A short week this week, but a week full of talking and thinking. And revising. I’m writing these in a break from revising block ciphers and cryptography generally.
Continue readingCategory Archives: weeknotes
S13E04: Fighting my way through
I’ve been stuck on a bug that somebody before me last tried to fix at 2am. It is the kind of bug that compels you. It is the kind of bug that makes you sit up at 2am, convinced you’ve fixed it, only for it to remain stubbornly unmoving.
I have included a precis of it below, for anyone who knows about these things and would like to join me in the frustration.
Continue readingS13E03: Surfing the curve at the edge of disaster
I went on a date this week. I did not lose my temper. I did a lot of work-related writing and fell back in love with writing for work. I had a meeting with my mentor. I drafted an application for a job. The musical I’m helping to write got a really lovely review. I took my partner to a hospital appointment, told work colleagues that we were going to a hospital appointment, mentioned to the concierge on the way out that we were going to the hospital.
It has only struck me right now, as I write this, that all of those people probably think we’re having a baby.
We’re not having a baby. Hey, unrelated, did you know that chainsaws were invented for surgery involving cutting through bone?
Continue readingS13E02: A good week
I spent some time in London, but otherwise it’s been a good week.
The more time I spend away from London the worse it gets. Absence makes my heart grow more realistic in how bloody awful the place is.
Continue readingS13E1: Getting to grips
There’s a nightmare. There’s a nightmare where you grip a hair and start pulling on it, and the hair keeps coming out. You can feel the follicle becoming ragged and bloody as more and more is pulled through it. It hurts, but you can’t stop. Surely there’s just a little more. Surely it can’t keep going. The nightmare goes from horrifying to boring as you pull and pull, your arms getting tired, the hair piling up in little hillocks around your feet.
And then – it snaps, right at the follicle. And you’re left with the certain knowledge that there’s more inside you, and it was the fact that you weren’t paying attention that means it’s trapped now.
What. Just me?
Anyway. Let’s talk about this week.
Continue readingS12E14: Amnesty
I need to put something down, or I’m going to snap. I’m already fraying at the edges. This is why I was delighted to find this: https://www.volunteeramnestyday.net/
What an idea. An opportunity to reflect on whether something still serves you, or if it’s time to put it down. I don’t know if I’ll wait to the solstice, but I certainly need to think about how much I’m doing.
Continue readingS12E13: nobody said it was easy (no-one ever said it would be this hard)
Listen. Listen. This is my blog. If I want to start a post with song lyrics that are meaningful to me, like I’m fifteen years old again on MSN Messenger, I fucking will. Revel in the return to your horrible, anguished, brilliant youth. And read on.
Continue readingS12E12: leadership is not as fun as Shakespeare would have you think
Shakespeare, I’ve realised, is not the fellow I should’ve turned to for life advice.
Continue readingS12E11: big decisions
This week the theme has been to figure out the first most important thing. I am not sure I’ve got it right, and I won’t get another chance. But that’s true also of the next thing I do, and the next. Life is just one long series figuring out the next most important thing and mostly getting it wrong. Read on. That’s the current next most important thing.
Continue readingS12E10: authority and ownership
I’m almost a decade into my professional career now, and I’m starting to feel like I broadly know what I’m doing. I know this is a trap, but it’s very tempting. I had a couple of meetings this week where I felt like I was doing really well. I challenged some people in productive ways, and I used my experience from a decade of public service to have valuable conversations. I used my experience of twenty years of relationships and navigating the world as an autistic man to have sensitive conversations.
I am starting to feel like I know who I am.
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Caffeinated Punctuation 