April 2024

Regular readers might be glad to hear that Emma is slightly less strung out this month (well, unless you're a regular reader who gets a thrill out of Emma's suffering)

On April 1st, me and my partner went to a park in east London to meet JESSIE. Jessie is a German Shepherd from Cyprus, who was bought over by dog charity Underdog International (who I do some freelance design for).

She is around 6 years old, and was apparently an old man's pet her whole life until he had to go into end of life care (so not a street dog, as many of the dogs they bring from Cyprus are). I told Eve from Underdog my whole sorry story about Barley and how he frightened me so much I've been struggling to think about trusting another dog (but how I also feel totally bereft without a dog in my life). She thought that Jessie might be the dog for us. (As a soft, sweet idiot who appeared, from their time with her thus far, to not have any dominance, resource guarding, human or dog agression issues).

She totally wowed us with her chill vibes (happily trotting round a hectic london park off lead without batting an eyelid at kids, bikes, cars, squirrels, other dogs) and her friendly greeting (she was very soft and sweet and ready to be a friend). So we decided to take a chance, and say yes, to Jessie! (Who would come home once the requisite paperwork was completed)

I went to a fun evening event — design studio Common Knowledge, launching their new campaigning tool 'Mapped'. (Common Knowledge are in some ways quite similar to GFSC where I work, so I'm always curious so see what our 'rivals' are up to — in a friendly, uncompetetive way, obvs 😅)

Ran a version of my riso workshop with a group of sixth formers, as part of one of UAL's widening participation initiatives. Taught them how riso works, how to created layered artwork, and got them thinking about 'place', with the task of creating a design/illustration about their neighbourhood in London. They did SO GOOD!

Took an afternoon off to go to the great Fashion City exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, with my friend Ellis. The exhibition explores the influence Jewish immigrants have had on fashion in London. Even though I dress in fairly drab/plain ways these days, the 7 year old Emma who dreams of being a debutante princess still likes to daydream about wearing all the beautiful gowns.

 Went back to deliver some closing content at the week long workshops with those sixth formers, and they all said such lovely things 🥹 (Also I made some muffins for my Samaritans shift and one of my fellow volunteers handed me to the piece of paper on the top left at the end of my shift, adorable)

Took myself to annual lovely games festival in Somerset House: Now Play This. Had an extremely nice time, as always. (Including an actually not unpleasant VR experience for the first time!? The headsets are still horrible to wear though)

 On reflection this really must sound like a month of 'Emma does anything but work' hahaha (I HAVE also been working, even if it may not seem that way). I went to my extremely good local arts venue's Holi festival celebrations, got my hand henna'd, watched some traditional dancing, and did some block printing (with children). Extremely wholesome fun and mostly exciting because, having moved to 'the suburbs', it's always reassuring when something cool is happening literally 5 minutes walk from your front door.

There are many lovely birds in my back garden, but my fav is always my pal robin redbreast

Still need to work on my 'self care' game tho

Jessie cannot arrive soon enough, gotta get my walking game back up to scratch.

Also, I guess the other news of note is that last month I handed in my notice at GFSC, after two and a half fun/challenging/inspiring/educational/difficult/exciting/frustrating years. I realised that despite only being two days a week of my time, it was occupying my brain 7 days a week, and I couldn't see the inordinately stressful studio culture changing any time soon (despite all our best attempts to combat it). I was also well aware, as a studio lead, that we didn't have any new work upcoming, and had no clear lines to getting any, so it felt almost like destiny that now was the time to step back. That said, despite not having much work on, there was still a lot to tidy up before departing, and on the days when I WAS working on it, it ended up being pretty all consuming, in a 'no time to leave the house' kind of way.

This is probably a terrible choice for me financially, as after the rewire I am flat broke (like, 'going to have to ask my parents for another loan because I've depleted all my savings' broke), so I am simultaneously hoping to secure a more permanent teaching contract at UAL, and touting for more freelance work to help pick up the slack. So, hi, if you're looking for some design...

However, after not leaving the flat for two days, I had a BIG day out — taking my UX students on a trip! I was very proud of this day, because it was also the first day trip I have ever organised as a tutor!

We first went to the National Archives, where our students got to look at some super cool old documents and think about the (extremely long) history of 'UX'. (And saw the 3D printed rat whose paper eating habits were the inspiration for the archives original creation)

Then in the afternoon we went to Kew Gardens, where we set the students a task to explore the 'experience' of the gardens, and how they might improve it. I THINK the students had fun, and I certainly did!

And then Jessie came home!!

When we collected her, her foster carer told us that a) she'd decided she LOVES squirrels (and so could no longer be trusted off lead, as she would not return), and b) that she was scared of... floors?

The latter turned out to be true, after she refused to enter our house past the hallway for around the first 48 hours (finally overcoming her concerns after a fly needed chasing)

"Still not sure about coming in the living room you guys. Also who are you and where am I?"

