Tuesday, December 28, 2004

I read two more papers in Brennan, Linda L. & Johnson, Victoria E. Social, Ethical and Policy Implications of Information Technology (Hershey, Pa.: Information Science, 2004). I have not studied other than that in the past few days. I have been busy shopping and taking advantage of boxing day sales.

Saturday, December 25, 2004

I scored a good mark in my numerical analysis course which means I did a good job on the exam. I was not able to answer all the questions so must have done pretty good on the questions I answered.

I was able to write four pages of my mini paper last night and also wrote about one page in the introduction to the main paper, the part about my personal views. I was inspired in writing this introduction by this: McIver, William J. Jr. Global Perspectives on the Information Society in Brennan, Linda L. & Johnson, Victoria E. Social, Ethical and Policy Implications of Information Technology (Hershey, Pa.: Information Science, 2004).

My wife got me Foucault, M. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. by Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1977) as a Christmas present.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

I spent another four hours researching my computer crime law paper. I used Quick law to search cases. I printed out about six case from the 1990's and 2000's. The other research I did was read Wise, Edward M. United States: Computer Crime and Other Crimes against Information Technology in the United States in Sieber, U. ed. Information Technology Crime (Köln, Germany: Carl Heymanns Verlag KG, 1994). In reading this section on the USA I intended to research the history and development of the US computer crime law for my mini paper. I also found this article Manion, M. & Goodrum Abby. “Terrorism or Civil Disobedience: Toward a Hacktivist Ethic” (2000) Computers and Society, which I just read. The article I printed after finding it through the library was footnoted in Wise and the article's cite is Hollinger, Richard C. "Hackers: Computer Heroes or Electronic Highwaymen?" (1991) 21 Computers and Society. I have not read this article yet. I also need now to consult the journal Criminology at school and photocopy some articles from that journals that Wise cites.

Monday, December 20, 2004

I got an A on my term paper. I got it back from my professor today and she was sure that I have graduate student talent in legal studies. This is good news and fits one of my plans for my future. This also improves my self esteem for writing and command of English. But the professor also warned me that my writing must be perfect in graduate school. She also suggested she might be able to supervise graduate student studies in mental illness and the criminal law.

Sunday, December 19, 2004

I had a look at a projection of the media's future at http://www.letitblog.com/epic/. I have been studying the Internet now for ten years. I had read about Usenet in the late 1980's but it was not until 1994 that I had access to Usenet and email. This is when I began to study the Internet regularly. I have completed two university courses looking at the Internet and law. I have also completed a course in the sociology of science and technology.

Saturday, December 18, 2004

I did an ok job with my exam. Not a great job but I passed the exam too which means I should have a C or better in the course on numerical analysis. I am now more free to read what I want. I have a mini paper to complete but will do that tonight too and on Monday. The mini paper is due the first week of January.

Friday, December 17, 2004

This morning is my last exam for the term. I have been up since 8:30 am yesterday and my exam is at 9 am this morning. I did get about one hour lying down and closing my eyes. I stayed up to learn. I rarely do well with all nighters. But sometimes all nighters work well too. It has to do with budgetting one's time appropriately. It might work out this morning. I will know later at the beginning of January when I get my grade for this course. Oh well I am out the door in a moment for the exam with maybe half an hour more study in the library with a coffee and danish.

My brother suggests I do study Data Warehousing this winter and take my time with the law BA. I did manage to get a seat in the medical issues in criminal law course again. But I am thinking my brother is right that just one law and one statistics course would be the most enjoyable and easy paced for the winter term.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

I did not study enough for my numerical analysis exam. The exam is on Friday and I have saved everything until the end. I will have to find time on Thursday to review.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Now for the statistics books I am reading at present:
Dai, Honghua. Srikant, Ramakrishnan. & Zhang, Chengqi, eds. Advances in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining: 8th Pacific-Asia Conference, PAKDD 2004, Sydney, Australia, May 2004, proceedings (Berlin, Germany: Springer, 2004).
This book is a slow slog but I am finding I can understand the book at least. I plan to study data mining I next term at Carleton, course code STAT4601.
Delwiche, Lora D. & Slaughter, Susan J. The Little SAS Book: a primer 2nd ed. (Cary, N.C.: SAS Institute, 1998).
I have had this book for a couple of years now. It should be enough to study this book for the BASE SAS programers exam. I might actually take this exam in January. I was teaching SAS this past term to about 40 students.
And now for the Math books I am borrowing:
Press et la. Numerical Recipes: The Art of scientific Computing (London: Cambridge, 1986).
I have the FORTRAN code for this book on a floppy I bought a year or two ago.



    this is what I'll try to study for my MATH3806 exam.
  • chapter 2 is linear algebra
  • chapter 3 is interpolation and extrapolation
  • chapter 4 is Integration
  • chapter 9 is root finding and nonlinear sets of equations
  • chapter 15 is Integration of ODE's
Train, Kenneth E. Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge, 2003).
I learned what open form and closed form integrals are from this book. I also have a good idea or better idea now of modeling of shopping and other markets.
I have another math book out but I haven't really read it so won't put its bibliographic info here.
Now for the criminology books I am reading or still borrowing:
van Leeuwen, Marianne. Confronting Terrorism: European Experiences, Threat Perceptions and Policies (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2003).
So far I have only read the first chapter concerned mostly with introducing the book and defining terrorism.
Pogrebin, Mark. ed. About Criminals: A View of the Offenders World (Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage, 2004).
I have read the first article and picked this up to deepen my knowledge of criminology writing generally. This book is divided by type of crime which is a simple way of looking at criminology.
Sieber, Ulrich. Ed. Information Technology Crime: National Legislation,
Jus Informationis European Series on Information Law v 6 (Köln: Carl
Heymanns Verlag, 1994).
I am now reading the USA section of this book but not quickly or not as quickly as I might. I am still borrowing this book now for two or three months.
Sofaer, Abraham D. & Goodman, Seymour E. Eds. The Transnational Dimension of Cyber Crime and Terrorism (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 2001).
I am still borrowing this book too for three months now but am not consulting or reading it at present.
These are the books I am reading right now for the post end of term. First the health books:
St. John's Ambulance, First Aid: First On the Scene, Activity Book 1st ed. (Ottawa, Ont.: St. John's Ambulance, 2000).
I read this in school first at an on campus first aid training standard level A session. I have since read it for level C certification and also for three years of being level C plus CPR certified. I have other first aid books including military and northern survival books. I have also read some guerrilla warfare books that include medical practices. I also read self help books concerned with addictions.
Humphreys, Keith. Circles of Recovery: Self Help Organizations for Addictions (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge, 2004).
I have read the first chapter of this book and begun the second chapter now. It has offered me hope in my self help volunteering and paid work as web master. It was also used by me in my drug law paper this past term. I used the index of the book rather than reading the whole book.
.
Petit, Jorge R. Handbook of Emergency Psychiatry (Philadelphia, Penn.: Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins, 2004).
I learned a little of this book so far. This book is especially important for me as most of day to day associates have some mental health issues or are involved in mental health work.
That's it for health books right now.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Dawn Moore the professor in my drug law course said I had written a very good term paper so I am happy now. I also did a not bad take home exam and even established my own view on the 'other' and intention in the criminal law. I may publish some of this stuff on my home page under my law studies page. I only have my honours paper and my numerical analysis course to complete work on before January. I also need to study for a SAS exam soon.

I have some grading to do today and tomorrow. I have been doing some volunteer work this week and on Thursday I have a union meeting in the evening and then on Friday maybe another union meeting where I might be hired as a web master for the unions web site.

I have been reading about environmental law and data mining. I have also been reading that study of self help groups for substance addiction. I am also still reading about crime victims and criminology generally. Finally my studies continue on the global internet and computer programmming topics. I am not reading about disabilities right now.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

I stayed up yesterday for a 27 hour day. We managed to do our appointments together in the cold weather. I then slept at 19:00 until 4 am.

I had worked on my exam until about 7 am yesterday, then completed grading the last assignment in STAT2507. I then took these to school and gave them to the professor. I returned the textbook for STAT2507. I also talked a little with another TA. We might study MATH3806 together next week. I also photocopied the last two chapters of Hacker Culture because these chapters deal directly with the criminality of hackers and cover famous hacker cases. I also have court reports now downloaded for some of these cases and will be looking up more of these cases using Lexis.

I worked on the exam when waking up this morning and have a good start on the second questions at this point at 6:30 am. I have about 10 more hours to complete this exam and am feeling good about my answers now. After getting this done if I can complete it in the morning we can go to the Psychiatric Survivors Christmas party in the afternoon. I can then start to grade the STAT2606 assignments to return to the professor later this week. This will be some intense statistics grading that I need to complete. I also bought some more black ink for my Epson 820 so I can continue to print my exam answers on this printer but have my Epson 440 ready as a backup machine.

Monday, December 06, 2004

I worked basically straight with very few distractions on my honours BA in legal studies this weekend. I did find some time Monday morning to install Debian 3 r2 on an old workstation I have. I wrote about five pages for my take home exam for LAWS4306B the course in drugs, users and the state. It is a criminal law course. I worked on this for about 2 hours today and 4 hours yesterday. I also worked for about 4 hours yesterday and one hour today on my other legal studies course LAWS4908 the honours paper about computer crime. I am feeling good about all these legal studies.

I have about half of the STAT2507B5 assignments still to grade completely. I hope to get this done this morning and then head off to school and return library books and hand in the assignments to my boss. He taught me an introduction to probability course in fall 1999 and is only my boss for this term.

