May 2024

I am writing much of this blog a little before the end of the month because I am going to be at EMF camp at the very end of May into June. Luckily I am NOT camping, so hopefully will be able to finish it off one evening back at the airbnb.

May has very much been a month of many nagging worries (Am I a bad friend? When will I get a permanent teaching contract? WILL I get a permanent teaching contract? Can I afford to do... anything, right now? Have I forgotten how to be a designer? Have I done all my tasks? And so on) but I am also trying to revel in no longer being QUITE as stressed at work, since I quit GFSC, and having just a little bit more time each day (which I have entirely filled with dog walking)

So yes, May has mostly been a month of enjoying walking to new places with Jessie. And she's (mostly) been good. One of my gripes about my role at GFSC was that it always seemed to intensively demand my time slap bang in the middle of the day. My preferred working pattern (I think I have come to learn this about myself?!) is about 3 hours in the morning (9 –12ish), then a generous 2 – 2.5 hour lunchbreak (for a LONG dog walk plus food), then another 3 or 4 hours in the afternoon, then (only if needed), another 1 or 2 hours in the evening after dinner. I get extremely gripy when anyone schedules a meeting with me between 12.00 and 14.00, which I am aware is wholly unreasonable, but I work so much better when I have a big outdoor break in the middle of the day. (When I had Chase who didn't want a big walk, I'd instead often go swimming during my 2 hour lunchbreak, which was also nice)

It simultaneously feels like forever ago that I had this cold, but also like just yesterday, because thanks to my fucked lungs I am STILL coughing a bit.

Still on the hunt for the perfect hairdresser. This one still was not the one, but she did give me a cute enough haircut I guess. Finally marking totally growing out my undercut that I've had since my early 20s (not even sure why I've grown it out really as I often think about just cutting it in again)

A terrible night's sleep thanks to cold, and Jessie, and my partner, and nature.

Finally, after I think like, a year, decided it was time to fight the final boss and stop playing Tears of the Kingdom. Feeling EXTREMELY bereft of that lovely world. I played Breath of the Wild during the pandemic, at a time when travelling was unthinkable, and it felt like a magical way of escaping into another place, and I feel extremely emotionally attached to the places in that game. I was so happy when they released Tears of the Kingdom which is set in exactly the same world, and took a similarly long time to let it go.

Now I'm playing No Man's Sky, which does scratch a certain open-world(s) itch, but doesn't have quite the same emotional resonance of BOTW and TOTK (yet?)

Boys at school used to do this and I thought they looked like massive idiots

More accurately, thinkin' about squirrel

After my personal laptop threatened to die a few weeks ago, I put in a request for a work laptop (which I sort of did not expect to be granted), then they suddenly just gave me one. Pros are: it's a really nice new laptop. Cons are: the systems they've installed prevent me from installing lots of other software that would actually make it a useful tool (mostly, Dropbox and Affinity publisher)

Cough cough cough, a horrible self portrait

Walked past this scene in Peckham, the moment a man upended an entire stack of trays of meat onto the street.

She's obsessed with chasing flies

No Eurovision this year lads, first one I've missed literally ever in my life?! Needs must though, eh. Anyway in absence of watching it, I imagined what some of this year's entries might have looked like...

Most of the time my commute from Croydon is fine, sometimes it is not (luckily I only have to do it 2 or 3 days a week)

She likes to roll in cut grass

Another reason I quit my tech studio role was that, even though I had made my own bed to lie in, I spent most of my time there doing HR, meetings, admin, and occasionally if I was lucky, running research (the best bit). I did some design, but often not really fun stuff. Quitting has opened up more time to freelance, and though I am still extremely down on income, I have managed to pull in a bunch of new freelance projects to fill my time, which is a relief. Spent a WHOLE DAY doing design for the first time in ages, (no meetings!!!) and it was great. 

Talking with colleagues about Aphantasia (a condition wherein one cannot 'picture' things in their mind), which I do not have, but... what does it even mean to see something in your mind?!

My Samaritans branch have struck up a deal with local Pret that we get to take all the leftover sandwiches at the end of the day that would otherwise go in the bin and omg u guys that's SO MUCH PRET

Went for a fancy din with my partner and friend Angharad. It was good in many ways (the starter and dessert especially) but I was left wanting more carbs...

