Omar

We talk about Christmas and I try to make the most of my premium subscription!

This timelapse of the song Better Days by Radical Face. The technicality of it wasn’t my cup of tea but some of the words caught my attention.

Particularly…

And your head is pouring gasoline
On the person you prefer to be

Which sums it up pretty well.

Radical Face also wrote the second of three songs I used to play off an old and battered iPod Nano plugged into one of those little speaker sets that I used as my morning/wake up songs.

In order

1. Lanterns On The Lake - I will lay you down
2. Radical Face - Welcome Home
3. MOPP - Dream About You

And this was when I moved to Manchester to live in the room at the top of K’s house on a whim. Though whim is probably the wrong word, ‘because I saw no reason not too’ is probably a better way to put it. Which is also how I moved to China and Beijing and then Chongqing and then time passed and now living here is normal. When really it’s anything but.

For the last few weeks, really.

Today, I realised, maybe they’re connected?

I read a post on a forum of teachers working abroad about not feeling great about about not being able to go home at this time and that being hard.

Not seeing immediate family is fairly normal for me but we normally see Mum and Dad at least once a year, if not twice (!) and now it’s been a while and maybe that’s starting to get to me?

I read yesterday about how Austin Kleon was writing about there being no finish line and talked about the Big Dog’s Backyard which is a race, of sorts, where you have an hour to 4.1677miles and if you can do that, you do it again and again and again.

the race format where you are always tied for the lead….
until you give up..
the race format where anyone can win.
all they have to do is to never quit.

It’s not surprising it’s from the man who started The Barkley Marathon. One of those things I’d never do but would like to, it’s a little out there. I like that even if I don’t like running but there was a time when a friend and I did 35miles in a day just because and that was different. Maybe because it was outside, the UK has some beautiful countryside.

Which is a round-about way of getting to my point, I read about someone doing The Character Mile where you run a mile a day. I was considering doing something, for me that’s normally burpees, so I’m going ot try and step outside my comfort zone a little.

Since I started reading it at 10pm last night I walked the 3.2km home today and that’ll have to do for the first two days. I also drank 2 beers as I did it, but we’ll see if I stick with that…

A colleague of some student’s parents* left China and tested positive on arrival in their home country. Since they didn’t know where they caught it, on the plane or the airport or at work - they tested a whole lot of people by all accounts. Including a lot of our students. School was closed today as a precaution. We found out just not, in the afternoon, that school would be open again tomorrow and that some students will be quarantined. So yesterday and today were abnormal. We had to prepare online learning for today, sent approximately a thousand messages within our team, made a 5 page PDF in English and Chinese, had a Zoom session with 20 ish students and looked at their work that their parents had posted.

And all I can think about is how I’ve been trying to do too much and feeling powerless to stop myself. I can feel it. That I need to stop and do something that isn’t make me stressed or anxious or stressed and anxious simultaneously. That thing isn’t much - sit and watch some tv, or read or write but it would be to just do that thing. Which is where I struggle. The last few weeks haven’t been great, to be sure I’ve done some nice things but maybe I haven’t noticed. I’ve been, I am, trying to do everything I can at work and for my family and it’s been wearing me down.

It’s funny because it started when I realised that I was trying to do work and family and trying to socialise and that I needed to stop. I felt better for making that decision but now feel worse as a result. It was the right decision, is the right decision but it’s just turned out that it has seemed to be making things worse and not better. I feel like those parents on TV who are dramatically tired. I’ve never felt like that before, I do know. And maybe it’s just that work is a bit much and I haven’t been feeling a 100% either and exercise has fallen away. Who knows.

In any case, I’ve been wanted to put something down but well, I’ve been too busy. To be sure, my day is draining, I’m surrounded by small children from 6:30am until Yumo decides he wants to sleep between 8pm and 10pm. That’s hard. Being patient all day, or trying to be. Beating myself up when I’m not. The thing is, I’m not sure what i’d do differently…

So, yes. This post happened because I was finally not in my normal routine and I caught myself becoming aware that I do need to stop sometimes and that being on all day is apparently not a great thing for your physical and emotional health. Who knew?!

*those apostrophes, where JH when you need her?