“What makes you laugh?”

Dumb/nonsensical/good-spirited humour, I’m a pretty easy-to-laugh person. As you might guess from that phrasing, I don’t find mean-spirited/punching-down humour funny, just makes me uncomfortable. Oh and I love puns, but I don’t tend to laugh at those so much as smirk, mostly because more often than not it’s me doing them.

Adjusting to Seattle time is more than a little tough on me, and I am quite shattered, but it’s better that I start that process now than leave it until arrival. The issue is, I also hit the wall of exhaustion I’ve fought to avoid for months now. Focusing on keeping things as chill as I can manage, and with luck I’ll ride out the worst of it before I have any significant commitments. “Rough” is an understatement, but I knew this would hit sooner rather than later.

“When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

That’s a good question. So much as I can remember – and bear in mind this was coming up on 26 years ago so I don’t remember much – I think I wanted to make movies? I know I liked playing with a camera. But I did also enjoy coming up with stories, so I suppose you could say what I wanted to do is what I’m doing right now. Damn, that’s actually quite an uplifting thought. More questions like this please WordPress!

And, that’s it. Not for my blog don’t worry – not that I have readers to worry – but for the first year, or the teaching portion anyway. I have one more meeting I am about to set off to, and then, three glorious weeks of freedom. And writing of course. I think I might start drafting my new project now. Just, one teeny problem: I still haven’t picked one…

“What’s something most people don’t understand?”

Quantum Mechanics.

I’ll stop giving sarcastic answers when you start giving me better questions. And yet again, not abrupt because of mood, it’s just hard to take such an open ended question that isn’t even applicable to my perspective and run with it in a meaningful way. Ok, ok no I imagine there are people who like that, and I am being a pedant here, but if this prompt is to get my opinion, why are you asking an empirical question? Where’s the room to expand, beyond going on a tangent with an anecdote or a moan? That’s only good if I have one of the former, and who the heck wants to listen to me moaning?

God writing is hard.

(This is why I wish we had the irony mark in use to this day, that’s not a sarcastic comment, writing is hard, but now I wonder if the joke will land or not because I am always moaning about writing being hard, which is also the joke, but it’s also true and I’m overthinking this aren’t I? God writing is hard.)

“How has technology changed your job?”

…I work in learning technology. It is my job.

That wasn’t even gonna be an abrupt one, mood is perfectly fine but like, what else can I say other than “it exists”? Actually in all seriousness shout out to my employer who honestly has gone above and beyond when it comes to supporting my studies. Honestly it means the world to have positive support in the workplace because I know from experience what the opposite feels like. The only thing in my life right now that’s a teeny askew is that I am more than a little burned out from a lot of intensive commitments, but come Thursday evening, all that washes away for a blissful break.

Also, putting this here for my own reference as much as anything, but for “Writing the New Nation” we need to write our own essay question, and I’m going with “How did Henry David Thoreau reconcile his ideals with reality in Walden?” I think it should be a fun write, and I hope a good read when it’s done. I’ve been wondering if it’s ok to put my essays up on this site, and I keep forgetting to ask, but hopefully it is and I can share them soon. I’m pretty proud of them, and this is pretty much my fridge door. Which, now I think about it makes the colour scheme make a lot more sense.

“How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?”

Nowhere near as often as I should. In fact, I often let my goals lapse when I get offers because I want to prioritise spending time with others, which is a goal that has an unfortunate habit of messing up most of my time-management plans. That’s not to say I resent it for that, I choose to have that goal, and I make the decision each time to prioritise it because I value my social life and the people who make it up, but I do think I haven’t quite internalised the ‘be careful, you do have EDS’ mindset. Maybe that’s a good thing? I mean, I don’t ever want it to become an excuse, but I do also recognise my health deteriorates when I have late nights. Writing this at close to midnight, the irony isn’t lost on me, but tonight was just me being dumb and spending too long on Arena. Now there’s another way to approach the question: how often do I say no to myself to things that would interfere – read “delay” – my plans? Also, nowhere near as much as I need to.

