I've got group meeting coming up at the start of next month and I've realized that while I've progressed in my plans, I haven't actually collected any meaningful new data since my last presentation in January. This does not bode well for my thesis proposal... Climbing's been going great, found a belay partner and starting to top-rope more. May go adventuring to outdoor climbing locations when the weather and workload finally stabilize. Dancing has been an unfulfilled want due to a re-damaged knee. I've taken to biking everywhere now because walking outdoors for more than 15 minutes has become skeletally stressful. I've no idea what an hour of even salsa would do to me, so for now I've taken to consuming media about mental illness and drug abuse. I've just started Serial Experiments Lain, which I believe kleinbl00 and a few others were recommending. I also found a touching documentary last week that followed the relationships of several individuals on the spectrum. I normally have trouble taking shows / histories about romance seriously, but this felt like a real punch in the heart. Any other suggestions? The book of trainspotting has been sitting in my library for about a month now, but was pushed aside by all the other DFW and GRRM stories I've been reading.
Media about mental illness and drug abuse: I wholeheartedly recommend Methland. Trainspotting isn't so much about drug abuse or mental illness as it's about Scottish thugs. My suggestion is you read the glossary first. I didn't know it was there until I'd finished the book. Tim Hunter directed a movie called The Saint of Washington Park which is about mental illness and homelessness. It's okay. A Beautiful Mind isn't about mental illness or John Nash; it's about Akiva Goldsman and Ron Howard's magical imaginary friends fantasy about what they think moviegoing audiences believe mental illness is about. Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly, on the other hand, does a pretty good job of exploring schizophrenia in 1961. The gold standard druggie movie is probably Drugstore Cowboy, William S. Burroughs and all: My sister keeps harping on The Glass Castle because she says I'll relate to it. The primary difference between me and my sister is my sister thinks my mother is a lovable scamp who happens to be batshit insane. I have a bit more of a "Mommie Dearest" perspective.
To add: If you can find this book it's... hardcore. It's of debatable providence and is far older than Amazon would lead you to believe; "Lara Jefferson" is a pseudonym for someone who has never revealed their true identity and "These are my Sisters" is basically a diary kept by a woman in an insane asylum during and shortly after WWII, the period that was effectively the nadir of mental health treatment. There's no way to verify that any of it happened but from what I know of the treatment of mental illness during the period (parts of maybe six books) it's truthy. Whoever wrote it may not have been in an asylum but they at least worked there.