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Unfortunetly on Sunday I stayed up later than I should have so missed my early morning writing tutorial appointment on Monday, because I slept later than I planned too. I got a good ten hours of sleep though showing that I am probably not depressed based on sleep disturbances as a depression symptom. But I made it to my psychologist appointment and basically decided to bring my study load down next term to two courses, one in law and one in statistics. This will mean I will graduate earlist by the end of fall 2005. I also made it in to see my math teacher and ask for some help but he hasn't been able to help much beyond pointing out errors in my MATLAB code which don't seem to work even with his corrections. Also he pointed out my derivative errors for my implicit backwards Euler solution. I also attended a scholarship awarding and bumped into an old physical geography professor who is working as a dean now. He recognised me after some 20 years of not seeing me which I think is amazing but then I had won this scholarship two years ago so he could have seen my name recently. Also I have sent him an occassional email recently.

I just completed my paper, adding a few more sentences from yesterday, and also last night I had changed all the ibids and supra's to italics, and will hand it in later today as I am up all night getting some more quiet reading done. I also just checked my student email account and found out that the professor in our drug law course has basically canceled class tomorrow although we must show up for five minutes or so to do a class evaluation. This is good because this will mean I can possibly get home by 12:30 and be asleep by 1 PM for a 26 hour day and also I don't need to do important in class verbal interaction stuff at the end of this day. That is always when I babble at the end of long days and it is never good for in class talking. This is the good news that the day won't last until 4 PM today. This sleep adjustment was made as well as cancelling my attendence at our role playing game this week so that I can make it to my early morning Thursday class because it is the last class and we will have the all important exam review in Thursday's class.

Monday, November 29, 2004

Well since I got my paper completed yesterday I have been not studying. But I did not make all my study goals yesterday. I did not complete any more math questions and had meant to complete one more yesterday. I did contact the professor by email and made an appointment to see him today just before my school psychologist appointment. Then after seeing the school psychologist who is really my only psychologist these days, I am going to an awarding of a scholarship ceremony. E whose is a chair person and a film student is winning the scholarship this year that I won in 2002. I have to brief a case too before Tuesday and in the morning late today I have a late morning appointment with a writting tutor to go over my drug law paper.

My drug law paper was my most important and immediate deadline. It is natural to relax a little after I got that done. I have been up for 23 hours now. I really should sleep now and get up at 9 am. I have all my school work printed out that I need tomorrow. I will also pick up some assigments to be graded.

I am still being affected by the schizophrenia's ambivalence. What I can't decide is " am I a cop or not?" I tell everyone I can't be a cop because I can't drive or may be can't safely operate a weapon. But who knows about the police gun thing. I also can't decide on school courses for next term. It is better when I do decide ahead of time and stick to that decision. I am figuring that a 10 hour schedule of classes on one day is too much so studying statistics next term no longer looks good. The opposite studying three law courses doesn't make sense as I don't really need that many credits in law. I did a SAS program of my own to solve a problem a few hours ago late at night on Sunday. Maybe I only need one law course next term and my honours paper. It might be good to reduce my stress levels and I might find more time to do things I have been letting go of like writing science fiction, radical union administration, volunteering, playing music, getting certified in computer skills. Ya I'll only study two law credits next term. But I will wait until after seeing the psychologist tomorrow and perhaps wait until I get my grades near the end of December.

Saturday, November 27, 2004

I had a tutorial lab yesterday in MATLAB and Euler & Runga Kutta methods. I completed it late Thursday night early Friday morning as I again shift my sleep to days over the weekend. I am up now late Friday night until mid-day Saturday. I am fairly good at programming computers and did good MATLAB code for school work. I am doing two linux oerating system installs tonight. I got the Debian 3 r2 installed on an old IBM 486 Thinkpad. I am just about to spend some time installing Fedora core 3 on my IBM PC server.

Yesterday was buy nothing day. The radicals at school had a free store and I got myself a calculator and then gave it to J later in the evening. I also got a palm handwriting computer in Chinese that is totally useless for me just like half the stuff I buy.

I am happy with school right now. Soon I will be able to say another successful school term completed. I have one more math assignment to do and then an exam for my numerical analysis course. I have to polish up my term paper in drug law and then write a take home exam. I have to complete by January a paper comparing US and Canadian law on hackers. I also have to write, again by the time school starts again, a legal brief of a Canadian hacker case from 1980.

Thursday, November 25, 2004

I really was getting upset with the school's students with disAbilties Centre but today the counselor helped me proof read my drug law paper and I am doing well now.

Later today I give a lab but my teaching assistant work is winding down now. I have a couple of more assigments to grade but this week was the last week giving labs for one of my assigned courses.

I missed my morning class again this morning because I was up late last night grading assignments. I am not sure but next term I may study only statistics courses basically on only one day of the week. I will have 8 hours of class on Monday's if I choose this plan. Then only 3 hours on Wednesday's. I would need to put my legal studies on hold to do this intense statistics studies but maybe at this point in my studies that is a good idea. Whatever I do next term I won't have early morning classes.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

I got to work today and yesterday grading STAT2507 papers. I should complete that work before sleeping tonight. I also started yesterday studying my numerical analysis course at a deeper level reviewing other books for Tuesday's lecture topic. I need to begin to organise my notes for the exam in this MATH3806 course. I have divided the notes by topic temporally as we met them in the lectures week to week.

Just now I proof read Tuesday morning's version of my drug law paper on treatment for addictions. I corrected a few errors and added a bit more and chopped out some other stuff. I have about nine pages now and need about three more pages but that should come naturally from Sally L. Satel's, Is Drug Addiction a Brain Disease? in Heymann, Philip B. & Brownsberger, William N. Drug Addiction and Drug Policy: The Struggle to Control Dependence (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 2001).

I also started to write my mini paper comparing US and Canadian computer crime laws and showing the development of this jurisprudence. I also began just minutes ago to brief the McLaughlin case from the Supreme Court in 1980. This case of unauthorized access to a university computer system propmpted paralimentary activity in creating the criminal code of Canada computer crime law.

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

I am going to read these books now for course review. Meaning I am scanning the books below for MATH3806 topics.



Press et la. Numerical Recipes: The Art of scientific Computing (London: Cambridge, 1986).
I have the FORTRAN code for this book on a floppy I bought a year or two ago.



    this is what I'll try to study
  • chapter 2 is linear algebra
  • chapter 3 is interpolation and extrapolation
  • chapter 4 is Integration
  • chapter 9 is root finding and nonlinear sets of equations
  • chapter 15 is Integration of ODE's

Bellomo, Nicola & Preziosi, Luigi. Modelling Mathematical Methods and Scientific Computation (London: CRC, 1995).
This book has some stuff on Runge Kutta and the code is in BASIC. I have the
floppy for this too. This is where I first read Runge Kutta but had no idea
what it was about. Today I learned Runge Kutta for y'=f(y(t)).

Sunday, November 21, 2004

I am up over night on Saturday night. I spent about 45 minutes surfing ecommerce web sites looking for a PDA cell phone. I then got down to completing my legislative review of computer crime law in Canada. I got one paragraph written. I still need to work on my drug law essay tonight. My topic is forced v. voluntary treatment for drug addictions and the moral aspects of this debate.

I did get my MATLAB code to work for my numerical integration homework. I should be able to get this homework done for Monday.

I will also read about Dreamweaver and other web work topics tonight. I hope to read about SAS and also MySQL. I will also read about emergency psychiatry and learned the Mini mental status exam this past week and tried it out on my wife and and a friend, who are both normal scoring above 24 on the exam. I will also read computing literature in terms of the history of computing and ethical aspects of computing. I will also start to organise my notes for the numerical analysis exam.

I had a bad week thinking of giving up on the legal studies but I am back on track now. It was just that I had some poor written work in one law course and scored only C on that work. It is nice to score A but I guess I can't always do this. But in math I scored a perfect 10/10 on some work. I saw an academic counselor and she guessed that perhaps my skills are in math and statistics. If I want to study a lot of statistics next term I need to take a break from legal studies but if I want to get a move on and complete my second BA by the end of next summer I need to keep studying legal studies next term.

Friday, November 19, 2004

I am feeling good. My professor had agreed earlier in the term to grant me a stress break or an extension to homework deadlines if I needed one. This week I took him up on that offer. So I have till Monday to hand in my numerical integration assignment. I spent last night trying to answer the questions on this assignment. I stayed up to 4 am this morning.

I also last night rewrote a lot of my term paper for my drug law course. It is looking good now but maybe not on topic enough or clear enough. Clarity and lack of muddled thinking will be very important with this professor.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

I should update you the reader on my school work. I am still taking two law courses and one mathematics course at Carleton University.

One of the law courses is a drug law course and I have completed about 30% of the work for this course. I have put in about 30 hours outside of the class room for this course so far on those assignments that are completed. I have also put in another amount of hours on my term paper. I have also put in about 1 hour for every class room hour reading the weekly readings. I have only missed one class in this drug law course because of night shift hours messing up my schedule. This was last week.

In my other law course I have been reading widely but most concentrating on getting one particular book read completely. I have about 13 pages written in a 60 page paper. I am thinking today of withdrawing from this course for next term.

In my math course in numerical analysis which was a real test case course because it has two 8:30 am classes a week I have done so so. I mean at first I made all my classes and scored poorly on assignments. By now I have missed about four classes and my marks have come up considerably back to an honours level. I enjoy the lectures and can interact well with the professor in the classroom. I also seem fairly good at MATLAB programming. I did get a copy of MATLAB for my home use. I have my fifth assignment due tomorrow and will be doing it tonight but have already started fifty percent of the work. I don't put a lot of outside the classroom work into this math course but that could change by the exam and end of term.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

I am completing marking some statistics assignments this morning. I have to give a lab in this course this week and prepared by watching the professor give this lab yesterday.

