blog pages. The minimum numbers of hits led me to construct another hypothesis—the new posts are received by senders through RSS feeds. This is how they get to read my posts without having to hit ratology.

While I do not believe my blog is so very widely read, or else I had better go take a course in creative writing, I do believe that stories might have been relayed from one individual to the others through oral narration. This could be done by having one key person reading the blog while the rest listening to it via person-to-person conversation, radio broadcasting or, less likely, television (this is the less preferred option since I haven’t heard David Letterman mentioning it).

My blogilicity could also be the attracting factor for my students and ended as the confounding factor in my teaching.

I also believe that there might be some kind of established media that has been in place for a while that allow people to volunteer information they gathered through direct or indirect interaction with me. This could be in the form of another blog “dedicated” to the sharing of information in all different formats related to me.

In addition, everything I do on the computer is recorded and information is transferred synchronously to wherever the destination may be.

As a result, someone is reading all the information digitally transmitted including emails etc and, thereafter, publishes the information to a dedicated location or converse it with the others regarding the given information.

Given the security policy in place, it is relatively unlikely that the institutions I belong to to allow personal information to be revealed this way. In addition, it is unlikely for everyone to not feel a sense of moral responsibility (remember the Truman Show).

As a result, I come up with the following explanations:
1. Social loafing: Everyone’s job is nobody’s job. Why should I be the one to tell her about it.
2. Involvement of the Department of homeland security (or CIA, FBI): I have been put under supervision and somehow there is bleach in the security and confidentiality of the information. In addition, social loafing.

What I have described in the above paragraphs represents the mental model underlying all my delusional ideologies.

What could you do to help me deconstruct my system of thinking?

If you come across this writing, post a comment to ensure me that this is the first time you step into ratology.

If else, post a note to tell me what the reality is.

How well could such information be registered in my head?

I could tell you in advance that no response is equivalent to the representation of social loafing while response different from my belief will be categorized as faulty information as part of my conspiracy theory.

Including the medication, there doesn’t seem to be a good solution to such an equation.

At least, the good news today is that the intensity and duration of the depressive symptoms have started to decrease and I actually spent a few good hours early in the evening being a happy psychotic—as opposed to be a depressed psychotic.

At the same time, watching the whole 9 yards on the news… who cares about a rat’s ass about a ratty life? 8-O
  

Model

Just got back from my friend’s place where I spent the evening at.

It was a good time out for we talked about a lot of things… from critiquing the ecologies of the higher education, to the sharing of ideas about work, to, simply, gossiping. lol

Then, at some point, the topic shifted to the symptoms I live with in my everyday life.

It was, one day last year, when her mother came to visit, did I share in person my experiences with people other than my psychiatrist, the therapist and this friend of mine.

My friend told me tonight that her mom remained to be so very amazed by the degree of lucidity in my narratives about the while nine yards.

She indicated that the informal discourse had also helped her gaining a better understanding about the things we called psychotic symptoms, including hallucinations and delusions.

The matter of the fact is that I could only speak for myself but not for the others.

Yet, through my limited understanding of the world, I have come to be a firm believer that people need to be educated about the nuts and balls about mental health problems. These include both the well-endowed ones to whom living with symptoms is a reality and those lucky ones whom could only live such experiences through vicarious learning. lol

The purpose of my blog, as I have indicated in my profile, is to show that I could live a life with or without of the symptoms.

Furthermore, I have attempted to use the sharing of my thoughts and experiences as a means to provide people an alternative perspective to view those with the problems.

This could be the healthy people’s view of those sick or the sick people’s view about themselves.

I hate to say this and this might just be my imagination or misunderstanding of the world surrounding me….

People have been taking a deficit view about the occurrence of mental health problems.

Regardless of the philosophical stands, I personally prefer to adapt the disease model because, in this case, symptoms as treatable and manageable.

If there should be cross-cultural differences among different cultures, so should there exist similarities.

