Code, Games, and Reading
The CEO of a company I previously worked at once said that he wanted it to be boring when we were shipping and building things with our toolkit for customers. He likened it to Fast-food workers. They spend their days doing things in the most optimal, practiced way, to deliver food and drinks to paying customers as fast and efficiently as possible. The word ‘Boring’ stood out to me. At the time I…
Need When being continually challenged I have a tendency to over-focus on things, big or small, worming themselves into every waking thought. I regularly try to draw comparison to others, set myself unrealistic standards & goals, and apply unreasonable self-pressure. A lot of this has to do with a constant feeling that I need to prove myself. That pesky imposter syndrome never quite seems to stop.…
Learning to appreciate A recent article I read, 100 Blocks a Day, had me thinking a little about the value of time and how I spent it, whether the ways I spent it bought me happiness. As my spare time has reduced quite drastically in the past year and a half I took stock. Some things were clearly beneficial and fun. Others things I felt rather hung up on. I didn’t want to react negatively, but…
An ongoing battle with anxiety A taste of things to come I first experienced anxiety when heading into my Grade 8 ‘Cello exam. I knew from that day that I’d failed. I didn’t feel myself. I was under practiced and under prepared. But that didn’t stop the hopefulness my mum radiated. I’d progressed as far playing in front of hundreds of people as Lead of the Cello section of the Hastings Area Youth…
After 5 months without a break from work my parents offered me a room in a cottage they’d booked in the Lake District several months before leaving. Initially I was a little apprehensive, unsure what a holiday with parents would be like this far on from flying the nest. But partly through convenience, and the beautiful location I went ahead. During the weeks leading up to the holiday I had no…
A calm morning with final bits of packing and a quick visit to the bins with our waste. Chris and I tried valiantly to put things in the right bins, almost immediately finding out too late that’d made a mistake and not actually put our things to recycle properly. It wasn’t long before we left so I sat down to squeeze a bit more into the diary. Finally we left in a staggered fashion to check that…
Today was another leisurely start with no firm plans for what to do. I was rather tired so this was fine by me. I gave me some much needed time to catch up with the diary and a chance to chat a little to Kirsty while she made her way into work. I decided after finishing half a day of writing that I would get ready to go out in case people decided to go somewhere. Just as I’d finished getting ready…
I woke up rather early today, and decided to use the washing machine and brave hanging it out of the window after a brief spell in the contemplation zone reading my book. Sadly I had messed up a setting, which meant that the spin was slow and resulted in my clothes coming out sopping wet. We set off once again towards the Arc de Triomf. This time, however, we were actually planning on the zoo…
Today was a day mostly for Tom. He was happy to have a chance to go and visit the huge football stadium and pick up some souvenirs. This meant another journey on the Metro for us. However, as we weren’t joining him in the stadium visit we were planning on spending some time at a café. Just outside our Metro stop I spotted a local market, which we briefly went into. It was more of an everyday local…
Today was a national holiday so we hadn’t planned to see things in case they were closed, although many attractions were open for free on the special day. After a staggered breakfast we sat down to play boardgames. I made some grave errors in a game of Codenames, essentially ruining a couple of rounds by accidentally hinting, and on one occasion actually saying the wrong word aloud and picking the…