Then the next day I went for a good old fashioned roast with visiting US friend Willow, plus George and Arthur, and that had just the right amount of delicious carbs thankyouverymuch. I also then went to visit my very heavily pregnant friend Lucy and partner Josh. What was a gloriously rare London treat was that Lucy's house was just a half hour walk from where we had pub roast, so I just strolled on over there after — that NEVER HAPPENS. Definitely need to keep building up this South London gang so I never have to go North of the river :)

Decided to treat myself to leaving work early and getting a Borough Market lunch but Borough Market is closed on Mondays, WHO KNEW

She's good, but she's not always perfect, and when she's bad I find it hard to love her. This is why I should never parent an actual human child. I know I will get there given time though. (With loving this dog, not with having a human child lol, would never be me)

When I lived in Yorkshire we were idundated with slugs. In Battersea, even in the park, not so much, but maybe this bit of Croydon is the slug capital. Or maybe it's just rained a lot this year,

It's shedding season, and Jessie is a constant explosion of fur

I do miss having housemates sometimes (as I now live just with my partner), but one good way of simulating that is to have old housemates over to visit! Beth and her partner Angus came over and we played Oros, which was a tad over long and over complicated, but still a nice time. (Here is us as 4 different gods, or something?)

Jessie disgraced herself first thing this morning — she desperately needs to chase motorbikes, and got confused when someone behind a wall was running a motorbike engine very loudly, and she jumped up at a man walking past her because she thought he was the source of the noise (he was not pleased).

However after that utter failure (being scary to people is in my view one of the naughtiest things a dog can do) we took her on the train for the first time ever, and she did SO GOOD — she was clearly frightened and confused, but she dealt with it very well, had a nice walk round Crystal Palace Park (5 mins away by train), and did even better on the train home. Here's hoping I'll have a confident train girl before too long.

Made it to Quaker meeting for the first time in ages, and got to do the flowers! (Just picking a few favs from the garden there)

Had a really weird, horrible incident... As I was walking to the park with Jessie, I saw a pram in an alley, with what appeared to be a sleeping baby in it. Kind of weird, no one around, but hey, not my business — didn't I once read something about how Scandinavian people take their babies outside to sleep? Anyway, I ignored it, but the pram and baby were still there when I walked back past around 50 minutes later. It seemed sufficiently weird, that I figured I should probably at least take a look. It's probably an illusion and there's actually no baby, right? So I walked closer, and, there definitely was a baby. And as I got closer, I could see, its eyes were wide open, and it was completely motionless, just undeniably... dead. I had a visceral horror reaction and ran back into the street, my heart racing, my knees shaking, utterly uncertain what to do. I must be mistaken. It can't be what it seems. I should go back and touch it. But I can't, it's too horrible. A man from over the road must have seen my panicked face, and came out of his house — "Is it the baby?" YES it's the BABY, WHAT IS GOING ON

He told me he'd nearly called the authorities earlier as well, but he'd been brave enough to actually touch it, and establish that it was a hyperrealistic doll. I felt stupid, but this guy said he'd totally believed it to be a dead baby as well. Was it a prank? Neither of us could think of any explanation for this seemingly fully equipped, real, not toy baby pram having this extremely creepy baby doll in it, and being left there, like that. 

Shook me up more than I would have expected tbh.

The older I get, the more I love SPRING WATCH!

Jessie was naughty again, and I am stressed. She was very snappy with the ikea delivery man (who luckily was entirely unphased), and I am getting anxious about how occasionally confrontational she is with people — and mostly about how unpredictable it is, because a lot of the time she's just FINE. I am not scared of her, and feel no threat from her myself (unlike with Barley), but I am worried about this behaviour, and we need to get on top of it sharpish. I've been speaking to her adoption charity about recommended behaviourists, which sucks because I am so extraordinarily broke right now, but it's a stressful situation that absolutely needs resolving before she gets any worse. Inside that beautiful dog there is a VERY good girl (genuinely, I see a lot of Charlie like traits in her total devotion and desire to please, and submissiveness with me and Spen), but unfortunately her guarding tendancies have started to get the better of her.

Yesterday was the final teaching day of the year for my year 1 UXD students. It was lightly emotional, as this is the first cohort I've seen through an entire year, and they're a sufficiently small group (around 40 students) that I know all of them pretty well at this point. They all handed in their final project for the year and I am excited to mark them next week! I also had a nice time in the afternoon helping the third years get set up for their final exhibition, which is always a whirlwind. 

Then I left and got on a 3 hour train to LEDBURY, home of EMF camp...

Which commenced, today! And as always, it has been a ridiculously overstimulating day, and I am SO glad not to be camping (I got an Airbnb in Ledbury with my friend James). It was a joy to see James and my other friend V deliver excellent talks today. I played with lots of fun analogue and digital games. I saw lots of weird art installations. I graffitied a giant spider on the wall of the night club. I built my own body-heat powered tempeh incubator. I took a picture on one of the oldest digital cameras. I ate some delicious food. Overall a satisfying and exhausting day, and I am ready for MORE TOMORROW!

Which you all will hear about here, next month, I guess (or on my instagram, if you follow me there). Until then, happy June...