Fell down a bit this afternoon with using my phone but had lunchw ith Lyra, wrapped some presents am caught up on His Dark Materials, did a lesson of the Chinese course and cooked dinner while Elise watched Moana. So it’s not been so bad.
Fell down a bit this afternoon with using my phone but had lunchw ith Lyra, wrapped some presents am caught up on His Dark Materials, did a lesson of the Chinese course and cooked dinner while Elise watched Moana. So it’s not been so bad.
I’m trying to be more focused today, possibly tomorrow too, which mostly means not picking my phone up every ten seconds and using my computer more purposefully. Today’s struggle was trying to sit through of all of this TED talk without opening a new browser window to search for the speaker’s name or sending a message to someone about it. I managed it, which I’m pretty proud of.
It’s called Want to change the world? Start by being brave enough to care and I liked it a lot because it was something I benefited from hearing.
This time I woke up when the youngest crawled into bed with us sometime between 12 and 5am. Then the eldest joined us around 5:30. It this isn’t nice. I don’t know what is.
I feel like I’m better at knowing when i’m reaching my ‘breaking point’, especially with regards to my children and that point where I need to do something before I lost my patitence.
Though as I thought about writing this in my head I felt like breaking point are the wrong words since, it suggests that it’s a one time thing and not something that happens on a semi-regular basis.
I felt it today with the kids, being away in the hotel for a couple of days was nice, it really was but it got a bit much at the end.
What to do is when I notice it’s happening is a work in progress.
These two links popped up though that felt relevant：
From the latter link is this line, which reasonated a whole lot because it says what I’ve been trying to do recently.
Try to put how you want to feel ahead of what you want to be or even do.
We’ve come to a hotel for two nights with two friends, we’re on our third bottle of wine, the kids were up till too late, we’ve not eaten much proper food, mostly biscuits, it feels as close to Christmas as it’s going to get!
Raffles in Chongqing.
Name writing
Did not like the Ted Lasso finale. It was perfect.
What’s your favourite Christmas film?
Bonus questions: What’s your favourite kid’s Christmas film?
I’d got this card for Lyra for Xmas but broke it out yesterday at McDonalds because it felt like a good time1. I’d found it when looking for thank you cards for my team. It says, 好爱你 (hǎo ài nǐ) which literally translates as ‘good love you’ but actually translate as ‘(I) really love you’.
1There was a staff quiz and I didn’t want to go, because at the moment me time trumps social time, but I’d had a couple of beers on the way home and it seemed like a good idea but then we stopped for Friday McDonalds dinner and suddenly it semed like a bad idea.
Yesterday I was thinking about this quote a lot:
If you always do what you’ve always done,
you’ll always get what you’ve always got.
Henry Ford
Especially as the semester has come to the end and I can’t help myself start thinking about the next one.
Yumo has a brief chat
Got gifted this. Looking for suggestions beyond eat it with a spoon. Which is also why I haven’t opened it.
I have a soft spot for some of Tiesto’s early mixes, particularly In Search of Sunrise 2 and Magik 7. Plenty of tracks that I love, I think partly because they connect me to an earlier time.
Both are on Apple Music but not Spotify unfortunately.
Just remembered that tomorrow is Trance Thursday and that has cheered me up!
We were due to fly (2 hours maybe) to the south coast of China (so not leaving China) in a week for a few days in the sun (only a few, hotel rooms get claustrophobic with 2 small children quickly) but after a few more cases appearing both in the city we’re in and around China (not massive amounts by any stretch, but still) we’ve decided to cancel (we’d probably be fine, but why risk it?).
Which is obviously a bit rubbish. Generally feeling a bit down at the moment. Mostly I’m ok with living abroad and being thousands of miles away from immediate family, but not at Christmas. Plus, it’ll soon be a year since I saw Mum and Dad when they came to visit last Christmas.
Yumo plays a clip from the nutcracker over and over.
Day 2 of writing her name
Elise has started writing her name after starting at kindergarten. Even though I teach students around her age, she doesn’t see me as a teacher, which is understandable, and I’m ok with not pushing.
I know I’ve read about Ted Lasso on here, I think @maique has mentioned it? But, I’ve been binging it this week and it’s just the best.
As a Brit, Ted’s American-ness is just not me but the way he builds people up and his kindness, especially to Nate, is a-mazing.
In other news, I upgraded to Micro.blog to the Year and in the process realised I need to be making more use of my Premium account. Also started an Apple One trial and in the process found that there’s an adaptation of one of my favourite kids books series called Stillwater.
We talk about Christmas and I try to make the most of my premium subscription!
Thanks all, Hover it is!
Where do you register your domains? Does it matter?
My 1 mile a day
Is the bestest part of it
Except cuddles, duh