100 Days of Wonder – #62
Here’s the latest Lego build. We finished it today. Piglet looks pleased with it anyway. Most of our Lego is Disney or Starwars. It feels like we’ve been building Lego sets for as long as we’ve been going to Disney, it feels like they are somehow connected. But that’s not actually true. The first proper set we built was a Winnie-the-Pooh set that Kath bought us when we bought our flat in Birmingham. So we’ve only been doing this since 2021. I sometimes wonder if it would have helped me recover more quickly if I had discovered how calming and helpful it can be. Lego is great for headspace and for quieting a too busy brain and for me Disney adds another layer of happy place magic.
I like this build because it mixes old Disney with new Disney. It looks back but isn’t stuck in the past. It celebrates the new (er) without throwing out the classics. Yes, yes I know, it’s just Lego. My brain is very overthink-y today so obviously I’m reading everything into everything. And building this set as well as just chatting about the upcoming trip has made me think about the importance of being able to celebrate new things and embrace change but without just dismissing what came before. I guess the point is a similar one I made when writing about traditions previously. I think it’s about enjoying the familiar as a place from which to explore the new rather than being permanently stuck in the familiar.
100 Days of Wonder – #61
I adore manatees. I have probably spent hours standing in the Seas building at Epcot watching Lou and Lil’Joe. They radiate calm and seem like gentle and kind souls. After a busy work day where I really just went from meeting to meeting, I’m craving that calm. I’d love to stand and not think and just watch manatees eat lettuce. I’ll have to wait a few more weeks to do that but even just looking at the photo reminds me of that calmness. I hope it makes you smile and gives you a sense of kindness and peace
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 