Grateful for getting out and doing my Saturday morning ruck this morning. Started a little later than usual and was still sore from going hard on Thursday but that’s mostly gone now. Funny that.
Grateful for getting out and doing my Saturday morning ruck this morning. Started a little later than usual and was still sore from going hard on Thursday but that’s mostly gone now. Funny that.
We, as a family use Apple Music because that’s what I pay for and we’re happy enough. The only thing that tempts me to switch to Spotify is that shared playlists online always use that, never Apple Music.
Q. What’s the maximum distance I can outsprint a 5 year old on a bike?
A. Not as far as I thought. Also, I tired a hell of a lot quicker. Also, I feel a bit sick.
Huush - Full Performance (Live on KEXP) - YouTube
No idea what inspired me to click this link from KEXP’s YouTube channel. I follow it but rarely click anything honestly. Occasionally I’ll go back to one of Kae Tempest’s or IDLES videos. I don’t know why I did, but I’m glad I did. They are described as deciding to…
And I’m on board for that. There’s only a single song on Apple Music so I’ve been playing this short set on repeat in the meantime.
I just feel weird about teaching at the moment.
I struggle with feeling like I’m not doing my job well enough, because I don’t have enough time. But I don’t have enough time because I go to the gym for my physical and mental health or because I go home so I can spend time with my children.
I’ve started recording the things I’ve watched but it’s a bit plain. Does anyone else do this on their Micro.blog? I know there are other websites but I don’t want to do that. Basically, can we have a Bookshelf but for TV and films?!
a term time shadow
of myself, and my glory
a choice I have made
I feel like a different person in the holidays. Like work takes so much of me that I am a shadow of myself during term time.
We’re enjoying the new Mr and Mrs Smith a lot. It’s strange but I’m really enjoying it.
In the spirit of ‘Stinge Watching’, we watched the original Mr and Mrs Smith last night to drag it out a bit. It was ok but I much prefer the new one.
It’s 8am and the kids are still in bed! BEST START TO THE HOLIDAY EVER! Just half-listening to a webinar on Enhancing Classroom Talk in International Schools while having a coffee and chatting to a friend.
My new coffee brew timer is The Offsping’s - All I Want. Which at 1:55 of shouty noise is a little short but I can count to fiver and I’m sure James Hoffman won’t mind for his Clever Dripper method.
I think I get bonus points for managing to use it as a cold shower timer too.
Just had my last Lemsip*, now have to decide if I want to pay an extortionate amount to buy more on Taobao.
*Morrison’s own but it’s the same.
Enjoying the The Rest is Entertainment podcast - that I watch on Youtube with Marina Hyde and Richard Osman. Always been a fan of her writing so I very much enjoy this.
A busy day at school. Lots of things popping that involved lots of talking to colleagues. I could go home and do more work after working from 7:30-5:00 and it would certainly make tomorrow a little easier. But I need to stop and take a mental break.
I made a list of the things I could do instead of using my phone.
Read, write, draw, meditate, go for a walk, watch tv (without my phone), learn.
The list was endless but didn’t work for me at all. I was looking at it wrong, I think.
After reading about sofa I’ve been much better. I’m doing things because I want to. I’m better at sitting and scribbling the first thing that comes into my head in the Muji fold flat notebook I bought, I’ve been spending some time learning Korean using Duolingo and through talking to the Korean students in my class, I signed up for omg.lol and have been enjoing being horrible at trying to do some to personalise my blog.
Now, I’m doing things because I want to and that’s all. If I do it for a 100 days, that’s cool and if I don’t, that’s ok too. I like this new way of thinking about it.
Got Nintendo’s Expansion Pack today so can now play the extra Mario Kart maps but also, a load of N64 and Sega Genesis cough Megadrive games like Revenge of Shinobi.
The kids staring, individually, a screen is bad but the three of us, collectively, staring at a screen and laughing is a whole other thing, I think. It feels different anyway. I am knackered after the weekend. Tomorrow I can go be a teacher and rest a while…
My third job, after family and work, continues.