I have been doing some MATLAB programming yesterday and have an assignment due in numerical analysis this Friday. I should also start reviewing my notes and that textbook to prepare for the exam in this course

I have completed the cultural representations section in Hacker Culture. I have not written anything more yet for my leglisative review. My supervisor for this paper will not be working in December.

I have the readings done again for this week's drug law seminar. I should also be getting my mark back for my reaction paper on Howard Becker. I have also rewritten my term paper and have a fairly concise paper now. I have to complete reading one more article on treatment at least and some more of The Diseasing of America by Stanton Peele. This is a really interesting course but I am not sure I will do that great with it. I need to study more for it.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

I am reading about self help groups world wide and also disaster studies. The books pose a social construction framework for these phenomena and I reflect on my own life in the community and my volunteering in the helping professions.

I am doing a fair amount of web mastering work and this work is being paid for by my union and by the self help network.

I am also researching Internet and other IT development in the developng world.

I have started my legislative history research and also a case law history for computer crime and my honours paper. I will hopefully have something good written up by next Tuesday for this research. I should also have the book Hacker Culture by Douglas Thomas read by the end of next week. I gave my supervisor a hard copy of my course journal on Tuesday this week. He asked me if I was seeing anything in common in the case law and I was able to report that I was and that my hypothetical scenarios were based on the case law. I also emailed my ecommerce professor yesterday afternoon describing this terms studies and he emailed me back asking my plans for next year ater my BA is done. That's a good question and I am right now planning on graduate school for next year.
I started to prepare for working in the STAT2507 lab later today. This week and last week we are working on confidence intervals. Last week I took up the mid-term and also reminded the students of basic formulas for confidence intervals and point estimators. This lab today will cover small samples and the student's t test. I have no grading in this course this week.
I took back about 16 books to the library this week and last week as I focus more on my own courses this term and narrow my usual broad scope of reading.
I was able to complete three of four questions on assignment #4 in MATH3806 last week. I worked hard on the three questions I did complete and put in about 5 or 6 hours on that assignment. This week's assignment I have worked on by reading section 7.1 in the textbook. I hope to read sections 7.2 and 7.3 this morning before our lecture at 8:30. I have renewed the books I borrowed on numerical analysis. My eMac's printer is working and I have been able to print out my MATLAB code and graphs at home on my new copy of MATLAB 7.
I worked the labs in STAT2606 and my supervisor said I was doing a great job with this course. We used infile statements and also proc means and proc chart this week. I investigated the SAS Base programmer certifiction and registered an on-line account with Prometric testing and can do my test at a test centre three blocks from where I live. I have gotten started this week grading the assignment #3 and should be completed this grading by the end of this week or early next week. I will also a proctor the student's second mid term tomorrow evening.
I decided to stay with my original term paper for my drug law course. I missed this week's lecture in this course. I am reading a few articles that should help me connect my arguments so far with a more legal view of treatment.
It is Rememberance day in Canada today. I will remember my grandfather an Air Commander in the RCAF and a brother of his who died fighting in Italy and my grandfather a Estonian freedom fighter. Also some of my family were shot by Stalinists. As well I will remember two other soliders both of whom are alive at this moment. One is a fellow I grew up with who has fought mostly in the Middle East with the Canadian forces. He was a military doctor. As well I know someone through the Internet who is presently in hospital from wounds suffered in Iraq and is fighting for his life in that hospital.

I will also pause today to reflect on my own committments to peace and justice and the fact that wars have brought us technology. I will think of Alan Turing and the development of computers and also think of arms sales. I will reflect as well on the horror of war and think back on my peace movement activities of the past thirty or more years.

I note that I am not studying war these days and only in studying computer security and law and working in security am I possibly contributing to injustice. I certainly hope I am not contributing to injustice but there is always a possibility of being wrong.

Monday, November 01, 2004

I borrowed these books this week for my legal studies. I did not borrow any math or statistics books this week.
Danesi, Marcel. Forever Young: The 'Teen-Aging' of Modern Culture (Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto, 2003).
This book I have read the first two chapters of yesterday. I have always had an interest in youth culture and have been a member of a youth culture non-profit collective in the 1980's. This author is a University of Toronto professor of culture and anthroplogy. He has taught there for about the same length of time as my uncle, since the early 1970's. This book was given a bad review in The Peer Review a Canadian graduate student magazine and was the only book reviewed in that issue of the magazine available to borrow yesterday at school.
Cohen, Stanley. Moral Panics and Folk Devils: The Creation of Mods and Rockers 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 2002).
This book and the concept of moral panics is popular in our legal studies departmment. As such, I should read this book. I have also been using the concept of a moral panic in my legal studies writings and thus need to understand the orginal concept and already this morning have read the introduction to the third edition which clarifies the meaning of the concept and shows its misuses.
Humphreys, Keith. Circles of Recovery: Self-Help Organizations for Addictions (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University, 2004).
This is for my drug law course and may lead me astray. It may not have any legal content and thus could use up lots of my time. Although I have been studying this topic and the book promises to be more of solid study about self help efficacy. It is also for my community activism in the disAbled community of consumer survivors or users of mental health services.
Glasser, Irene. Homelessness in Global Perspective (New York: Macmillan, 1994).
This is to help wih local activism in particular IWW union activism.
Gleeson, Brendan. Geographies of Disability (London: Routledge, 1999).
This book was borrowed to support my studies and local activism in disAbilities. I have also belonged to an Internet email list for discussions of diaAbilities and geography for about 6 years.
Midgley, Mary. Animals and Why They Matter (Markham, Ont.: Penguin, 1983).
This book I found searching animal rights at both amazon.com and also a bibliography yesterday on Animals Rights. It will help me research environmental politics and playing the Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 off shot game Cybergenerations.
Thompson, Stacy. Punk Productions: Unfinished Business (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York, 2004).
I borrowed this book because I am interested in punk rock and was a punk rocker in my late teens and throughout my twenties.
I took back to the library two medical books. Both were doctors handbooks on drugs. One book was describing the consequences of alcohol and drugs of abuse. The other book described the plants and uses and affects of herbal psychoactives.

Sunday, October 31, 2004

It took about half an hour to grade the first page of the assignment for STAT2507 so it took the budgeted time no problem. I have about 45 minutes left to grade this assigment. I should be finished with this today or Monday morning. I reviewed a little of the STAT2507 textbook.

I wrote a summary of the Becker reading, eludicating a statistical view and interjecting my comments, on how well Becker does with what he is trying to do. I feel he does a good job of it but should have used a wider moral compass.

I read more of chapter three of Hacker Culture in particular I read about the battle between Microsoft and the cdc.

I have started to write my final copy of my reaction paper to Howard Becker's the Outsiders. It should be fairly easy I just need to read the chapter we are concerned about again and then write a page or two about this.

I have to grade some assignments today for a basic statistics course.

I should also start to work on the numerical analysis course assignment #4. I scored well on the third assignment so could still get a reasonable mark in this course. I am tempted to study the fourth year numerical linear alagebra course in the winter term.

Saturday, October 30, 2004

I am finished delivering the Saturday paper to my neighbourhood. When I got in I of course first made coffee. Then I felt I was behind in LAWS4908 so started chapter three of Hacker Culture. It was in the beginning of this chapter that I found a reason for hacking as a crime. I paraphrased that and began to gather the sections of the paper into a rough draft. I have appoximately 13 pages now for that paper.

Based on the rewriting I was doing and minor editing I am going to investigate cvs software for word processing.

I am rewriting my term paper in LAWS4306 after some feedback from the professor, Doctor Dawn Moore. I have some reading to do for this week but have the Becker read two months ago for this week. I have to write a reaction paper on Becker and hand it in this week on Tuesday.

I have read the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) Code of Ethics and Standards from Berleur, Jacques & Brunnstein, Klaus eds. Ethics of Computing: Codes, Spaces for Discussion and Law (London: Chapman & Hall, 1996) at 79-83 and the Comments on the CIPS Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct by Diane Whitehouse just after in the same book at 83-86. This was for LAWS4908.

I did a tutorial in MATLAB and curve fitting using least squares yesterday at school in the fourth floor math and statistics school's computer lab. I did it perfectly after a fair amount of help from another students class notes on the linear systems for solution and the TA helping remind me of logs.

I tutored a student in limits from the calculus course MATH1002.

I am just getting ready to help deliver the Ottawa Citizen. I read the last three days newspapers late Friday night with some friends. About an hour ago I read articles about the iPod musical device in the Tech Weekly section. I of course just had to surf www.apple.ca to check out the new iPod photo and also the U2 iPod. I updated my iTunes too and updated my .net on the my laptop.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

I read the beginning of this article tonight concerning acts needed to define a crime. The author suggests control is what is needed not an act. Husak, Douglas Does Criminal Liability Require an Act? in Duff, Antony Philosophy and the Criminal Law: Principle and Critique (Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge, 1998). I read this just after writing about laws relationship to three school of ethics, Kantian, Consequentialist and Relativist.

Monday, October 25, 2004

I read this article this weekend: McCollister, Kathryn E. & French, Michael T. The Economic Cost of Substance-Abuse Treatment in Criminal Justice Settings in Leukefeld, Carl G. Tims Frank & Farabee, David. eds. Treatment of Drug Offenders: Policy and Isssues (New York: Springer, 2002). This completes my reading of the first section of this book. The first section is called Background.

