99 Days of Something – #1
Last year I managed a 100 day series of blog posts starting with this one below. 100 Days of Wonder was inspired by having booked tickets to a 100 Years of Wonder Disney on Ice and being 100 days out from our Disney trip. I also had Covid so wasn’t up to doing much and spent a lot of time in my head, watching TV and scrolling through photos. You can read the whole – rather random series by going back through the posts if you wish. I did that yesterday because I wondered about doing something similar again. Yesterday was our 100 days out from our next Disney trip day. This time Disney Paris. I realised I missed the discipline of taking time to reflect and write every day… and then I didn’t actually write anything yesterday.
So, here I am wondering whether it is worth trying again to string a series of blog posts together in a similar way. 99 Days of the discipline of writing, even just a little bit, every day might help keep me focused and might actually help me make progress with some writing projects. What do you need to write well? I have never been one for sitting at a desk. I always had a desk, I rarely sat at one. I am more of a notebook on the sofa, typing away in a coffee shop or lounging somewhere random kind of a girl for writing. But I do spend a lot of time at my desk at home so today I put up some things to make me smile. On the left I framed the packaging from the 3 Disney Coffee bean varieties we bought on our last trip. On the right are 3 postcards I bought in Philadelphia in May. So yeah, my writing and creativity is usually fuelled by Disney, Coffee and the inspirational words of others. Let’s see how this works for the next 99 days.
100 Days of Wonder – #68
It’s about time I introduced Figment. Here he is. He’s usually more purple than that but here he is in his Disney World 50th Anniversary celebration statue look. It will come as no surprise that I like Figment. (If you are now humming the tune from the ride, you are my people). Figment seems appropriate today because this week I have given two very different papers/talks that have left my little grey cells in overdrive. The good sort of overdrive. The sort that sparks the imagination, the sort that makes you optimistic about all of the possible futures and begins to get to work on ways of making them happen. The events have reminded me to dare to dream and that work which takes us closer to our dreams is always worth doing. Sometimes the idea of changing the world seems too big, too impossible. But as I have said before and Walt Disney reminded us ‘It is kind of fun to do the impossible’. And as Figment puts it:
We all have sparks, imaginations
That’s how our minds, create creations
For they can make, our wildest dreams come true
Those magic sparks, in me and you
100 Days of Wonder – #60
Today I want to pause to celebrate my students past and present. They’re all absolute stars. Yep that’s the link to the picture. Sorry. But actually there’s more of a link. I didn’t really ‘get’ the importance and value of celebrating success and being told you’re doing or have done a good job. I found the mostly American culture of ‘good job for existing’ level of praise and affirmation quite jarring and irritating the first time I really witnessed it properly during the first Disney trip in 2006. Yep well done, you are an adult and you managed breathe all day today. I thought it was all a bit pathetic really.
But of course that first Disney trip was before I had any genuine sense that just existing could be so fucking hard. I have u-turned on this. Give yourself and others all the praise, love and affirmation you can. Over the last 20 years I have seen over and over again the power that believing in someone can have, the power that saying ‘good job’ or ‘Well done’ can have and I remember so vividly the impact it had on me when life got hard. So you, yep you who struggled to get out of bed today – you’re awesome. And you who spent all day hiding and crying because life is shit right now, well done for getting through today. You who fought your bastard demons today – I see you and I’m proud of you. And for those of you who are happy today, those who had a great day and for whom things are really good. I am genuinely happy and excited for you. (I mean that genuinely but however I write this it always seems to sound sarcastic – not meant to)
So celebrating students. I have finished teaching for this semester and assessment season is upon us and somehow we are collectively making a mess of this in higher education . The anxiety we create is unreal! Assessment should not be this stressful! Sure, nerves are normal but wow society and the education system pile on the pressure. What are we doing? Assessment should be the celebration of learning. It should be a chance to show off the journey and demonstrate mastery of new knowledge and skills. Over the last couple of weeks I have read genuinely insightful work, watched brilliant presentations and had really deep and sometimes heartbreaking conversations. All my students are juggling life in ways that many of us in our privileged academic bubbles can barely imagine and yet they jump through our anxiety inducing hoops and come out fighting for a better world. I am so unbelievably proud of all of them. The kids are alright, you know and I’m never going to stop telling them that.
My Conversations 