I bet that people’s belief about mental health patients to be one of the similarities regardless of the culture even though there might be a gradient in the degree of acceptance across cultures.

Essentially, mental health patients are deficit by default and such deficit could result in incompetence.

Is it really true?

Granted, the lack of opportunities for substantial and continuous professional development might result in the inability for some of the patients to develop advanced skills.

At the same time, not all mentals are subjected to such constraints.

Other than the issue of opportunities, the most important factor in sustaining the facts and perception are the facts and perceptions themselves.

If I could categorize people into the normal and the abnormal, the deficit model we held about the mental health patients could be one of the core problems that perpetuate the performance gap in patients and those claimed to be normal.

Worse of all, it is not until the patients to start shifting away from viewing themselves with a deficit model could something be done in making a change to their own life.

I am by no means discounting the realness of the decapacitating, if not dementing, impacts of mental health problems.

I have been there, done that, and I am still living it.

However, I will no longer (when I am not depressed lol) allow myself to accept mental health problems as the cause of my failures. This is because, “what else could I accomplish if I can’t accept the responsibility of having failed for myself?”

I don’t make big money. I don’t even have a full time job.

However, one thing I have is my decision to live and the choice to take the disease model if it helps.

For those of you who are reading, what is your model?

For those of you who has been reading my posting and who might have forgotten me to be one of the psychos, how do you deal with the cognitive dissonance and would a shift in the model help?

Such as the plausible educational implications of my blogs—shall there be anything at all…

Also, you could either agree or disagree.

As long as you respond to my question, my words have been processed in your working memory and, chances are, some part of it might even have been encoded in your long term memory... lol
12:28 AM

The Wars of Worlds 8-O

Just finished reading an article about the reading wars-- the wars between the proponents of the phonic and whole language approaches towards the teaching of reading.

The beginning of the article was like any other articles you could expect in reading one of those literatures.

Somewhere in the middle, when he was starting to discuss the relationship between reading research and politics, I burst out laughing. Realizing my laughing at the reading, I burst out laughing the second time.

There is nothing funny about wars anywhere on or outside of this planet.

The wars I was laughing at involve a lot of intellectuals with their pens as the fiercest weapons. The purpose of their attack--- teach reading by focusing on phonics such as skills in sounding out words or by focusing on giving students the literatures so as to foster their motivation and fluency in reading.

I laughed for the first time because the discussion about politics and research was starting to sound like the plots in the movie "the conspiracy theory."

For the second time, I laughed because I could not believe I was laughing about contents in THAT kind of reading… 8-O

Then, while I was looking for the URL of the article to be included here, I found another article talking about the math wars.

It seems to be so very absolutely beyond my understanding that how people could choose their sides in these wars for such beliefs and such convictions are required.

Then, it occurred to me that my laughing at their battles--- what kinds of beliefs and convictions does it take for me to laugh? (And, no disrespect, experts.)

http://epx.sagepub.com/content/18/1/216.abstract

Imaginary world

What is in my imaginary world currently?
In point format:

1. CIA is involved 
2. FBI is involved 
3. The school is involved 
4. My mental health professionals are involved 
5. Every inch I move, I am recorded.

Did I miss anything else?

I think it very much captures it.

The rest is but collateral damages… (not really anything damaging except for the fact that it sounds nice. lol)

As a result, I am living a life like that in the Truman show.

Such describes what they call as delusion of grandiosity. lol

Am I sure?

Yes, absolutely sure.

How do I live with it without loosing my head?

First of all, I am not even quite sure about me ever finding my head. As a result, you can’t really loose something you have never had.

Also, in case I have ever been accountable for my head, detachment, rather than the attachments that bring you the bugs, might be the key to survival.

Detachments don’t come easy or naturally.

Essentially, there are two ways to be detached.

The first involves pharmaceutical intervention such as antipsychotic medications.