Still hacking away at the garden. Still wondering if I actually like destroying more than cultivating (which is good as destroying is mostly what needs doing right now)

I've been trying to simultaneously lean in to my harmless guilty pleasures (Merge Mansion, Richard Osman's House of Games, and Chinese Otome fantasy dating game 'Love and Deep Space'), and away from my gross, harmful guilty pleasures (Instagram discover page, hair pulling/skin picking, other mindless scrolling)

A friend asked me earlier today how things are going with Jessie. I said:

"It is very easy to love her when she is sleepy or gently cuddly. She is at an unfair disadvantage because Charlie was the best boy (or just like, I built an irrationally strong bond with him), and Chase was just extremely chill and good with comparatively little effort on our parts. I am still learning to love her — she is clearly a sweetheart and very ready to love back, but every time she's a little bit naughty I'm like 'Oh GOD I have a CHILD again I have to make her BETTER but I don't have the PATIENCE'."

Her main naughty habits are that when she is over excited, she (gently) grabs your hands with her mouth to try and get you to rub her (adorable, but annoying when you are trying to just relax). She's also decided that all the comings and goings of our 4 different sets of neighbours need to be greeted with an abrupt barking spree, plus the aforementioned squirrel chasing issue. Really, those are not huge issues, but Chase was so so very chill, and sweet, and I miss her every single day.

As I then said to my friend...

"It is very easy for me to forget that for the first 6 months (and beyond?!) that I had Charlie I was having daily anxiety about the intensity of his needs and wondering if I'd made a bad choice taking him" — so, we will get there. She's a good girl and she means well. I am still a little bit frightened of her randomly lashing out as well, despite their being absolutely no evidence she will do that — really hoping that will wear off soon. :(

Spent my whole day in horrible dry places that made me feel like a shrivelled prune

Spent the next day, much more nicely, in Brighton, for my pals RTS zines amazing zine popup event on the seafront! So lovely to see some old friends, eat some delicious lunch, and sell a modest number of zines.

I started walking Jessie with the long line, and things got a lot nicer for both of us.

Sometimes I look at my sweet, fragile, smart, stupid, frustrating, inspiring undergrads, and wonder what I'd think if I was somehow able to re-encounter myself as an undergrad (evasive, unwilling to take on board critique, wholly mediocre, but keen!)

Get u a partner who's always telling you you're cute, even when you look like shit 🙃

Some days, focus is like a winding river...

Went to see Colin Stetson (who is amazing) play the soundtrack to Hereditary (a horror movie I never have or will see) with the London Contemporary Orchestra (who are also amazing). It was super fun, and I continue to be pleasantly surprised how chill it is to get from my new home in Croydon to a surprising variety of different bits of central London (Farringdon! It's right there on Thameslink!)

Jessie, it's a valid question. I know he got cancelled. But I still love Masterchef.

Talking of being easy to get to central London, it is also DELICIOUSLY easy to get from Croydon to Brighton! Which I did for the second time this month to spend the day at UX Camp! Having sort of fallen into teaching UX by accident, I've learned that a) I have a real love for the subject, and b) I actually do know a lot more about it than I maybe thought. This was a brilliant day, I learned loads more, and I will absolutely be going again next year.

Jessie, much like Charlie, is at her best (i.e. chillest) when she's had around 2 – 3 hours of walking per day. My partner takes her out for 20 minute or so first thing, one of us (usually me) takes her for around 40 minutes at dinner time, and then she gets her BIG walk (anything from 75 – 120 mins) at lunchtime. One of the other reasons we chose to move to this neighbourhood is the proliferation of green spaces, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover some big, public green spaces a little further out from my house that weren't even marked as green on google maps. (Including a really lovely bit of woodland that was part of the great north wood)

Having been to a lot of events this month, I should also note that I do love it when the event gets cancelled

 Did a mega long walk with Jessie at lunchtime today, and enjoyed the sun and how gloriously green everything finally is. Spring, at last! (Time to mow my lawn again...)

Here's hoping for a fresh month of less work (but still lots of money please? Oh god please), fun stuff, self-care, dog bonding, and general gentleness.

March 2024

Most of March has been hell-month, there have been times where I have truly felt at the edges of my sanity (crying in the shower, talking to myself, muscle twitches, hyperventilating etc) but IT IS ALL OKAY NOW :)

The additional context not neccesarily visible in these visual diaries is that at the very end of February I handed in my notice at Geeks For Social Change, the tech studio where I work 1 – 2 days a week. I love the work we do there, and have learned so much since I started working there in 2021, but for much of the time I've worked there (but especially the last 6 months or so), it has been the most stressful job I do (and have ever done?!) — the 'wake up at 4am thinking about it' / 'working out of hours' / 'camera and mic off in meetings to take some deep breaths' job. I stayed so long because... I believed it could get better? I wanted to make it work? It has been quite hard to pinpoint the exact tangle of reasons WHY working there is so stressful, but I realised over the last couple of months that it was causing me quite profound harm to remain (I'm not exercising, I'm not eating well, I'm miserable, I'm not taking care of myself, I'm not seeing friends enough or being a very good friend etc). So, I quit! 

