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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.