Kevin and keeping calm

The environment in my flat has changed. The most noticeable change, other than the massive TV I'm looking at now, is the smell. Suddenly this place smells human.

My flatmate - let's call him Kevin - has had an even messier past than I guessed. He's got three kids to two different women. The two eldest are already teenagers; the youngest is four. Those aren't problems that simply go away. He used to chain-smoke and drink like a fish; I'd be surprised if his drug use wasn't/isn't restricted to legal substances. He's talked about his depression; I noticed he had a shoe box with "Kevin's Meds" written on it. Last night he had an anxiety attack and was unnecessarily embarrassed.
Kevin is trying to make positive changes. He's just started a web design course, at what to me is exorbitant cost.

I saw my counsellor on Tuesday. She said I still haven't got over the slow-motion car crash of three years ago when I got the actuarial job here in Wellington. She also said that by coming off my antidepressants I'm regaining emotions that were suppressed, and I should stay off them for that reason. I saw my (newer) doctor yesterday. I asked her if I could stay off the antidepressants but go on beta-blockers instead to help with my anxiety, and she was fine with that. With the old doctor the outcome would have been totally different. 

It was Bob Marley Day so both Kevin and I had the day off. We were both trying to use the internet at the same time and an IP address conflict was giving us all kinds of problems. I think Kevin fixed it on his computer and we're OK now. I applied for another job, this time with the council, but I don't expect my application to get very far.

It hasn't been a bad week at work. My boss has taken the week off. It would be a neat arrangement, we each take alternate weeks off - if I could arrange that I wouldn't be looking for another job.

There was a lot of discussion about flags last week (and a little bit today as you'd expect). I'm up for changing it, but not to the silver fern on a black background. Yes it would be distinctive alright, and I like the silver fern as an emblem, but I think a national flag needs an injection of colour, and why does it need to be the same as what our sports teams wear? How much blue is in the Italian flag, or orange in the Dutch flag, or white in the German flag? Or, for that matter, green and yellow (I know they call it gold) in the Australian flag?

Here's a really good article about the guy who claims to have survived 13 months at sea. The author of the article says he wouldn't cope very well in that situation, and I know I wouldn't either. And I don't even feel like a particularly modern male. (The article reminds me that I should get Life of Pi out on DVD, now that I've got a near-cinematic screen to view it on.)