100 Days of Wonder – #14
Fun. Why do we so often think of work and fun as 2 different things that never really come together? I’ve had a really busy work week with my teaching, teaching cover, a workshop in Worcester, meetings, head of school stuff and general administration plus an Open Day today. Looking at my calendar and the lack of gaps suggests anything but fun. I’m tired, sure but I had soooo much fun this week. I taught something I didn’t think I knew anything about or understood and I loved learning it, I had a really great discussion about Constitutions with our LLM students, I had references to and pictures of the Disney Castle, the Avengers and Figment in my keynote on Wednesday. Many of my meetings gave me chance to check in with wonderful humans and hear about, plan and reflect on exciting things to come. When we get caught up in the busy-ness of life, it seems to me to be even more important to stop and consciously look for the joy and fun in what we’re doing. Pause a minute, stare out into your life in wonder and I hope something makes you smile!
100 Days of Wonder – #12
Me on the day we left Disney World in January 2023. I am always slightly reluctant to return to reality and I have also usually forgotten how to be a responsible adult. I also always need a little while to readjust to ‘normal’ customer service because Disney level customer service is another level altogether. I don’t really understand how they do it but every interaction we have ever had with any cast member has been perfect. For the duration of the interaction they make you feel like you are the most important person in the world. That’s not to say that things have not gone wrong, they have, but the interactions are always so so good. I wish I could fully pin point the magic of that and try and bring it to my interactions. I think it is something about being fully present in the interaction, about not being distracted by the last one or the one that comes next or what’s for dinner or what spreadsheet needs filling in. It’s about understanding people in a split second, about engaging with them right where they are in the moment and it’s about never ever passing people from pillar to post. Having experienced what is possible I now often watch in restaurants, cafes and other customer service contexts and am bemused by how inefficient and bad it often is. People remember how you make them feel and Disney World makes me feel special, seen and cared for in just the right way. I hope that just sometimes at least, my colleagues and students feel even just some of that in our interactions.
100 Days of Wonder – #9
As I recover from Covid and try and pick up my training for the 2025 Dopey Challenge again, I am reflecting on running and what it has taught me, what it means to me and where I am with it now. There’s lots more about my running on my running blog including a write up of this particular run. I loved this run. That’s rare. I am still not entirely convinced I actually like running. But it means a lot to me because it has taught me a lot about myself. I have always been pretty good at everything I do but that’s simply because I just don’t do things I am not good at. Running is the exception. Running has taught me to stick at something, that doing something just because is a good enough reason to do it, that not being good at it doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. I am more patient with myself and others because of running, I struggle less with the inevitable failures of academia because running taught me I don’t have to excel at everything and it’s ok to have a bad run (a classic reviewer 2, a not perfect teaching session, a not so great meeting). I have (mostly) let go of the competitive streak in me because the world didn’t end when I came last in a race. Running has also taught me to celebrate and ‘bank’ the wins, the glorious runs – like this 5k – where everything feels right, the sense of achievement when you cross a finish line, run a new distance, go faster than you ever have or have recently or the wonder of kingfishers, herons, kites, deer and all sorts of other wildlife you stumble across on early morning trails. I try and note and enjoy the joyful teaching moments, the ‘your paper has now been accepted’ emails, the invites to go talk to interesting people about cool stuff because there will always be another long ploddy run in the cold rain and its academic equivalents – they need doing, they help make the magic happen but having a memory bank of of what the magic feels like definitely helps!
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