What are five topics you can talk about for 30 minutes with zero prep:
1. My beautiful dog / dealing with reactivity in dogs
2. The Klingon language
3. Medical physics
4. (My experience of) Learning you're autistic as an adult
5. The undervaluing of IT professionals in the NHS
And I kind of think now that that person was talking rubbish & I should've ignored them. But it's been more than a decade of that fear, and it's really hard to let it go.
When I was at uni, someone told me they had a friend so bad at giving presents that they wished they wouldn't. Ever since I have been worried I'm that friend. I want to give people I care about presents, & I try, but I am paralysed by fear of getting it wrong.
Aaaaargh.
I'm having a very annoying day on both ends of tech support issues. I'm also still tired & sad, and I have too much to do, and all I really want is to hide in bed with a good book and some chocolate. Or maybe on the sofa with a good dog and either chocolate or book.
Counselling was very helpfully timed this week. Talked through lots of stuff & got a lot of "but was it my fault?" off my chest. Things I could do better, sure; also things I *need* from other people in order for me to do better.
Now: dog cuddles, food & painkillers.
I worked from 9am to 8pm on Saturday & I am wiped out & sad. Yesterday I used up all my spoons by 10.30am, I had 2 naps and went to bed before 9pm, & I still feel quite shit. I am so tired & so sad.
I didn't do an awful job, but I should've done better.
I came across the word "bear-ward" in Much Ado About Nothing recently, & because I was reading & not hearing it, I initially wondered if it was a direction. "Towards the bears, you know, bear-ward."
Turns out it's a medieval person who travels around entertaining with bears.
I could cope! But I'd get more & more stressed & also do the work more slowly, and it's ok to go "this has dropped in my lap for the weekend upgrade & I actually need to focus on it without interruptions".
We have two people on the rota as "clinical backup" which is basically help with various other rota'd duties when workload is high/other things need doing. I am really bad about asking them for help - I will, but usually only once I've tried excessively hard to avoid it.
Today I've asked them to cover me for the afternoon so I can focus on something else urgent, & it feels like a good step to take. Part of my brain is still going "but you could just cope" & the rest of me firmly reminding it that asking for help is a good thing in the long term.
In other news, 2.5 years on Sprint is back in the weird babygro we got to stop him licking his bits after the op, because he has a rash on his groin that he keeps licking & at this point it's entirely possible that's the only reason it's so red! (We have seen the vet.)
Had several days of Sprint just not eating breakfast. Fine otherwise, mostly eating dinner, just no breakfast.
ANYWAY, early afternoon yesterday Sprint came upstairs to let me know he'd eaten breakfast & expected his post-meal treat. ๐ both a relief and the cutest thing.
I really don't want to be a grumpy, humourless arsehole, but if you're going to mess with ceiling tiles to prank my colleague you should not leave crumbled bits of tile & dust all over my desk :(
(Fortunately the building is too new for it to be asbestos.)
Once again I am stuck in a loop of "can you check again that you've added (user) to 'This-Thing' not 'This thing' please?"
There is no polite way to request this a 3rd time so let's hope it gets sorted this time.
Every week or two I get an email from a professional organisation I'm a part of, & every time (since the email switch) it goes into junk, & every time I report it as not junk & whitelist the email it's coming from, & it apparently makes sod all difference. Whyyyyy.
(I even thought "wow they managed to fit an NFC reader in the glass in a way that it's not visible?" but the sign said "tap here" & you have to obey the signs, right? Obey the signs even when they seem nonsensical otherwise people will shout at you. That has been my experience.)
Sometimes the world is just limitless opportunity for embarassment.
I just tried to tap to the bus by tapping my phone on a sticker. In my defence it said "tap here" not "tap over there, 30cm away".
(Taking things literally, yes.)