I read more of Hacker Culture the past few days and am almost finished the second chapter now called Hacking as the Performance of Technology.

Friday, October 22, 2004

I spent about 5 hours so far on assignment #3. This is more than I could put in for assignments #2 & #1. I did put in about 3 hours on assignment #2 maybe more. I don't remember how much I put into assignment #1. This means I am doing about a 1/1 out of class in class ratio and I need to pick this up a bit in this course.

With the present assignment, #3 I should be able to hand it in and not have to do any MATLAB work in the lab tomorrow. Nor will I have to ask the professor, Dave, if I have it right. I know I have done it well and right. I have the good copy of Q.1 and Q.3 done and just need to proof read them now. I have only to do a final copy of Q.2 and I am done. It is almost 4 am now. I will sleep at 5 am at the latest and do the final write up of Q.2 in the lab tomorrow if I have too.

I have some hard copy of my legal studies writing done for the tutor tomorrow. I will be at school from 1:00 PM to about 7:00 PM. I also need to find more time for my legal studies courses. I did read the first two chapters in a drug treatment policy book: Leukefeld, Carl G. Tims Frank & Farabee, David. Treatment of Drug Offenders: Policy and Isssues (New York: Springer, 2002) this morning too. They were:

Leukefeld, Carl G. Farabee, David & Tims Frank. Clinical and Policy Opportunities at 3-8.
This chapter explored the basic issues of drug treatment policy in prisons.
Filed, Gary D. Historical Trends of Drug Treatment in the Criminal Justice System. at 9-21.
This gave an alternate view of drug control history but also deepened my knowledge of the history of drug control by offering a history of drug treatment as it is in prisons. It also touched on drug enforcement because of course those arrested may end up in prison or being treated for addictions.
I am hoping this book will help with my term paper.

I did not do a really great job in the lab duties yesterday but all the students were doing their work fine and I solved a few problems and covered some basic concepts about cumulative probabililty and probability density functions. Basically they learned P(a < x < b) and getting their questions into that form and they learned P(a) = 1 - P(a (not)). I also did not give the students any answers and reminded them to use thier books. They have a mid term tonight that I will help a little with as a proctor. For this work I will be spending 30$ US to rent a copy of Minitab 14 for five months.

I solved the algorithum for the tridiagonal system at school yesterday, while sitting on a bench. Then I went to the lab and got it to work and made a jpg of the plot and printed it last night when I got home. Just now minutes after midnight, I put the algorithum down in pen and ink in rough form and as I did it computed the computational complexity. It can be solved in 7N -5 operations. I also solved Q.1 in the assignment # 3 for MATH3806 in rough form just now. I now just need to write up a discussion of my plots for Q.3 in rough form. Then I need to make a good copy of all this work. So I am in the home stretch now. This is all due tomorrow in the mid afternoon.

Also tomorrow afternoon I have an appointment with Loyd, a cognative studies graduate student who works at the writing tutorial service; who will help me with my legal studies writing. I got one paper back graded from my drug law course, so 20% of the grade has been earned to date.

With the assignment # 3 tomorrow submitted I will have completed 36% of the grade in MATH3806.

Thursday, October 21, 2004

I got my MATLAB software ordered. I also got the MATLAB work done for this week's assignment #3 due tomorrow. I just need to do the pen and ink math now.
I was looking for pdf's on hacking to use on my palm for research for my law paper. I found this web site for pdf's http://pdf.textfiles.com/. I downloaded some articles on hacking including a book in German.
I made no mistakes yesterday in the labs. I worked for two hours. I debugged about 20 student's programs. I guess I am a talented programmer and can teach programming. I got the graded assignments back to the instructor.

I have a lab to give today and got the assignments all graded last night. Then for this course I have to proctor a test tomorrow. I will not have any grading in this course until next weekend.

I won't take any security work next weekend. I have a security shift this weekend.

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

I managed to work a night shift as a security guard AOK. It was very physically demanding and I stayed up about 6 extra hours for about a 26 hour day. I had to volunteer at our self help group and keep minutes of our meeting on my laptop. I managed to do some of that work. All this on Monday/Sunday night.

I got my grading done today and have one more assignment to grade for a different course. There are about 20 papers. I have three hours of labs to give starting this morning. I am also tutoring a student in differential equations tomorrow. He also has a disablity. Then on Friday I have to help proctor a test. Our role playing game is caneled tonight which gives me more time to grade papers. We should be able to have our cyberpunk role playing get together with other consumers on Friday.

I have a day shift this coming Sunday then no shifts scheduled in security.

Yesterday I attended all my classes and that went well. I got a fairly decent mark on my reaction paper. I also got some notes for a class I missed last week in numerical analysis. I got to work on the assignment more this week. I will be buying a copy of MATLAB so I can work at home more on the assignments.

I am under a fair amount of teaching assistant work pressure.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

I finally just now reached a goal with my marking work. It was about four or five days since when I thought I could reach this point and when I did. I have a fair amount of marking still to do.

I gave a test to about 120 students last night. It was about 2 hours of work as a proctor or test faciliator. I read a little more of Hacker Culture and also started to the read Peele, Stanton. The Diseasing of America: Addiction Treatment Out of Control (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington, 1989). This book on addiction was recommended by Dawn Moore our drug law professor who is only the third legal studies professor I have had so far in my BA who is not a lawyer but she is a full time professor unlike the other two who were part-tme faculty.

I completed the MATLAB work today very quickly. My code was perfect the first time although this code in MATLAB gave a strange matrix using Gaussian Elimination. I had to show why there was a resulting error when this algorthum was used with a vander matrix. Every column of such a matrix is a power greater or lessor than the coloumn beside it. Thus over ten columns in our example the order of difference is on the order of greater than 10^9 which was the difference between the first and last rows. I still need to solve the assignment #3. My pen and ink math on the last assignmeent was perfect but I did not do enough MATLAB work on assignment #2.

Friday, October 15, 2004

I just called my wife's publisher to do the last minute details for the Small Press book fair tomorrow. He has paid for the table. We should be there at 11 am tomorrow morning but it is ok if we are a little late. I may leave my wife there and leave the fair early. It should be a good relaxing time though and social. I might be able to pick up some interesting books art or digital books or art. I should budget a little spending money for lunch too.
My school writing is coming along fine. I got about 6 pages written in the 60 page paper. This paper is on computer crime.

I have a lab to do today. I will be programming in MATLAB. I skipped out on meeting with the Minister today. I have to proctor a test tonight. I actually enjoy being at school late Friday nights. It is better than being drunk in a loud bar. I might end the evening after the test in the library. Our school library is open late. I should be reading some more books on drug laws. I think I'll post this now and search for some books on the library web site before going to school for the lab.

Thursday, October 14, 2004

The concept of down time comes from computing I think. I did work yesterday for two hours. I gave some help to students in their scheduled lab times. I also worked on their review problems at a computer using Minitab and SAS. I also got some of my homework done using MATLAB. This morning I am going off to my lecture the 11 th lecture in my numerical analysis course. We are just finishing up linear systems. This lecture today should be the new stuff on iteration methods. I hope to work some more after class on the assignment for this course. Then I have to prepare for one hour for a lab I give later in the afternoon. I also have mobilization meeting at noon for our TA union. Then after the lab later in the day I have a wobbly union meeting. I should be able to get home at about 2 PM and rest and relax a bit before the late afternoon work.

Tomorrow morning I meet with the Minister of Citizenship to discuss the new Ontarian's with Disabilities Act. Then on Monday after my Sunday night shift I have a board meeting at our self help group.

I will also be selling books this weekend at a small press book fair on Saturday. Somewhere in all this time I have to find time to mark assignments too. Maybe I will skip the mobilization meeting at lunch and come home and mark.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

I got one reaction paper written and handed in for Sheptycki's Issues in Transnational Policing. I had a little chat with my professor about my term paper and things went well in class yesterday as we discussed the drug/crime nexus.

I got some writing done on my fourth year paper and the supervisor was impressed and happy with it. I did though loose my watch while visiting him and must go buy a new watch today at a department store.

I also have attended my math course yesterday. It went well and we studied iterative solutions to linear systems. This is matrix math.

I need to work on grading papers this morning and then have two labs to give at 10:30 and 11:30 then I have the day off but will do more grading today.

Sunday, October 10, 2004

This blog is one year old now. It should be two years old before I graduate with my second degree my BA in legal studies next November 2005.
I am doing great with LAWS4306B. I have a rough final draft of my first reaction paper done. I will just proof read it and create a little more logical structure then hand it in on Tuesday at the beginning of class.
I am doing poorly with MATH3806. I enjoy the lectures and the labs but the assignments are difficult. I read very little of the texbook yesterday but did read a little. I need to read more.
This is my bibliography to date for my LAWS4908 paper. I just sent via email this un anotated to my supervisor. I am now as I post it here making some notes on each reading.
Bibliography

Bachman, Ronet & Schutt, Russel K. The Practice of Research in Criminology and Criminal Justice 2nd Ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2003).
I read the first few chapters of this book. It describes research methods in criminology. It is a huge textbook like work.

Behling, John H. Guidelines For Preparing The Research Proposal (New York: University Press of America, 1984).
I did not read much of this book.

Berleur, Jacques & Brunnstein, Klaus Eds. Ethics of Computing: codes, spaces for Discussion and Law (London: Chapman & Hall, 1996).
I have browsed this book before. It is more or less professional ethics for computer scientists and came up or from another course, PHIL2104. This maybe useful for some detail in looking at programmers as ethical rather than criminal.

