Armchair Academic

The past few days have been interesting to say the least. I'm quite pleased with myself that I've worked exceptionally hard the past four days to bring myself to a position where I've entered all the data to my evil database, which will come in very handy for my research project that I'll start writing up soon... but better still, I have managed to plough through lots of books on World War I, taking notes, and have just this minute finished my 2,500 word essay. As always, I was quite disappointed that I had taken too many notes, and so an essay which could have been about twice the size had to be kept in check.

So that's one down, three to go. I'm trying not to think of that statistic, but I suppose writing about it isn't going to help me forget. I'm trying to take one day at a time at the moment, with lots of small goals to achieve. It's been going well, and so tomorrow the goal is to get together the books I need for my USA essay, so a trip to the library is on the cards.

Meanwhile, things are not so rosy with one of my housemates. He's going through a rough patch at the moment with life, and so me and another housemate sat up with him till 2:30am last night discussing his problems and what to do about them. This isn't the first time I've done this with him, and so he kept talking about how he felt like he'd let me down. It was a very tricky situation; it's extremely difficult to convince someone who has no self-worth that you aren't being insincere when you tell them that they do have value after all. They just don't believe you. I had been worried about him for weeks, because I'd noticed he's been starting to drink a lot more alcohol than normal... and a couple of weeks ago I confronted him about it but he clammed up and made excuses. Now the wheels have fallen off, and we have to put it back together again.

So it's been an interesting test of psychology. I've always been fascinated in this subject, not least because of what I sometimes go through... and I feel I came out with an admirable level of rhetoric (read: "bullshit") to help him deal with the situation, and it actually surprised me how clearly I was expressing myself. I'm not a metaphors man, but I managed to use ones involving maps, playgrounds and falling over. I can get into frames of mind where I'm not entirely sure where what I'm saying is coming from... but it seemed to make sense at the time. Either way, it looked like it helped, and so - hopefully - he can start to rebuild. I'm just going to have to keep a watch out for him... since I know none of my housemates have been. Let's just say they were shocked when I tried to convince them two weeks ago that the Housemate In Question was starting to turn into an alcoholic...

Anyway. I have the night off as a reward for Good Behaviour. Time for some Deal or No Deal, followed swiftly by Rory Bremner. Then probably a film. Bliss.