Weeknote 17/2024
Adapt yourself to the environment in which your lot has been cast, and show true love to the fellow mortals with whom destiny has surrounded you.
Marcus Aurelius
I’m writing later than usual as it’s been a busy weekend. Between ferrying our teenagers to football matches, unpacking boxes, and painting walls, I haven’t sat down much.
My daughter’s team won the League Cup on Saturday in a close match due to the number of injuries they had. That means they’ve has done the double and have won every game this season, except one controversial match against their fiercest rivals which put them out of the County Cup.
My son bought a PlayStation 5 with his first pay packet, a far cry from me buying a couple of books with mine when I was about his age! It means I might actually get to play on mine occasionally now, and that it’s freed-up for my daughter to use, too.
I’m not sure there’s much of significance to share, really. I could complain more about Virgin Media, who took from Tuesday and Friday to allocate an IP address so that our fibre broadband worked. I could share intricate details of the exact shades of paint we’ve gone for to cover various walls of the house. I might even express some joy that I don’t have to go hunting for public EV chargers any more for our Polestar 2. I definitely want to thank my parents for all of their help and support while moving.
Last week, I had a meeting with someone who asked me how many hours of sleep I get per week. Their point being that I seem to do a lot. It doesn’t feel like that from the inside, other than that if I’m not doing things then I have the kind of brain that tends to ruminate. And I’m not a big fan of rumination.
We haven’t got loads of work on at the moment through the co-op. It’s easy to tie your value or worth to your job and the amount of ‘success’ you have in it. But much of this is outside of any one person’s control. To be honest, if I was on my deathbed now, aged 43, I’ve pretty much achieved all I wanted to in life. Yes, there’s more to do and I still have the energy to do it. Not to put too fine a point on it, fuck achievements.
I start my next MSc module this week, which is actually the introductory module (TB871). I’m hoping it’s easier than the last one. Client-wise, we’ve got a workshop to run for the Toro project out of CSUDH, continuing work around comms strategy for the Digital Credentials Consortium, and some planning to do with Participate around the future of the ORE community.
It’s International Workers Day on Wednesday, so although I’ll be studying, I won’t be doing any work. We set up WAO eight years ago, so it seems appropriate to sign off with this riff on the ‘A Team’ theme song.
In 2016, a crack team of learning, technology and community experts founded We Are Open Co-op to help organizations thrive.
These pioneers promptly set out to build a better world from their base in the digital underground.
Today, still driven by their mission, they survive as a co-operative of fortune.
If you have a challenge, if no one else can help, and if you can find them… maybe you can hire We Are Open Co-op
Until next time! I can predict that the early May Bank Holiday weekend will involve… some DIY.
Image: Susan Wilkinson