The second involves, again, pharmaceutical intervention (lol) and the consequential capability it grants for one to perform self-regulated learning to detach oneself from the world (:-O).

The possible price of such ability might include abilities such as the encoding of new events—or you might call it running short of memories about the recent days past…

An example, I have recently found out that--- I don’t really have recollections about even things happened on the same day, let along those occurred with week as a measure.

Funny enough, it was yesterday when a girl friend of mine and I were reminiscing about the years past…

It was the time when we lived the life led by the great Gatsby.

We both were happy that the time had past while, at the same time, we do not regret having lived through that time while we could still claimed ourselves to be wild and young (good excuse, eh? lol).

To use a sentence to describe the collective experiences of the whole era, I would say that it was about partying, hanging out, alcohol, cigarettes, love, hate, betrayal, reconnect, gossips, rumors, confusion, sex, deaths as well as the usual occurrence of closing the bar hours after the bar was closed while one could already see the rays of sunlight peeping through the sky.

The old joint was a place to fill that sense of belonging and, I bet, the same might be for many of my pals. I had contributed to the force that drew people in by bringing that huge chunk of emptiness in me with the hope that the entrance would grant me a sense of belonging.

It did happen and these pals remain to be my friends.

The closing of the joint had officially marked the end of that era.

Yesterday afternoon, we thanked God that we lived through it and we continue to live.

It was about a year ago another usual suspect in the old scene told me, “I will never do it again.”

Like what my friend said yesterday, that discussion was needed for we might just need a closure for the time past by.

It just occurred to me that, perhaps, the mentioning of my grand delusional scheme also mark me request to say good bye to the present (:-O) even though this might not be how it works… lol

At the same time, my life so far seems to be telling me that life is about moving from one kind of f-u-ness to another.

Changes and present (at all points in time), which is lesser evil? Could either Hatshepsut the female Pharaoh or the Mayan king portrait in this sculpture be able to answer the question with their devine power?

Friday, July 21, 2006
The question from citations
When I was in school, they taught me that—you need to find the original citation.

As a result, people who knows me know that I am anal retentive about citing only the things I have really read.

Then, I dedicated my entire day today trying to get a report out only to realize that, somewhere along the line, I got trapped at the first paragraph of the introduction phrase.

I knew what all those levels are about-- Level 4 (advanced), Level 3 (Proficient), Level 2 (Basic), Level 1 (Below Basic). I also learned about the cut-off scores. However, I don’t know how they came up with these levels and, in addition to what is stated in the FAQ page.

So, I tried my entire night trying to find out how they came up with those four levels included in the performance system of NY State and City English Language Arts and Mathematics Tests.

Five hours later, I gave up.

What was motivating me through out all these hours of aggravations?

“Was it the performance goal or the learning goal?” I ask myself.

I am happy, thought, that the performance-goal orientation stopped me from the thing called persevering.

The, it came to me… gees, that book I have been reading is really getting into my head. Not the Great Gastby but the book called “Self-Theories” because I figure this is a book that will be cited.

Sitting back, I realized that all these are but the wrong questions…

So what is the question?

Bloody week: Bloody happy

I was still upset as the week starts.


Yet, some supreme force already had it all panned out two weeks in advance for my session with my therapist happened to be on Monday afternoon.

So I bitched about things only to realize that it is the multiple presentations of the same principle… or issues might be a term more appropriate for it.

It is the same issue that has been driving me crazy, literally, for the past few years.

It is what caused my relapse last year before I even had a chance for my symptoms to go on full remission.

It is what put me through all these hassles of working part time while waiting for that full time position to emerge.

That bloody immigration thing it is.

So, I walked out happy and all happy because I have pinned point the core of the problem while the solution is yet to be sought.

It has nothing to do with the grant.

It has nothing to do with the resume.

It also has nothing to do with my working over time on a part time position.

At the same time, it has everything to do with everything.