Bogard, William. The Simulation of Surveillance: Hypercontrol in Telematic Societies (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, 1996).
This book just looks cool and is a joining of the philosophical topics of Foucault' surveillance and Baudrillard's simulation. I started to read this book too. It may prove to be useless for this paper.

Brock, Gerald W. The Second Information Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 2003).
This may also prove to be quite useless. It is a history in economic terms of telecommmunications and then the information age.

Davis, Robert W.K. & Hutchinson, Scott C. Computer Crime in Canada: An
Introduction to Technological Crime and Related Legal Issues
(Toronto,
Ont.: Carswell, 1997).
This book maybe useful and it seems quite structured to help me write my paper.

Duff, Antony. Ed. Philosophy and the Criminal Law: Principle and Critique (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, 1998).
I have looked at this book a little and it maybe too in depth about side or unrelated topics.

Himanen, Pekka. The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age (New York: Random House, 2001).
This book helped me delimit my topic to not include hackers who create useful things and are not treated as criminals but as business men. It can be related to Thomas below.

Kowlaski, Melanie. Cyber-crime: Issues, Data Sources, and Feasibility of Collecting Police-reported Statistics, Cat. # 85-558-XIE, (Ottawa, ON:, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, December 19, 2002).
This I haven't looked at this recently but has definitions as well as ways of measure for crime statistics based on these definitions. It counts criminal code charges for the end of the century and beginning of this century.

Law Commission of Canada. What is a Crime? Challenges and Alternatives (Ottawa, LCC, 2003). (Cited September 26, 2004)
This was/is recommended reading by my superivsor. I like the suggestions of alternatives to the criminal law. This is where I will draw the relativistic notions surrounding criminal law applications to computer crime enforcment and punishment meaning sentencing.

Levi, Michael. "Between the risk and the reality falls the shadow": Evidence and urban legends in computer fraud ( with apologies to T.S. Eliot) in Wall, David S. Ed. Crime and the Internet (New York, Routledge, 2001).
This gave me a look at the hype behind computer crime and some idea of the law formation in the USA regards hackers.

Mawrey, Richard B. & Salmon, Keith J. Computers and the Law (Oxford: BSP Professional, 1988).
This book will also prove useless as it is out of date and is really meant as a guide for businesses and other computer users to seeking legal advise and reducing legal costs of using computers. This might help for an industry view of computer crime but will take more integration with other works. I would also need to bring it up to today by finding other works to cover the periods between 1988 and now.

Sieber, Ulrich. Ed. Information Technology Crime: National Legislation,
Jus Informationis European Series on Information Law v 6 (Köln: Carl
Heymanns Verlag, 1994).
This book is highley useful and is the general book that guides me at present. It is the section on Canada that I find useful also this editor is quoted in other papers and books.

Sofaer, Abraham D. & Goodman, Seymour E. Eds. The Transnational Dimension of Cyber Crime and Terrorism (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 2001).
This books is fear mongering and also shows the big hype behind computer crime. It will be useful for getting at another side of my argument if my argument is computer crime is not a problem.

Thomas, Douglas. Hacker Culture (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 2002).
This book is usefull too for the hacker section of my paper and is interesting for its backward looking view of the hacker underground and the press on hackers.

Wall, David S. Maintaining Order and Law on The Internet in Wall, David. Ed. Crime and The Internet (London: Routledge, 2001).
I read this paper today and it helps to define computer crime but really aims to catagorize the four law enforcement or policing bodies involved in regulating the Internet.

Friday, October 08, 2004

I have to write out some scenerios for computer crime and do a little legal analysis by next Tuesday. I have some reading to do for my drug law course. I am also writing some reaction papers based on the readings for this course in drug laws. I got one paper done in rough draft last night. I am seeing a writing tutor today in the mid afternoon to go over my writing for this course. I got some math done in pen and ink for my assignment #2 and got a start on the programming yesterday for that assignment. I need to comlplete it today.

I got all my grading done this past week on time. I have some papers to grade now for two weeks from now. I also gave all my labs successfully this week. I investigating getting Minitab 14 beyond its trial period, but will have to pay for that myself; the school won't pay for it.

Thursday, October 07, 2004

I admited to a supervisor that I have procrastination but then she admitted she did too and that everyone seems to have it. My friends at the role playing game also said it was common. I have been reading for my computer crime course. I am up early again this morning for class. I am heading off to school in about an hour. I have some homework to do and a lab to give today. I am also meeting with my legal studies supervisor.

I continued to read a book on crisis intervention by non-professionals. I tend to see that the philosophy of this book protects the professional counseler. I feel these professionals should be looked at critically and we must reality test their advise and not follow them blindly. Doctors are only human too.

Monday, October 04, 2004

I got one assignment marked and the marks recorded for the first assignment of this terms teaching assistant work. I am done that much now. This was the first assignment I have completing marking this term. I am getting out of my funk and getting things done now. I am feeling good now and things will continue to progress. It is the end of the day I need to rest up for classes tomorrow.
I read some more about computer crime culture. I didn't read any drug law stuff today or last night. I did get started reading chapter one of one book I will read for my honours paper called Hacker Culture.

This morning I emailed my math professor who guided me towards a solution of some homework. I did some math typing in emails. Math has really changed with the advant of computers but this is the one math course where computers are to be used in particular MATLAB software. I may study some more of this work later on this afternoon. I have been awake about 17 hours now so might stop writing and figuring soon and only read for the rest of the day.

Saturday, October 02, 2004

I completed my readings this morning for this week's LAWS4306B lecture. I am started on next week's readings. I emailed my math professor. I need to buy a home copy of MATLAB to do better in this course. I am studying mentoring relationships in one library book. I am also reading a scientific computing book I borrowed on Friday. I did some studies of computer crime statues in one of the books I am borrowing for lAW4908. I made two appoinments with the writing tutorial service at school for the next two Friday's.

Thursday, September 30, 2004

In some ways, I am under more pressure this year than any other years. I have the heaviest course load I have had in 27 years. I also have a very heavy work load in my teaching duties. I think you could follow my progress here a little. You could see my world fall apart.

I have two months of classes to go this term. I have three papers to do in one course and an exam in that course. I have four more assignments and four more lab sessions and then an exam in my math course. And I have to write a draft paper on computer crime by the beginning of the January term.

I have completed 10% of my drug law course and started another 55%. I have started to complete everything but the exam. I have completed 12% of my math course. I have another 4% to do tomorrow and another 8% to complete by next Thursday.

Today I missed my class so I could stay up a little later last night and get a good sleep. I know my mother would say I made the right decision in that I got more sleep. I think I noticed it in my teaching assistant work today as I was able to give a slightly better lab.

I also felt and still feel more relaxed because I took some pressure and expectation off my plate. I have to be careful not to let these duties slide too much. But then perhaps I have taken on too much. I also missed volunteer training yet again tonight. When this happens I focus on the next event in my schedule and getting that done. So tomorrow I need to attend that lab.

I am behind on MATH3806. I plan to go into the lab early tomorrow morning to get some help with assignment #2. This assignment concerns the methods of finding roots to equations of the type f(x)=0. There are five methods we studied:
Fixed point
This method uses x(n)=g(x(n-1)) to make an iteration.
Bisector method
This method uses two points, one above the x-axis and one point below. So a necessary condition for this method is f(x(0))*f(x(1)) < 0. Then the next point in this iteration is chosen to be the mid point between the two points and then this point is checked to see if it is above or below the x-axis and this point is a new guess point with whichever of the first two points is opposite the x-axis to this new point. This iteration continues until the root point.
Floating Point method
This method also requires two points, one above the x-axis and one point below. So a necessary condition for this method is again that f(x(0))*f(x(1)) < 0. Then this method takes a line between the two points and where the line crosses the x axis is the next point, so it is also an iteration.
The secant method
This method draws a line between the two initial guess, x(0) and x(1) and then extends this line until it crosses the x-axis and make that point the third point then the new point and the nearest of the first two are the next two guess points.
Newton-Raphson Method
This method uses the first derivative at an intial guess x(0) and constructs a line from the point to the x axis using the first derivative as the slop of the line. Where this line crosses the x-axis is used to make the next guess. This method is taught in first year calculus typically.

I spent an hour typing this post and reviewing the section(2.1) in the textbook on the fixed point method. I need to read the rest of chapter 2 still and complete a MATLAB assignment on chapter 2. Tomorrow in the Lab we will be graded on the lab work we do. Next Thursday I have to hand in the assignment.

I am hoping to do some reading tonight of chapter two. I want to put in another hour tonight then go to the lab tomorrow. I will also spend some time tonight read books for my LAWS courses.

I am starting my term paper for LAWS4306B with this definition of addiction from the World Health Organization:
addiction, drug or alcohol: Repeated use of a psychoactive substance or substances, to the extent that the user (referred to as an addict) is periodically or chronically intoxicated, shows a compulsion to take the preferred substance (or substances), has great difficulty in voluntarily ceasing or modifying substance use, and exhibits determination to obtain psychoactive substances by almost any means.[Source, World Health Organization, <http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/terminology/who_lexicon/en/> (Cited, September 30, 2004).


I spent about an hour just now writing my first two pages.

I spent about half an hour marking and now I am emailing my supervisor and taking a break. I will mark some more on Friday morning then again Friday night/Saturday morning.
I am going to miss my numerical analysis course later today. Instead, I am staying up late from Thursday to catch up on homework. Also I will be getting more sleep and catching up on sleep too. For tomorrow I need to study partner assault and also prepare for giving a lab in STAT2507 at 16:30.

