We're going to use the occult to win the match

• A week I’d rather not relive. Thankfully my grandad is recovering, albeit slowly. My little sister had a horrific door slam finger injury that required surgery and I’ll spare you the details, but to say she’s apparently lucky that she’ll eventually regain use of that finger. My uncle fell dangerously ill on a business trip in California and has been in hospital there. Fingers crossed he should be flying home as we speak. And my nan (my dad’s mum, not my nextdoor nan) is in hospital with pneumonia. All in all I’ve been feeling worried and exhausted and pretty weepy, and I broke my heart healthy diet to eat a Twix.
• In nicer news we went out for a belated celebration of my sister’s fortieth. Which meant that I got to hangout with my nephew Willem, who is 3 and (like all of my niblings) the absolute best. We went to our local Indian which is meant to be amazing, I say “meant to be” because I had scampi and chips - pepper allergy wins again.
• I’ve been trying to up my Japanese study in preparation for the JLPT exam which I’ve been enjoying, although I’m worried about my listening ability. You only hear the listening parts of the test once, and I find it extremely difficult if I don’t understand every word. I don’t know whether it’s an ADHD thing or an ME thing or a human thing, but I find focussing on audio hard at the best of times, let alone when it’s in another language and I’m trying too hard. Which reminds me, I really enjoyed an episode of the Lit with Charles podcast this week. Charles’ podcast is reasonably new but he has a huge “Bookstagram” following. I find he can be a bit pompous / a bit of a snob sometimes but I think his intentions are absolutely good and I find him endearing. Anyway this week he interviewed Ed Hawkins, a sports writer, about his book The Men on Magic Carpets which explores how in the 60s a group of people got very into the ideas of humans becoming super human (think flying, slowing down time, mind control) and how an NFL coach took that and used it to try to get the best out of his team which basically boils down to the fact that if you want your players to perform they need to be on autopilot and “wanting it more” is all outdated nonsense. It was super interesting to listen to and involved the line “you can’t go into a locker room and say ‘… we’re going to use the occult to win the match’”.
• Work has continued to be very busy but I had a really good day on Thursday getting some 3D stuff done which had been tormenting me. I’ve requested access to a 3D course so that I can get some proper in depth knowledge of this stuff which will hopefully 1) be very enjoyable and 2) speed up my development in this area for future stories. I also had a meeting with some colleagues from Nikkei who were so knowledgeable about the subject matter that I wanted to talk to them about that it was an absolute delight.
• I finished The Color Purple which I thought was a phenomenal book, would highly recommend. I also finished Less than Angels and could barely tell you a thing about it (aside from the narrator’s silly accent). I am now reading Release the Bats, a book about writing by DBC Pierre which my friend Sam bought for me many years ago. I’m doing a one-day writing course in a month or so and I thought reading it now would be timely. So far it’s given me lots of food for thought, but it’s also given me a reasonably firm sense that I don’t like DBC Pierre. I’m listening to Val McDermid’s 1989 - the Allie Burns sequel to 1979 which I listened to last month, which I’m enjoying cooking/walking to.
• I made this vegan recipe last night and it was so nice! Luke asked “what are we having for dinner?” and I responded “cavolo nero, walnuts and spelt” and we both felt sad, but we were so pleasantly surprised - would highly recommend.