June 2024

Well, June has been a kind of stressful month, for dog related reasons which will become apparent, and also for work related reasons — I am waiting to find out whether I am going to get a 0.6 (3 day a week) permanent role at UAL and if I DO, it's amazing, I'm golden, celebrations all round. If I don't, I am extraordinarily fucked, and there's kind of no in between. So between those two things I've been a bit of a ball of nerves, but the good thing (I guess?!) is that I've been much less busy since I quit GFSC in April, which I know has helped stave off what was rapidly oncoming burnout — my work/life balance feels a lot healthier. (However it is a little in danger of going too far in the opposite direction).

Anyway, the month started at EMF camp...

Which really does feel like forever ago. On the Saturday I did my talk about my MA project. It went pretty well but I TOTALLY forgot I have a whole dedicated website for the project (ldn2btn.uk) and missed a valuable chance to actually plug it and my work, so am kind of annoyed with myself about that. The rest of the day was just a bunch of other exciting, overstimulating stuff — a great time all round.

By Sunday me and my Airbnb buddy James were TIRRRRRED. We did a bunch more nice stuff in the morning then went back to the airbnb for a lie down before making our respective long journeys home to Hebden Bridge and London. Overall the whole thing was amazing once again, and I am already excited for 2026!

Our old housemate Camille and her partner Cathy came over for dinner and a boardgame, which was lovely! 

Regular readers might remember my last encounter with Piers Corbyn (September 5th). Well him and an accompanying yob were out canvassing on the Elephant and Castle roundabout near where I work, so I took the opportunity to have another reasoned debate with him about the merits of ULEZ 🙃

Glorious opportunity to meet four of the smartest people I know all at once!

The 'free lunch' is a almost always a glorious treat at UAL, especially for staff members like me who are actually a bit more financially precarious than we would care to admit. I was very excited when our PG Cert course cohort were promised a free lunch, only for 30 or so of us to arrive and discover the free lunch was... well, probably around about 30 slightly wet tiny sandwiches. Extremely depressing.

Me, my partner, and our friend Heidi went to see the stage production of Spirited Away! It was GREAT but I highly recommend if you are going to go that you pay extra for comfortable seats where you can actually see the whole thing...

A nice man in the park gave her a tennis ball

Sadly in Jessie's view there are no nice men in the park. Or anywhere else. She has started becoming increasingly reactive to some/many strangers — when I drew this I was reading her behaviour as protecting me, but actually I think the issue is that she's frightened, and doesn't see any other way to protect herself than by lashing out. Whatever her motivation it's made walks pretty depressing and frightening for both of us and I've had a few particularly dark, anxious days when she's been at her worst. I am determined not to 'send her back' (after what happened with Barley, my pride couldn't handle it!) but it is not the life I had imagined with a dog, and I grieve every day for the loss of my perfect guys Charlie and Chase.

Part of my angst may have been caused by having run two packs of the pill together in order to avoid having a period while at EMF (compost toilets + menstrual cup = no thanks). Apparently some people can just do this with no side effects but I am not one of them, and a week or two into the second pack I start getting increasingly fraught and irrational. It sucks!

There's this amazing app which enables you to detect which birds are singing nearby (and there are a lot of birds in my bit of Croydon apparently!) — it's very satisfying, a bit like Pokemon go but for REAL ANIMALS

Being broke has stopped me getting any new tattoos for ages which meant I can finally give blood 😅

Our friend Jay came over and we had a nice walk with Jessie, though later that day she was VERY naughty (got out of the house and chased the postman, which sounds like a comedy scene but very much was not, and now he won't deliver our parcels any more 💀 She didn't bite him but she was an absolute dickhead and I went into full crisis mode about having such a terrible dog)

 And that's when I get sad enough that I start doing self portraits :(

Me and my partner started putting in place serious plans to try and sort out our (and Jessie's) lives. We've booked a behaviourist, ordered a muzzle and started muzzle training, and put in place some fairly drastic changes to how we walk Jessie. A working theory is that actually, taking her on long, brisk, diverse, varied walks, even though she seemed to thrive on it, was actually too much stimulation for her, and was building up her cortisol levels such that she is much more prone to stress. We've gone from walking her 2+ hours a day to closer to 1 hour, and only around our very local park. We're also walking very slowly, letting her sniff everything for long periods of time, such that a complete loop of our local rec which only takes around 5 – 10 minutes at brisk pace might be over half an hour. She's still reactive, but the less often she has full blown, straining at the end of the leash barking and lunging incidents, the less likely it is to happen again, if that makes any sense (basically trying to avoid her getting het up). Our walks do have to be on very high alert but we have had a lot less incidents in the last week simply by avoiding everything and reducing the amount of stimuli she's exposed to. My only worry now is that she's going to a) get fat, b) get restless or destructive around the house, c) get more reactive as she's not being exposed to her triggers (though the science mostly debunks the latter)

(I also got this lovely new procreate brush set to cheer me up which emulates old marker pens and have been having fun with it ever since)

To make sure Jessie gets lots of outdoor time we've been spending more time in the garden, which has definitely been a good thing in terms of finally getting on top of the back garden weed chaos.

I also had fun using said marker pens to do this drawing of our living room

A client very kindly took me to the wildlife photographer of the year exhibition, which was great. I also haven't been to the natural history museum in forever, so it was lovely to see the building again. On the way, I happened to pass by the Anya Hindmarch concept ice cream shop, having seen it online and not really entirely believing it existed. Had some delicious Malden Sea Salt chocolate ice cream (and sampled some of the other exciting flavours too) — it's pricy but I highly recommend a visit for a weird treat. 

Some days it feels like one step forward, two steps back with Jessie, and every day where she's really on one I end up feeling incredibly miserable and fragile.

Getting away is good?! But not really a long term solution!? Still it was nice to go down to Chichester and stay with my parents overnight to celebrate Dad's 70th birthday. (My train was delayed by over an hour but that was actually great because I got to do delay repay, yessss)

 Yeah, somehow Dad is 70 now?! idk how that happened

The sun finally came out though, which did help with my mood

Headed down for Shoreham for a fun workshop with Ladies that UX Brighton, run by my friend Heidi — the workshop was good but actually I was a bit too tired and strung out to fully enjoy it, and kind of the highlight of the trip was getting to stand by the sea in the sun. I'm very happy in London for now, but I do hope I get to live by the sea again some day.

 

Had a day so bad I didn't feel like I could get out of bed, which is rare for Emma, normally peppy of spirit (This isn't all dog btw. Some of it is finance/work worries). Forced myself up, did a load of chores, made two proper meals and tidied a bunch of stuff up, and felt a lot better.

At Samaritans we have recently started getting FREE PRET (we go and collect all the local Pret branch's uneaten fresh stuff at closing time), which is very exciting every fortnight (because I take several baguettes and have lunch and breakfast all weekend). However all of us were very disappointed to be told we could NOT eat the free pret this time, as it was gonna be for all the volunteers attending the pride march the next day, booooooo (only joking, they do deserve it). Luckily however, I got free pizza at lunchtime to make up for it

Having a ground floor flat with big gardens at the front and back is great, and also TERRIBLE

Justin is in London! We had a lovely* (*mediocre) brunch!

Jessie has been a good girl today, and I am hoping to hear about the UAL job in the next couple of weeks. So July has the potential to be a better month, but also the potential to be MUCH WORSE. Onwards, to find out...

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...