However, during my time there I put my fingers into a lot of pies, and unpicking that over the last month has been. Challenging. All while (as you will read) surrounded by a lot of dust and INCREDIBLY LOUD NOISE.

Anyway, I am still working out my notice (I will likely stay until the end of April), but simply knowing I am leaving has alleviated a lot of the stress, and the immediate repercussions of my departure have mostly played out in the earlier part of this month, I hope?! (I'm not even saying a full goodbye as I do still hope to stay on in a vague collaborative/freelance capacity too).

 

Anyway, I AM enjoying my PGCert (teaching qualification). I handed in my first unit's submission mid way through March and am currently tensely awaiting my grade! During this session, we all had to roleplay as different types of tutor and student. I was the bad guy :)

As part of my ongoing attempts to maintain morale this month in particular, I've been making a more proactive attempt to get out of the house and see friends. It was lovely to get some pizza with Zoë, and go to the British Museum (which I have never been to before, in part because it's problematic and in part because I'm a bit 'History? Whatever'). But I did very much enjoy looking at some cool Japanese stuff and hanging out with my friend.

The rewire of our flat commenced right at the end of February. My partner went away for the duration, because the amount of upheaval and dust would have been too much for them. I however am a trash gremlin and can (thought I could) handle it. And someone needed to stay and shunt all our possessions from room to room to allow the electricians to work. (For anyone who might be needing to rewire, here's my top tip: save up an additional couple of grand above and beyond the cost of the work, pay removal guys and put all your stuff in storage, and go on fucking holiday. DO NOT do what I did and stay, with all your stuff. The reason I did not do this is because we were told our electrics were actively unsafe, and I didn't have time to save up EVEN MORE — I already had to take a loan from my parents to pay the SEVEN GRAND this cost)

Anyway, my partner came back briefly at the weekend. At this point things weren't even too bad! The workmen had been at work an entire week but (for some reason?!?!) had only thus far tackled the kitchen. Nonetheless, most of the house was covered in dust, with the exception of the two bedrooms and bathroom, which have closable doors.

I set my students a stupid warmup creative task of drawing a house with 100 different rooms in it. They were surprisingly bad at it. Didn't everyone do this as a kid?!?!

I pre-emptively invited my friend Alex over for dinner for a rewire morale boost (and by chance, my partner had to pop back that evening too). We got takeaway and watched Gladiators (I love gladiators). (Retrospectively I should have invited him a week or two later as I was comparatively unstressed at this point)

While the electricians drilled holes in walls in the rest of the flat, my bedroom remained my increasingly encroached upon safe place. Non-dusty (ish), less noisy (ish), surrounded by as many of my possessions and furniture as could be squeezed in. A suboptimal working environment when everything is falling apart, tbh

My days teaching were a real respite from house hell this month (not to mention what was going on at GFSC). We've been teaching our students about prototyping, so we had them all make, and then improve paper aeroplanes (I promise I do teach them serious stuff as well). They made so many different kinds of plane!

By this point I was getting pretty worried. We were two weeks into the rewire (which they told me would only take... two weeks) and they were still only in the kitchen. The kitchen is the hardest room I guess? Okay sure?! But... I want my flat back?! I want all my stuff back? If I'd paid two guys to make as much dust as possible I'd have to applaud them, but the actual electrical progress seemed... alarmingly slow.

And because my partner was away, I was going a bit stir crazy in the house alone, so again I made an effort to see people — a catchup with my old uni friends Lucy and Lyall during the day (Lucy is pregnant!! Exciting and terrifying!!) Then in the evening, hopped over to New Cross for my friend Ellis' birthday do with a big gang of cool people. 

For most of the work thus far, I'd had no electricity in the kitchen, but the electricians had kept the lights and power on in the rest of the house. At this juncture, it switched. The kitchen was complete, so I had lights and power there, but no light or power in the rest of the flat at all. (I ran an extension lead from the kitchen to keep a lamp on in the evenings, and my laptop and phone charging). Sunday decided to be VERY GREY AND DARK all day, as if to rub in that I had no lights. (Another rewire tip, definitely do not do this in winter if you plan to stay in the house)

Sob

This was one of the worst days. I did my Samaritans shift early (7 – 10am) and when I got back the electricians had started work in the bedroom (without telling me they were going to), so all my 'safe' bedroom stuff was already covered in orange brick dust. I had to rapidly dust sheet and decant into the office (which is the box room). I'd closed the office blind before the rewire started, and stacked loads of stuff up against the window, and at this point pretty much everything was crammed into this room. I had to wedge myself in (literally, it was barely possible to squeeze myself in), and proceeded to take some of the most difficult meetings of my career so far with constant drilling in the background, in darkness. (I met a lovely client later in the afternoon who rightly laughed heartily at my predicament). (Another rewire tip — if you work from home, maybe find a co-working space?!?! I did not do this because the only local co-working space I am aware of doesn't allow you to take meetings, and my work at GFSC is frankly, mostly meetings. I don't really mind meetings but it had started to feel a bit like groundhog day.)