If you gotta blame it on someone, blame it on the institutions that set up the policies, blame it on the rain that causes the flood and, most important of all, blame it on the situation.

I often wonder whether I am actually the one to be blame for it is me who decide to continue dealing with the same issue while all issues would be annulled shall I simply return home.

Concurring such a thought originating from the theory of internal locus of control, my therapist’s voice often pops up, warning me the danger of asserting too much control within myself while some issues are actually out of my jurisdiction. (Apparently, I am pretty well trained by my therapist and psychiatrist. lol)

All pronounced nullified.

I look inside myself-- free of responsibility and free of obligations-- in response to institutional policies et al.

What is left to be sought?

I was and I still am all happy.

What is to be sought is from within and from the construction of oneself.

So I went back to work, exhaled.

I continued with my readings and writing.

And, I continued living without a sense of gravity.

I was and I still am down to earth.

I felt and I still feel the sense of motivation.

Ayn Rand is right.

The worse crime there could be is to give up the sense of self for, when all is nullified, there is only the self that could propel the drive to move.

So, I decide to be, nothing more than selfish.

To hell with the institutions for I will continue to live till I stop kicking (:-x).

The continuing efforts on getting quality work done and meeting the grant deadline? Value added.

I am dead...

I am dead… :-O

Considering the price of cigarettes is soon to move up to the teens, I have been pondering about quitting smoking… at least, move to the stage of smoking cesstion.

Getting ready for bed, I Smoked the last cigarette in the pack, only to find the insurmountable amount of anxiety rising from within---

There are no more cigarettes when I lay in bed and when I wake up in the morning….

It was a kind of obsessive compulsive thinking.

I attempted thought stopping.

I attempted refocusing on something else.

However, I was more than aware of the real reason behind all these effortful trials.

Then, as I was stepping on to the ladder of the bunk bed, I came up with this brilliant idea...

In stead, I looked at myself and I said, “Assume you are dead.”

Yes, just assume that I am dead then no memory is to be recollected and no anxiety is to be triggered by any notion and any kind of “deprivation.”

So, I laid down in bed murmuring to myself silently… “I am dead. I am dead. I am dead….”

This morning, although I applied the patch on and physical withdraw was not yet an issue in concern, I still could not help thinking about cigarettes, either consciously or unconsciously.

As a result, I had to keep on reminding myself of the “fact” that I am dead.

Telling myself that I am dead did help me to live through the majority of first day on my mission to smoking cessation. However, it was before I came home did I walk into Duane Reade and bought me myself a pack of cigarettes.

Two hours after I unpatched myself, upon arrival chez moi, I sat down and lit a smoke... fixed that nicotine craving a bit but did not really get me that buzz.

Death…….

That seems to be a thought so very comforting and its sound uncovers all residues and dissipates it all.

My obsession with death doesn’t translate to my lack of fear for confrontating my or other’s death.

I am afraid of death.

The last thought I could endure is the notion of death associated with people I care about.

My own death, on the contrary, is a notion both too distant and too close for me to comprehend.

Surely, I had those nights…

Those were the days in which none was to come for my aid when assassins came attempting to kill me one after another and night after night.

They killed me with guns, knifes, poisons, and any means I could ever imagine.

I had been subjected to methods such as being crushed, drown, frozen, burnt, and all other ways of death.

One day at a time, I would be sitting in front of my desk or lying in my bed or the bed in the hospital, hearing the warnings about the secret service, the police, the special forces, the demons, the devils, the ghosts, and the everything else, getting ready to come take my life.

The expectation of the process of being killed and become dead marks the highlight of the nights.

One time, they missed me but took the life of the patients next to me.

I was lying there, listening to them, and waiting for my time.

I missed my own death that night.

At that point, it was all so clear to me that it was not my own death that is most torturing.

Rather, it was the possibility for me to be killed but not to die that is most exhausting (similar experiences is actually depicted pretty well in the movie Solaris).