I just spent half an hour writing the beginning of all my written term work for LAWS4306B. I started both reaction papers by copying and pasting notes, from my blog on the readings these reaction papers react to , into open office extension doc files. I also wrote a little more of my outline for the term paper for this course and started the paper by copying and pasting some blog notes on an addictions culture book I read this summer.

I also hope to mark one section, the easyist section from the students STAT2606 assigment #1 this morning and take no more than one hour doing that if not only half an hour. I am just going to take a smoke break and then start that grading work.

Monday, September 27, 2004

I completed reading this week's readings for my LAWS4306B course on drug laws. I read a paper by Cathrine Carstairs on Chinese racism in making our drug laws more severe. This was in the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History and I needed to read it at the Morriset library at the University of Ottawa. I also borrowed a book on medical statistics and will be reading this book today.

Sunday, September 26, 2004

I am reading Oliver-Smith, Anthony Theorizing Vulnerability in a Globilized World: A Political Ecological Perspective in Bankoff, Greg, Frerks, Georg & Hilhorst, Dorothea. Eds. Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development & People (London: Earthscan, 2004) at 18. On this page there is an argument following explanation of ideological vulnerability concerning broadening semiotics to the context of politics and the economic. The arguments that Oliver-Smith points to are Gottdiener, M. Post-modern Semiotics: Material Culture and the Forms of Post-modern Life (Oxford, Blackwell, 1995) for a critique of the old school language is everything semiotics and Biersack, Aletta. 'Introduction: From the 'new ecology' to the new ecologies' [1999] American Anthropologist, 101(1): 5-18 for an argument to include the political and economic context of semiotic findings. I need to find these references now for my work on semiotics of the computer "how to press". Although I was reading this book as a follow up to a geography book on reactions to the terrorist attacks in September 2001, I found some ideas to continue my semiotics project. I note that my semiotics project did place the computer "how to press" in the human resources field (a business subfield and thus an economic fact), as a positive, and thus the semiotics scholars I had read in 2003 were already aware of this broader semiotics.
I completed reading chapter 6 in Campbell, Nancy. Using Women: Gender, Drug Policy and Social Justice (New York: Routledge, 2000) at 144-168. This shows me the issue of deflecting responibility to an individual level away from a social level. At least three male guitarists I have played with push this attitude blatently and with anger.

Saturday, September 25, 2004

I spent about an hour writing my research proposal. I had gotten some help creating an outline this past week. I used the outline to do the research proposal. Also the supervisor is allowing me to use the first person singluar in the paper. He says this keeps the hidden open. I spent about 5 hours on this course this week.

I attended all lectures this past week. I also attended my labs and gave labs as a TA. I managed to volunteer in health care for about three hours. I also volunteered in my union for a couple of hours. I am also breaking the communication barriers with other TA's in my school where I should be a better functioning union steward.

I am slowed right down this past week on the drug law course. I did get approval to explore a couple of topics for my term paper in this course. I also tonight made some point form notes on how these two papers might go.

I got a math software lab back with a good mark. I did though hand in some so so work on my first assignment. It was not that bad but did not fully answer the questions. I did though learn a lot from the whole assignment including the context of modern math experimentation using computers. I use Minitab, SAS and MATLAB this week. I taught about 30 people to use SAS and about 20 people to use Minitab.

Friday, September 24, 2004

I have worked five and a half hours now at teaching assistant work this week. I gave three labs. In two of the labs I gave a talk prepared by the instructor. In the third one I made up a lab based on the textbook. In this lab students behaved very well. I used Minitab today for the first time. So I have been finally assigned and contract signed to STAT2507 and STAT2606. These are similar courses, STAT2507 is the general science introduction to statistics course and STAT2606 is the business introduction to statistics course. I have had both instructors as my teachers of statistics before and we seem to get along just fine.

Our TA union had its first general members meeting for the fall term. I kept minutes of the meeting on the union laptop.

I was able to make an outline for my honours paper and borrowed some more books on my topic and also on computer ethics. I am slowly plodding through the drug law reading for next week. I got most of my homework done for later today. I need to put some more effort into it. I am glad I have printer and photocopy money to use for this school work. I will be on campus today for about two hours

I also might have to go to the U of O campus today and use their library. I am about to sleep and then I may stay awake until Saturday and attend a University aboriginal community open house in the early afternoon on Saturday.

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

I led a discussion on drugs law history yesterday. This was the faciliation week I will be graded on. The students didn't seem to be too interested in my questions which asked them to compare the laws and law formation in 1908 and 1911 with today's marijuana law reform. The professor though thought they were good questions. I said that the medical marijuana debate was just this decades flavour for a reason to decriminalise. I also critiqued the race aspect of drug laws saying the real darkness was that drug smoking is dirty. I also said that the Victorian women alone drinking her opium was more likely to be alone, isolated and less social, than men talking worldly topics in a circle smoking opium. Well the drug law course is underway now. I also played a radio broadcast of Buck Rogers to get at sinophobia and passed around a printed comic from the Internet featuring Ming the Merciless a typical Chinese villian in Western culture and from Flash Gordon.
I have a very busy Wednesday today. I start my official lab duties in my teaching assistant work today. Right after that I have a meeting for three hours in the afternoon concerning mental health and the government. Then I come back to campus for a union meeting where I must keep minutes on a laptop. Then I can relax and play a role playing game with friends in the evening. Then I must sleep only five hours and wake up for Thursday's morning class. Then right after class I have an appointment with a writing tutor to help me write my fourth year honours paper. Then I have a few hours off until I have lab duties in the late afternoon. I still must meet with the professor of this lab to find out how he wants me to run the lab. I must remember to pick up another SAS license today too and find some time in the next two days to complete my MATLAB homework due early Friday afternoon.

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

I got the week's reading for LAWS4306B done on Sunday. I wrote my facilition questions last week and am still happy with them. I just now printed out a web page that worked out to 8 printed pages. The web page shows Ming the Merciless a Chinese villian from the Flash Gordon comic and movie. This is my cultural example of sinophobia for the class today. So I am on schedule for this course. I have two possible topics for a term paper for this course and have the approval of the professor to start working on these topics.

I have some questions now for my research proposal for LAWS4908 and have an appointment with my supervisor for tomorrow. I also have an appointment on Thursday with a writing tutor to help me write this proposal.

With all this law courses homework done I will now read some numerical analysis. We are working on the problem of finding roots in non-linear equations. I need to catch up a bit on reading the textbook on that problem.

I attended the first lab in another lab section for STAT2606, so that I could see how the professor gives the lab as she won't be available to give the lab in the section I have been assigned. She is going to leave me her lab instruction notes for me to give the lab on Wednesday. I have a very busy Wednesday but a fairly relaxed Thursday. Today I have a fairly busy day but after 14:30 I can come home and sleep.

Saturday, September 18, 2004

I picked up two more books where chapters of these books must be read for certain week's of my drug law course. I have read some 55 pages of this week's reading with still 25 to go. I will read that tomorrow starting with the section on criminal code amendments in 1908 and 1911 as a result of the two opium acts.

Also today at school, I photocopied three journal articles for LAWS4306B. I have all but two of the reading now for this course. I started next week's readings but one reading next week is in a journal that is only at the University of Ottawa so I must travel over there to find it and photocopy it.

Also today at school I related some of the issues disabled students face in school to some learning assistants and tutors for their training. I did a one page hand out for them relating symptoms of mental illness with resulting problems in school. I met other successful disabled students also on the training panel.

I borrowed this book Behling, John H. Guidelines For Preparing The Research Proposal (New York: University Press of America, 1984), to help me write my research proposal for LAWS4908.

Thursday, September 16, 2004

I got the first question of my first assignment for MATH3806 answered using Maple to make a copy I can hand in on a printed page. I might redo this with MATLAB this Sunday or Saturday. It took me about an hour. I have about 70 pages to read in the text book in two weeks now so about 2 or 3 pages a day. I haven't read anything since I last reported on this textbook.

I volunteered to be on a panel this weekend. The panel is part of the training for learning assistants in the Paul Menton centre, the disabled student's centre at Carleton University.

I have about 50 pages to read of Giffen, P.J., Endicott, Shirley & Lambert, Sylvia. Panic and Indifference: The Politics of Canada's Drug Laws (Ottawa,ON: Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, 1991). Then I must prepare to faciliate a discussion for next Tuesday, of chapter 2 of that book. I should get this read by Monday so should read about 12 pages a day until Monday.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

I have been super busy with school work. I have attended both my first classes now. So I have started the study of drug law and must facilitate a discussion in the class next Tuesday on the history of Canadian drug laws. I have attended now two lectures in my numercial analysis course and have begun to use MATLAB and write some of my first assignment due next Friday, not this Friday. But this Friday I will have an in lab assignment to do. I also have met to discuss my honours paper with my supervisor. I must now write a research proposal that defines the questions I hope to answer in my paper. My supervisor was telling me that asking the right questions is the most important part of doing research.

I have been trying to settle into working as a teaching assistant but my work schedule keeps changing and I can't be sure what classes I am working in yet. I have also been attending various union meetings and events and have a meeting tomorrow at noon. I might be staying awake until then.

