Text

· · to read

An unremarkable week at work, made memorable only by its brevity. We get an extra day off for Canadian Thanksgiving, which makes for a nice four day weekend. What wasn’t nice is how I spent this extra day off on Friday—prostrated on the couch with flu symptoms and zero energy, courtesy of the Moderna booster I got the day prior. The same thing happened with my previous shot, so with that hindsight I at least knew not to plan anything for the day after.

I slacked off writing this post long enough that I can only muster point form from here:

  • 🌳 Rooted
    • I seem to have joined and reached out to the right people at just the right time to form a triad for working through My Grandmother’s Hands. The other folks in my group had just found each other and started looking for a third when I sent my message. I feel I’m going to learn a lot from them, and am grateful we found each other quickly.
    • I attended a session on Ancestral Belonging today. It’s my first direct exposure to ancestral healing, so much of it went over my head, but I was surprised how much actually resonated. I’m definitely more open to it now than I was two years ago when I first heard of it.
  • 🧠 Anki. I’ve spent a little bit of time setting up custom cards/fields for learning words in both English and Russian from the same notes. The lack of preexisting decks, add-ons, or even anecdotal workflows online worries me a bit—is this an anti-pattern of some kind? Another speed bump is the lack of a good Russian dictionary online. I found this one, and it claims to be the only free one out there, but it’s … just ok. The lack of APIs for these dictionary services or prebuilt Anki add-ons combined with the friction of card creation on mobile could make this entire deck building game too difficult. We’ll see.
  • 🎮 Speaking of games, I picked up No Man’s Sky on the Switch the day after it came out. While technically it was free due to some trade-ins I’ve been holding onto for too long, this is actually the third time I buy it. I got it on PC via Steam on release day (and was seemingly in the minority that liked it even then), and salvaged a used copy on Kijiji a few years back for the PlayStation. It always felt like the perfect game for a portable console, though. The mix of mining and chill space exploration lends itself well to couch- and bed-times. With the latest update—once it actually gets pushed to the store—the grinding aspect can thankfully be tuned down, and I should finally be able to get sentinels and those annoying bitey plants off my back, so I can pillage their planets’ natural resources with only my conscience’s sting.

Next week I’ll be off on a short maybe-climbing-maybe-just-eating-and-drinking trip.

Text

· · to read
close up of grass

🐢 Slowing Down

I’ve spent most of the week recovering from burnout symptoms of the week prior. I’m still figuring out how to do this effectively, but one thing that always helps is slowing down. Waaay down. For me it can look like:

  • Clearing my calendar of as many commitments as I can
  • Breaking the routine in some way
  • If that’s too difficult, giving myself permission to coast on an existing routine
  • Adding some kind of self-care activity before bed (listening to music, colouring, reading)
  • Getting outside, if even just for a walk
  • Going to bed earlier
  • Doing fewer things per day in general, and taking time with those

I found “Rest Isn’t the Opposite of Work” helpful. A few other apropos links:

  • The Efficiency Delusion: increased efficiency doesn’t actually free up time for leisure activities.
  • Talk less when interviewing to give yourself more time to take notes and (my addition) the candidate more time to think and clarify.
  • Take the time to build consensus. “In a hierarchical process, often a decision is made quickly, and then days or weeks or months are spent getting buy-in after the fact[…]. In a consensus decision-making process, the decision and the buy-in land at the same time.”
  • Tending to my garden. Repost from last week, but it’s just so relevant.
  • Waste Not. “The point of composting is not simply that it produces a useful end result; it also forces one to slow down and participate in a cycle of transformation that is not driven by the capitalistic drive for efficiency and economic growth presently consuming the planet. Its pace is set by the organic process of decay, not the demands of profit.”

🏘 Rooted Global Village

I joined Rooted. I have many intentions going into it: add a somatic element to my ongoing education about race and abolition, unlearn harmful behaviours, grow my race comfort zone, break an inter-generational trauma cycle, try connecting with my ancestors. Moreover, I want to do all this in contact with other White folks. This is new and unclear and scary, but it’s also slow work, which I feel more comfortable with. While I was aware of this community for a couple of years I finally feel ready to engage. I’ll be (re)starting reading My Grandmother’s Hands to support my learning.

🇷🇺 Russian

My affinity towards my first culture ebbs and flows. On one hand, I despise the actions of the current regime and many before it, which pushes me away. On the other, I still feel like I have a deep connection to the culture itself, and I don’t want to lose that. It’s slipping though. I want to approach my learning here carefully, as it’s easy to stumble on state-controlled or state-influenced media. I’m trying out some podcasts for now on specific topics I’m interested in outside of politics.

💠 Misc

  • I’ve been working 8-4 for a few weeks now. The first week was tough, as I was definitely suffering from FOMO and feeling helpless with how little I felt I was getting done. But it’s improved and I feel like it’s been helpful in staving off the worst of burnout symptoms last week. I’ve gotten outside or to my local climbing gym more frequently than before, and waking up earlier hasn’t been a problem.
  • I liked Maya’s defence of ebikes (and the linked “lyrical paean” 😃). “I don’t want to show up to things sweaty. I don’t want to have to dress for exercise for my commute.” THIS! This is the reason why I’ve been thinking of supplementing my regular bike with one of ’em e-scooters. I like the simplicity and lightness of a regular bike for workouts or casual rides around the neighbourhood, but hate arriving sweaty and having to pack and change clothes.
  • John Cutler’s newsletter is high signal as usual. His post on goal cascades resonated. I’d love for the industry to move to this approach to planning, but suspect the “three pillar” cascade is just too alluringly simple to abandon. Especially since planning in many places is a show with departments getting away working towards outputs first, and then aligning them to goals later.