Three days to go. To be clear, this isn’t a countdown. Yes this term was rough, but I value my time at university, and feel like this year has made me a better person for it. Actually on that note, one huge unexpected benefit turned out to be that I got better at seeking criticism. I’ve always been decent at taking it and working with it, but it wasn’t until I started Project4 proper in September that I realised how often I avoid it. I still don’t know how much of that plays into my lack of desire to publish the series opposite, but I imagine it’s a small part. Food for thought.

“What is your favourite type of weather?”

Rain, indoors and out, and even virtual (rainymood.com) all hit the spot.

This weekend was a difficult one, and not helped by Sussex deleting all enrolments and asking everyone to scramble to do them all over again. I really hope I manage to get onto my chosen courses again or I am going to need to have words with people, and they won’t be polite if I don’t get the correct answers. Sound harsh? Well I don’t care, they’ll fix it because I’ll tell them to fix it. Can you tell I’m not in the most rosy of moods? Yeah I am in a foul one tonight. But such is life. Could be worse, but still, I need a holiday, and I swear to god I will retaliate if anyone gets in the way of that come Thursday afternoon.

“Who was your most influential teacher? Why?”

Her name was Mrs Hallows – I am so sorry if I have the spelling wrong on that. I had her for English Language in years 8 and 11. For context, as someone who couldn’t touch paper and had trouble focusing, I was pretty much in the dregs when it came to writing and English in general. I liked stories – my sister used to make them up for me and taught me how to be creative – but I found doing anything with words hard, and just didn’t bother. I think you can guess, over sixteen hundred words into a thousand words a day, with a deluge of stories before that too and now 14 novels under my belt, something changed. That was thanks to her.

I was in my first tabletop RP in over three years today. My last was near enough three years and a fortnight to the day ago, and it felt nice finally being back in one, and I even didn’t mind doing it digitally. The advantage there was I got to be in a campaign with my xirlfriend and it was lovely. And what’s super nice is I idly started writing beforehand, and hit target without even needing to think that hard, so today felt like, well, an actual rest day.

“What do you wish you could do more every day?”

Yes. Is that so surprising? Nah but in all seriousness I’d say this is an easy one: playing video games. The issue isn’t so much one of time as focus, as I just end up not feeling able to concentrate like I used to. I guess that’s technology and aging eroding my brain. Well those are in good company because my brain is dust right now. Working on my rest day, bad sleep, and a false alarm on a carbon monoxide leak in the flat left me just, burned out. I am not ok. But, my partner and my mum worked hard to try and lift me out of it, and they’ve done a good job of that.

Four days, Monday through Thursday, and that is almost all of university done. It’s weird to be almost at the end, and unnerving too. It’s also not the end-end, so there is a chance to fall at the final hurdle once again. I’m trying not to dwell on that.

“What tattoo do you want and where would you put it?”

A tiny little tattoo on my right hand. I’d need to find out if tiny lettering is at all viable, and I very much doubt it, it would say “a thousand words a day.” That would be nice.

This week was rough, and my head isn’t in the best place right now. You might guess that from the late post, but yeah, I need to just switch off for a while…

“What is one word that describes you?”

I’ve heard people use the words “agitated” and “vindictive”. Then again others have said “altruistic” and “superhuman”. I’d imagine the truth is between those. “Flawed” maybe? That’s a word that putts the negative before the positive, but it implies a degree of redeemability.

Submitted my last pre-Easter assignment today, so I can sort of start to switch off now, on the uni front at least. Work is busy but not so bad that I can’t wind down into the last week before the holiday. And I can also say that my dumb side project is now 80,000 words which is, stupid, but it’s also lowkey pretty funny. I mean here are my 14 novels I won’t promote, and then here’s the one I won’t even share and isn’t even really a novel so much as me faffing about. I kinda love it.

March 22nd is one of those weird days that has my-life historical significance from a bygone era, and doesn’t have the exact oomph it used to, but I do feel I should write it into a thing some day.