Monday, September 13, 2004

I was in the past week reading, Piragoff, Donald, K. Canada: Computer Crimes and Other Crimes against Information Technology in Canada Sieber, Ulrich. Ed. Information Technology Crime: National Legislation, Jus Informationis European Series on Information Law v 6 (Köln: Carl Heymanns Verlag, 1994). This covers the Supreme Court hacking case in 1980 of R. v. McLaughlin [1980] 2.S.C.R. 331, so I was wrong that no hacking case had gone to the Supreme court yet. This case prompted the newer laws that eventually in 1985 covered hacking or unauthorised use of a computer in the Canadian Criminal Code. This was a brief look at the history of the hacking legislation. I also read some legal technicalities concerning defining the difference between data and information. I have a fair amount more of this paper to read still.

I read a little of 1.3 in my MATH3806 textbook and have ten pages left to read in this section and chapter 1. I should find time to solve the exercises in MATLAB and print out my answers at school. I also have chapter two to read in the next two weeks and chapter 2 is 60 pages long so I should read at a pace of two pages per day. I was able to work in pen and ink on problem #1 in the assignment #1 for this MATH3806 course and this assignment is due September 24th I think. I want to present my assignment as a word processed document and also we are required to print out our MATLAB m files and output. I have only about 1.5 more hours to work on this course planned until Tuesday's second class. If I go to school this afternoon I should try to print out some of my MATLAB work and practice.

Sunday, September 12, 2004

I woke up tonight in the early evening and will stay up all night studying. In the morning I will attend a meeting concerning disAbilities on behalf of city hall. We are starting to look at next year's city budget. Also on Wednesday I have a meeting at city hall then that evening some volunteer tasks. I have classes on Tuesday and volunteer training on Tuesday night. I have the same thing Thursday and then have a lab on Friday then basically have the weekend off from work but can study then.
I bought a copy of a course pack by Woodside, Ann. Learning SAS Version 8 (Ottawa, ON: Carleton University, 2002). Ms. Woodside taught me ANOVA and is generally a supportive and friendly instructor in our school.
I cleaned up my office a fair amount. I am trying to get our third couch into my office and may do that tonight. This was I would have a nice comfortable place to study and place my books right beside myself. I have a couple of books on setting up home offices and can get some ideas from these books.
I did my usual lengthy emails and some short emails to professors. I bought a copy of Linux for Dummies Quick Reference. I also got a copy of the Computers of Star Trek. I took back the Data Mungling with Perl book and also the NAG library guide book that was almost 30 years old. I used the computers at school yesterday and used MATLAB for the first time to do some numerical analysis homework.

I got 2 hours done on that course, MATH3806, since Saturday morning and 3 hours done on law courses. I read more of the first week's readings for LAWS4306B and read more of Piragoff on computer crime law in Sieber's book for LAWS4908. Thus I have 2 more hours to put into MATH3806 before class on Tuesday, 3 more hours for LAWS4306B to complete reading the historical look at Canadian drug legislation and I would like to put in 6 more hours studying computer crime before I meet with my supervisor on Tuesday.

I have been hired again as a teaching assistant. This term I will be helping with MATH1004, Calculus for Engineering students and MATH2007 Elementary Calculus II. I gave a talk to some of the other TA's in the school about our union. Speaking of unions the support staff may have reached an agreement with the University now.

Saturday, September 11, 2004

I read the first section of chapter 1 of Mathews, John H. & Fink Kurtis D. Numerical Methods Using MATLAB, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 2004). I started and am almost completed reading section 1.2. There are three pages left in 1.2 then 13 pages in 1.3 and I am done until Tuesday evening. I have put about 2 hours so far out of class time on this course, MATH3806. I would like to go to school today and start the use of MATLAB, but have a volunteer committment today too.

I already opted out of attendance at my volunteer committment this morning. I must attend this afternoon or wait for my certification exam. Also I have missed one session so far in sexual assault. The storm rains on Thursday have brought me down and I had a busy first week of school. I was able to volunteer with my unions this week.

I spent an hour last night studying for LAWS4306B. I should get another two hours done on that course today and another two tomorrow. This will just be reading and keeping notes on my blog here.

I want to spend about four hours or a little more on the MATH3806 course this weekend and on Monday. I need to try MATLAB this weekend. For that I need to check the lab schedule and see if the lab is open on the weekend.

I just checked the school of mathematics and statistics web site and the lab is open daily on the weekend. I can also take back some books to our school library today. I have about 20 books out but am not reading some of them. Some of these books are math books I borrowed to explore nunmerical analysis before the course, MATH3806 began.

I put in about an 2 hours this past week on LAWS4908. I need to put in about 12 hours a week on this course so should put in another 8 this weekend. So that is 16 hours I plan to study this weekend and Monday. I have no classes on Monday or Wednesday this week. I may or may not have a lab this coming Friday. Most likely we do have our first lab that day. I have classes on Tuesday and Thursday. I will also visit my LAWS4908 supervisor on Tuesday morning to start to discuss expectations and plan out the course and supervision of the paper.

Friday, September 10, 2004

I am slowly plodding through Manning, Peter K. Policing new social spaces, in Sheptycki, J.W.E. Ed. Issues in Transnational Policing (London: Routledge, 2000). This is a little dated and I think the potential in police computer systems is more actualised these days than when this paer was written in 2000. Also the high tech euphoria has come down a bit since then.

I bought copies of Watt, David & Fuerst, Michelle. The 2005 Annotated Tremeear's Criminal Code, student ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 2004) and McGill Law Journal. Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 5th ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 2002). These two books are reference books.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

I printed some lengthy 60 pages documents, two of them. One is an Ontario Appeals Court case concerning marijuana law, the other is a Law Commission of Canada(LCC) paper looking at what constitutes a crime. These papers are for my two law courses. The case is for the second last week of the drug law course. The LCC paper was suggeted to me by my supervisor for my honours paper. My course notebooks are prepared. I have spent about 5 hours on each courses now out of class study time.

Today is the first day of classes. I have been helping a bit with the TA union this week but I really need to help on Friday when I present the union to new math and statistic's TA's at the TA orientation session in the department.

I have gotten my textbooks purchased now. I read the review of calculus section in the numerical analysis textbook this morning and last night. I did start the practice exercises in that section. My first numerical analysis class is today. We have some 25 or 26 classes in this course. I have spent about 1 hour this week on that course. I have spent about two hours on that course previous to this week and during this past month. In the past I have tried to read some books on scientific computing and numerical analysis. I am ready to be at my class early this morning.

But before my class I will show some solidarity with the university support workers union and walk the info picket line with them. I will take some photos of the picket line. I am becoming a journalist with an article published this week and now more labour picket photos. The support union CUPE2424 have had the universities contributions to their pension fund reduced by the university. Our TA union is also in negotiations right now. We are still talking and seeing if we can work things out without a strike vote.

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

It is a dirty business buying school books. They are generally expensive. I compared prices at Amazon.ca and the school's book store and there is no difference except in softcover being available at Amazon. One fellow worker will have 300$ in books for one course. Another sister worker's daughter must pay 1600$ for books for one term in college. I suggested she shop at Chapters as that is what a college student friend does to save money. I am buying Canadian law books today. They are just a basic legal writing citation guide book and a Canadian Criminal Code book. All in all I will spend almost 300$ today to buy school books

Saturday, September 04, 2004

I have some reactions to Becker's chapter four now. This chapter attempts and does a good job of describing group processes and sanctions concerning the use of marijuana. From a criminological perspective this maybe seen as morals, but in my view this is a limited view of morals. "A friend with weed is a friend indeed" suggests that supplying some one with weed is a good act. Do you see where I am going with this? I mean morals and ethics are about doing good deeds, only in criminology do morals mean acting in the approval of group values. This is, in fact, Becker's main point in this book Outsiders. He defines deviance via groups. Also, one defintion of law is that it supports social ordering, in other words behaviour is approved by group agreed values. Other readings in this course suggest this idea of law is falling apart in late modernity, but that's a side point here. Philosophy does not always need a group to suggest morals. Only really cultural relativism suggests groups have power over morals. Ok, maybe the Kantian universal is a socially derived ethic but the Kantian is better known as against the relative and setting absolutes for ethical behaviour. I think I want to look more at the consequential ethical view of crime.

In fact, marijuana dealing could be considered as it lies in ethical behaviour fully analysed. Does giving some one pot help them? What of other acts such as say, painting someone's house for them including smoking pot at the end of the day of painting? Ethical behaviour could be associated with the drug users but might not include the drug directly. In fact, I have found that marijuana users as an in-group that Becker identifies well, have a certain in-group solidarity which could cause and does cause some to behave ethically, that is behave in a good and helpful way to other in-group members. People in the in-group would rather work for, do favours for, support other in-group members. All these support actions could be considered to be good acts and thus morally and ethically proper in their own right, but Becker does not open up the word morals very widely to see all this. He does leave it possible in his book to make further conlusions but he only really looks at morals as creating sanctions against use. This is about as narrow a view as the stereotype he gets this idea from.

Of course, a broader look at the musicans would look at thier productivity in bringing music to the world as a good act. Productivity is the thing supposed to be lacking in the moral view of the stereotype. Yet, many of our best and most popular rock 'n' roll music has been made by drug users. Also, the creation of the in-group solidarity is by itself a good thing in that it produces an ordering and this is a difficult enough task that it should be applauded when it has happened like in the case of dance hall musicians. Numerous are the stories of musicians overcoming their drug problems because they got help from other musicians to get clean. Creating social solidarity is, as far as, I can see apriori a good act.