That of trying to find a new job. It’s ups and downs. I want to do it properly, but finding the time to that is hard after the other two. It’s also stressful for a few different reasons. One of which is it means our family will be moving, definitely to a new city but potentially a new country too. The other is that I just struggle with the whole process. Of crafting my cv and cover letter appropriately and being happy with it. Of, already worrying about interviews when that’s not even on the horizon. I just find it a lot.
I teach because I enjoy teaching and this is not! I’m good at the teaching part and find it difficult selling myself, highlighting my good attributes.
I have a single resolution this year. Just that one. I will endeavour to complete this task regardless. I won’t avoid it when I’m tired or anxious. When I’m stressed or angry. I will always do it. I can’t not, really. It takes seconds. If I can’t do this then I can’t do anything. But in my head I will remember the converse. I I can do this, I can do anything. So I do this thing so that I can do anything. I have a thousand more resolutions. I pick them up from the ground. I borrow them from friends and family who give them with love. I steal them from strangers whom I silently give thanks to. I do them until they become habit or until I let them fall because they didn’t work. They are not resolutions for the year but for-ever and ever or for just this moment. Both work. I have many, but one that matters.
I’ve got all these things floating around in my head.
Anne Mueller’s piece about pain. This Ask Metafilter for it’s discussion about the line between pushing our children too hard and not hard enough (is that a thing?) and how when we put our children first, we become a not even close second.
This won’t be the last time you’re faced with options that are good for your kid and bad for you;
And how I do get pretty decent sleep and exercise regularly and eat ok(ish) and that these things are keep me sane despite feeling overwhelmed constantly. Sabrina Benhaim’s Poem - Explaining My Depression To My Mother.
“Mom, I am the party, only I am a party I don’t want to be at” is boucing around my head.
That I heard sampled on Fred Again..’s New Year Mix on Apple Music. Which I did because there’s only so much I can listen to his Boiler Room mix before it becomes a problem. But seriously, I do love his Actual Life albums. This Oatmel comic on compliments.
Steve Makofsky’s Makoism newsletter too, for being one of the few things or places on the Internet I actually read instead of letting my screen-adled brain skim over. See also Kottke. I keep meaning to donate something but I’m too busy spending my money on things that aren’t important to me. He posted a link to this article Humans Need Play and that’s in my head too recently.
Under stress, we focus on what we need to do: submit the project, feed the kid. Perhaps we find time for what we should do: answer the email, clean the counters. But under pressure, we tend to drop the things that feel… optional. Frivolous perhaps. In particular, play.
And how the regular-ish games of table tennis I play with a colleague is probably also keeping me saner than I realise.
The opposite of play is not work – the opposite of play is depression. Dr Stuart Brown.
Say goodbye to the ‘tiger mom’. Welcome to the school of jellyfish parenting
I feel this. In China too, so many of the students in my class have countless after school lessons/clubs/activities.
I read it in Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting too, which I really need to get around to finishing.
“Few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children’s happiness than for their success.”2 In extreme cases, the “press for success” can reach a fever pitch, such that the child’s present is essentially mortgaged to the future. Activities that might bring meaning or enjoyment are sacrificed in a ceaseless effort to prepare for Harvard (I’ve come to refer to this process as “Preparation H”). The bottom line is never far from the minds of such parents, who weigh every decision about what their children do in school, or even after school, against the yardstick of how it might contribute to future glories. They are not raising children so much as living résumés, and by the time high school arrives, the kids have learned to sign up for activities strictly to impress college admissions committees, ignoring (or, eventually, losing sight of) what they personally find interesting in the here-and-now.
Really think about it. What’s the smallest number of hours you could work per week and keep your boss happy?
Funny this came up because we had a conversation at work and a colleague told me they felt bored. After a moment, I realized that I don’t ever feel bored. There’s always more I feel like I should be doing. That if I dared to feel bored it was because I wasn’t working hard enough or doing my job properly.