January 2025
The Vibe
I wrote about my January slump, but in general, I feel OK. I feel like I can see the big picture but am lacking focus and details. I attempted to do a bit of life planning while off during the first week – but to be honest I feel like I am spreading myself too thin. I want to go back and plot more things on a timeline of the year to try and have 'focus' seasons, and be a bit more realistic with my time and what I am capable of doing.
Events
The girls had their birthdays. Ms A is now thirteen, which means I have become the parent of a teenager. So far, it's been pretty positive; she's taking a lot more responsibility for herself, has put her hand up to do things around the house, and we had a proper, unprompted conversation about school after her first day at the new school. The new school is a big change for the year. She didn't have a great experience at the closest school to us - so the change is a chance at a new start and it seems to be positive so far. Mrs K took Ms A up to Sydney for her birthday to see her family up that way, and I got to hang with Frankie.
My mum visited for Ms A's birthday and the sleepover party - so we survived that and the next day, went for a morning swim and had a chance encounter with a dolphin who swam by almost within arm's distance! Ms A and I went go-carting which was good fun.
We went and checked out the Chihuly in the Botanic Garden exhibition which was cool - although the highlight for me was watching the little family of grebes that had made their home of a floating nest near one of the artworks. (Also - I love the animal identification system built into iOS that helped with finding out what kind of birds they are!)
We rounded out the last week of month with very hot and dry week. Monday there was a high fire danger day, and after picking the girls up from the airport, there were a lot of sirens and aircraft near us. The SA Alert app warned of a fire in Panorama and that we were to wait for advice. As a precaution, we packed up an emergency bag and waited to see what happened. Fortunately, the fire was under control within the hour.
We then had to deal with the opposite problem - a flood in the laundry! Fortunately, the plumber advised contacting SA Water as we have an easement on the property. they came out pretty quickly, checked the problem and cleared out the blockage (which was on out end but he helped out and worked on it for us).
As a side note - as an event I've also signed up for the #blogging4life happening that's going on.
Photos
Watched
Got through a few movies and some TV during January:
Movies:
- Sugarcane - powerful and moving documentary about the aftermath of residential schools.
- The Dry - pretty standard mystery, but kind of enjoyed Eric Bana being on screen again.
- Birds of Prey - Margot Robbie's duality of Harlequin and Barbie is great. Watched with Ms A.
- The Suicide Squad - I enjoyed how stupid and fun this movie is. I love the genre pisstake.
TV:
- Say Nothing - great show about the Price sisters in Northern Ireland.
- The Day of the Jackal - I really liked this
Listened
A couple of highlights from the month:
- How to See Tech Like a Luddite episode of Tech Won't Save us with Jathan Sadowski was so enlightening that I even wrote a post about it, The Luddite & the Mechanic.
- This extended run about this vital refugee corridor, The Darien Gap, was very new to me. The reporting is excellent and engaging, but the stories told are heartbreaking.
Read
I need to take a bit more effort to record my reading diet at the moment. Some standout pieces though:
- Digital Fracking - Kin does a great job introducing fracking as a metaphor for what is happening across our digital platforms at the moment. I think there is real resonance between the two, especially the unintended and negative consequences - like [lighting your water on fire](https://youtu.be/4LBjSXWQRV8).
- Once You're Laid Off, You'll Never Be the Same Again - some thoughts on work. The poignant bit here is the heading "You’re Just a Row in an Excel Table" - which is such an important reminder of how a version of you is seen at the organisational level. It might also be worth noting that you may not even get the dignity of a row and are more likely a division of a single cell. 😢
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