I just completed reading the first paper after reading the introduction on Thursday and Friday in Sheptycki, J.W.E. Ed. Issues in Transnational Policing (London: Routledge, 2000). The first article was Johnston, Les. Transnational Private Policing: the Impact of Global Commercial Security. This article was more of an economics piece or business report on international commercial security companies than an in depth theoretical piece. He does suggest that private security could produce some good results. In particular he suggested the preventative approach of commerical risk reduction could be likened to harm reduction in prisons as opposed to the punishment style corrections linked to reactive policing. It seems the beginning of this book is mostly terminologial giving me words to use in the study of policing.
I managed to make five pages of notes on this blog in four days.
My latest study topic is policing. I have it seems been studying directly the policing literature for about a month now. In four months I could find my self studying policing in a criminal law issues course at school. That course starts in January 2005. No I don't want to be a police person or professional but the topic is interesting and certainly related to my present work as a security guard and my latest volunteering in victims services. Some studies suggest preventative policing that we security guards do is actually similar to a more humane approach to corrections in that reactive punishment is not practiced but rather harm reduction and rehabilition is the prefered positive outcome.
Grief needs to be expressed for children heading back to school who didn't make it this year. The crimes in a school terroism incident are chilling me right now. My tears of rage are shed for these poor victims. My going back to school is great this year but some people somewhere in the world will now never have a chance to study because they have been murdered by terrorists. This is sad and the worlds armys should put down there weapons once and for all. I guess, Russia will never survive her military excursions.

Thursday, September 02, 2004

I completed reading Sheptycki, J.W.E. The 'drug war': learning from the paradigm example of transnational policing in Sheptycki, J.W.E. Ed. Issues in Transnational Policing (London: Routledge, 2000). This is for week 6 of the LAWS4306B course and will be taken up on October 19th, 2004. The topic that day will be policing and drugs. So I was wrong that this paper was included for the books' main arguments concerning transnational perspectives in the social sciences. It is not meant to be a paper just on the topic of drug laws and international perspectives. Instead I must see this paper as contributing to my knowledge of policing and drug laws in the international sense. In fact, the end and later half of the paper is more specifically about how policing internationally is solidified around drug law enforcement.

In conclusion Sheptycki makes three points, one non-state actors affected international drug law formation in the past and could act to reform laws and this might be something or someone, while difficult to predict, to be watched for in the international drug law scene. But also this reflection will help us study transnational policing and the international state system as this paper calls it. Second point, is that sub state actors, namley officals in charge of national agencies, play a role in international relationships. Again suggested for study are these roles that Sheptycki feels are ignored by senior state officals. Third point, Sheptycki suggests we take away from this article is that police studies must look at what is termed "High Policing" rather than looking at the local municipal and national level of policing or the study I have done on my own all summer namely studying policing work and tools. Thus, although the first two points concern law making and law reform, the third point suggests something about the focus of police studies and carries the topic with an international dimension. But international drug laws are not really looked at until week 9 November 9th. I guess this article prepares us for week 9 at the same time as it works in week 6.

Although the International policing efforts around anti-terrorism in the 1970's is mentioned as equivalent to the drug law policing in the 1990's, the article was written in 2000 and thus does not account for the obvious change in focus from drugs back to anti-terrorism that has occured this past few years. Somehow I was thinking that terrorists had managed to be the actors that changed this focus of international policing. Also interesting is what could be become of Canada as an international relevant state when we change our marijuana laws shortly. Needless to say I can totally agree with Sheptycki that it is the bureaucracy that will act to prevent the reform of the drug laws.

I am up late studying and waiting for the morning paper that I will deliver to the neighbourhood, then I will study and stay up until my Staples order of computer/school supplies arrives, than I will sleep. I will start the cycle of night studies again on Thursday night Friday morning. The next appointment I have is on Friday at 4 PM so hopefully if my sleep plan works I will sleep only once before Friday's appointment. This will be bad for my physcial and mental health but good for my productivity in the short term. Maybe I can get a fair amount completed in my legal studies work for the term in the next few days before classes even begin.

I reread the parts of Sheptycki, J.W.E. The 'drug war': learning from the paradigm example of transnational policing in Sheptycki, J.W.E. Ed. Issues in Transnational Policing (London: Routledge, 2000) that I first read on the day I borrowed this book. These sections in this paper start with a suggestion of the wider implications of studying transnational policing to the study of globalisation, then covers the historical interplay of domestic drug policy and international law. Domestic policy in the USA(prohibitionists with criminal law results), and then Europe(prohibitionists and drug companies with medical regulation results), is described and sequenced with the international legal and geopolitical events such as the American-Spanish war and briefly the European world wars.

Somewhere in this section is coverage of the drug laws being used to control immigrants to the USA. But this leaves me with an understanding of Canada that either must be little brother to the USA in terms of immigrant control or leaves me with no understanding of what might have been our drug control history. It also seems very Euro centred. This is the International section of this LAWS4306B course? Parla vous Français?

I just read the preface and executive summary of What is a Crime? by the Law Commission of Canada. This study or paper was recommended to me both by my new supervisor in my honours paper course and my Mom's roommate. It had been written about by Dan Gardener a local criminal law journalist. My mom's roommate had sent me the link to the article a few months ago after Gardener wrote about it and my mom's roommate Hugh had read the article. I had read it a little back then. Today I was struck by the psychological language with the word behaviour used extensively when what is meant is actions by individuals. Near the end of the executive summary some mention is made of the difficulty with viewing crimes as individualistic in other words individuals being held responsible for their acts. I would prefer an objective or is it subjective standard of intention, where one looks at the group an individual belongs too such as a teen hacker as part of the group of limited income youngsters, thus not being punishable for their intent with the same standard for intent as a group of middle class high income Internet users in their thirties.
An exciting book chosen for reading in LAWS4306B is the book, Sheptycki, J.W.E. Ed. Issues in Transnational Policing (London: Routledge, 2000). It is actually only the 7th and last chapter by Sheptycki that concerns us in LAWS4306B, titled The 'drug war': learning from the paradigm example of transnational policing. I might also have to write a reaction to this chapter. This chapter suggests other topics though in public law such as governance and the whole book opens up to other fields as studies that might gain by studying policing, so this chapter could open up future topics, rather than just fill in work for LAWS4306B.

Like the Becker though I began to read the beginning of this book and would also like to read chapter 6 titled, Policing new social spaces by Manning, Peter K.. This chapter 6 seems like it could be helpful for understanding my computer crime topic from both a policing angle and also give it a little more of an international perspective.

I dropped LAWS4903C, international criminal law issues, a few days ago and read the now posted outline for the course early on Wednesday afternoon. It looks like it will be a very informative course and very difficult, as far as, these legal studies courses go. It is also very comprehensive in its scope and it is a shame that I did not stick with that course. But I have started to study the LAWS4306B concerning drugs and drug users and the state and thus am going to stick with this drug law course for the fall. Also this drug law course is taught by a full time faculty member and those are the people I must get to know better in an academic sense, so that I can continue to study with them if I choose the law department to do my graduate school within.

Also at this point the fine tuning of my course choices is being done by scheduled time of the seminars, lectures, and labs, given that this is a key factor to in my study success. I am sticking with the one math course, MATH3806, in numerical analysis using MATHLAB because this both leads to the course MATH3807, mathematical software, and is needed to upgrade my B.Math to honours level.

At the same time because this could be my last undergraduate year, I have to, in the next two months, apply to Law School, teachers college, grad school and any other school's I can afford to apply to for Fall 2005.

Like I said yesterday or the day before. I finally read a classic in criminology namely, Becker, Howard. The Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (New York: The Free Press, 1963). I read the first four chapters and may have to write a reaction paper or in class presentation on chapter four. This fourth chapter concerns the constraints on use of marijuana including bad trips and reasons for first use, and continued use of this drug. The study is made up of interviews from the musician community that the author, Becker was himself a member of, but it is unclear if Becker was himself a user of drugs. The first chapter outlines his main contributions to criminology concerning defintions of deviance and the notion of the outsider. This includes the concepts of primary and secondary deviance.

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

I want to complete my BA in Legal studies by the end of next summer. So this is the main goal in choosing courses. I need to take two legal studies courses this term to do that. One course is a full year course.

In this full year course, LAWS4908 I will be writing an honours essay with Neil Sargent supervising me. We have agree on a paper that questions the definition of computer crime. So that course counts as one course for both fall and winter terms.

The other legal studies course might be one looking at drugs, drug users and the state, LAWS4306B and Dawn Moore is the professor. I have read Howard Becker's the Outsiders yesterday and today because this book is one of the weeks readings for LAWS4306B. I have downloaded other weeks' readings and have browsed some of the other readings in the library. This course is a critical look at drug laws.

But instead of this law course I might try a course in international criminal law issues, LAWS4903C. I haven't decided which of these last two I will study. The international criminal law would be good to know for computer crime studies but the drug law course would also be useful as this is the most common criminal law issue I face in Canadian society. Also the laws concerning marijuana might be changed very soon so this would be a good course to follow these changes closely.

Ok that's two courses and usually what I study in terms of course load. It is also officially a full time load for a disabled student. I will need two law courses in winter one being the last half of LAWS4908, the paper and the other maybe medical issues in criminal law, like the insanity defence for instance.

But this summer I was enjoying helping teach statistics and last school year I enjoyed the people in our math department where I worked as a teachers assistant. I also borrowed and read and am reading a number of math books successfully. So I wanted to add a third course in math or statistics to my study load.

My dad and brother have now agreed that I should be supported to try a heavier course load. My argument is that I am doing great in school including a top of the class mark this summer so I should be allowed to see if I can recover fully to a full time job or study load. If I find it too much I can go back to a lower course load in January. I am very pleased with their support. But because of this I will not apply to be a teaching assistant in two departments this term. I will only try to be a TA in the math department ot the law department at the same time.