HAHAHAHA this was the bit where the electrician finally, bedgrudingly admitted that my flat is a hell flat and he had not expected it to take this long, and he was thoroughly miserable as well. There are way too many beams!! The walls are weirdly constructed!! (They had to make WAY MORE holes than they should have done to get the wires through) AND FOR SOME REASON during the original construction of the house, the builders decided to lay around an inch thick layer of LOOSE DRY SAND in the ceiling, for... soundproofing?!?! The electrician said in 20 years of electricianing he'd never seen anything like it. So now as well as being covered in brick dust, everything is also covered in sand?!! So much SAND?!?! fine fine fine

IT'S BAD!!

One of my clients invited me to go out to this teambuilding exercise with them, which involved going to some posh french ladies' flat in West Kensington and learning about climate change. It was really fun, really refreshing, and they fed me lots of beautiful fresh fruit, which (having been mostly living on microwave meals and supermarket sandwiches due to kitchen hell situation) was extremely helpful 

(Climate change is bad though, this is the main takeaway here, although it was hard for the main takeaway to not be 'wasn't it nice to eat some fresh fruit and leave the house')

At this point the electricians needed to be EVERYWHERE (it turned out my idea of always having at least one room as a 'clean/functional' zone was deluded) so I simply LEFT and went to visit my friend Heidi and stay with my parents overnight. (At this point the electricians so desperately wanted to leave, they were working through the whole weekend)

Got back to SO MUCH MESS (I thought the plasterer coming to fill the holes would be the bit where I'd feel better but it turns out he's really messy too, who knew) — but the end is nigh. THE END IS NIGH

And lo, there is power, and light, and I can finally commence with the BIG CLEAN...

...And also get my partner back (they said I was 'a bit weird' from the stress)

To reassert my love for this flat (which I do love, despite everything), we mowed our lawn for the first time. (We have a massive front garden which the leasehold contract demands we maintain as 'lawn' — given free rein we'd definitely do something more interesting with it, but oh well, we do have the back garden to get creative with)

Is it blood orange season?! I can only assume not, as this one was beautiful but not very nice

My partner threw themselves into domesticity by doing loads of delicious cooking

While I furiously continued cleaning with my faithful companion Henry (whose insides are decidedly fucked at this point I fear)

My spirits are also lifting because it finally feels like spring!

Me and my (soon to be former) GFSC colleague (and hopefully continuing to be friend) Katja went to a 'designing with care' workshop, which was lovely (and I learned lots of pass on to my students!)

And then, BIRTHDAY! I decided one of the nicest things I could do for myself was continue my hiking voyage around the London Loop. As luck would have it, one of my closest friends Davey was in town (which really is luck, because Davey lives in Montana!) — so he joined me for the hike. Then in the evening, my partner took me out for fancy vegan thai (and then I went to bed at 8 and played video games, because 36 is tiring apparently)

I had to work a bit the day after my birthday, but I'd booked the week off GFSC ages ago, and it's easter hols for teaching, so I've only had my freelance clients (plus a little bit of teaching prep) to work on this week. That meant time for IKEA!!!

Then, it was time to head to York, to see Justin, Dav, and Davey (again, yay!) As THE WHOLE GANG (from late Hebden Bridge days) AND my partner were hanging out, we booked an airbnb for me, my partner and Davey, so as not to overwhelm Justin and Dav's hospitality. We still spent lots of time at their house though, and briefly stole a neighbour's (enthusiastic) cat.

My partner's mum and gran live in nearby Sherburn-in-Elmet, so we took some time out to visit them, and the very picturesque church where some of their other family are buried.

Then the next day, we got the train out to Saltburn-by-the-Sea, as I wanted to visit the coast. It was SO NICE, I got to tick another pier off my 'visit all the piers' bucket list, and we had chips and enjoyed climbing up high on the cliffs.

 

 

Then today, we spent some time visiting the Yorkshire Museum's 'Starr Carr' stoneage exhibition, had lunch at my favourite York place (the Ippuku Tea House), and said goodbye to Dav, Davey and Justin before getting the train back to London.

 

I feel very refreshed after my few nice days away at the end of this extremely stressful month, and I'm looking forwards to a hopefully somewhat calmer April.