It occurred to me that… for the many a time I was killed, I remained to live as a person, as a zombie, as a ghost, and as any other kinds of creatures.

Everyone else could die and remain dead, I remained to live and I could not die.

I was subjected to the cruel torture of living my zillion deaths, along.

This series of torture did not stop until I finally was told that I am only human…

What a lengthy detour one has to take to reclaim one’s humanhood! :-O lol sigh…

Perhaps, this is the reason why I have been so very anal retentive about death and its implications… shall anyone, such as me, every wonder why…

So, again, last night, before bed, I said to myself, “Assume you are dead.”

It was not a sense of irresponsibility that drove me into that thought.

Rather, I was counting on a state where all is dissolved and where there is nothing but Dasein.

It is a state when I could simply open all sensory channels of mine and experience existence as it is.

So, does it mean that it was nothing more than a morbid day I led today?

Quite the contrary, the state of being dead allows me for a new life, new routines and an ez-pass to view the world the way I like to see it.

Of course, my detached way of being also helps in helping me to believe in a life just like heaven…

I do not know whether it will work or not to help me cut down on smoking successfully, if not quitting it, since I did have 3 cigarettes today. Yet, think positively, it is better than one pack a day and all these dead talk is actually fairly anxiety-probing.… lol

At least, that would be a good way for me to conduct a case study about the implications of psychotic symptoms as well as the side effects of the antipsychotic medications. lol

I am dead but I remain alive.

The notion of death will not engender a sense of irresponsibility. Rather, as mentioned earlier, it should be used as a way to clear all background noise and focusing on what death could inspire… a relative and progressive view of equality in mankind (as long as you don’t ask me what that progressive view means).

At the same time, I am aware that a night’s mumble jumble on death is enough. Or else, I might as well be really dead if I were to let myself dwell on this BS for I would really be a even worse lost soul in limbo then… lol

Joy comes in the morning

This is actually the title of one of the audio books that I listened. Of course, like many other books, this book is about the pursuit of a sense of self.

As I was going down to the basement to check on my laundry, I found myself floating in a sea of joyful feeling.

Then, this thought occurred to me, “Joy comes in the morning.”

It was this morning when I finally did what I have longed to do for all these time.

I gave an abbreviated lesson on the information processing models and their implications on learning.

The powerpoint used in this class was actually the shortened version of the one I used for the Educational Psychology class.

The purpose of today’s lecture and the ensuing lectures is to share with the parents the current advances in our understanding about brain and learning.

It is my expectation that such an understanding will be of some help for the future learning with them and their children.

If you ask whether I have conducted some scientifically based studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the program, the answer is “No.”

Then, when am I feeling so happy shall there be not yet tangible and quantifiable evidence to prove the positive outcome of my efforts?

It might sound funny but it is true…

I have, in many previous postings, indicated my effortful attempt to be a disbeliever.

Due to the circumstances, I need to make myself disbelieve all perceptions regarding my personal being for the psychotic symptoms have made it impossible for me to distinguish between what is real and what is not real. I actually have to refrain myself from even thinking about such disbelief.

Essentially, it is the detachment from such a belief that is keeping me kicking.

I suspect that, the day I decide to let go of such an effortful act to remain detached would be the day when the symptoms start overtaking my being.

The I came to the realization that…

I do have beliefs.

It is OK to believe in something...

I am allowed to have beliefs!!!

I believe the importance of engaging parents in their children’s education.

I believe that parents should be given the same preparation and training as the teachers-in-training.

Such are my beliefs and I have no doubt about it.

In a sense, it is a relief to me to allow myself to be a believer in something…

It also makes me feel like walking in the cloud when I am given the opportunity to act on my belief.

Believe it or not, joy comes in the morning when I have to cut my sleep short to get ready for my teaching… lol :-)

And, yes, I had a dream that, one day, I could have beliefs.