What’s the story behind your nickname?
I have had a number of nicknames over the years, none of them complementary. As someone on the Autistic Spectrum pretty much all of them have referenced my ‘otherness’ and have been unwelcome. Some people attract affectionate nicknames but very many of us don’t.
Obviously the process starts at school as other children try to get a measure of each other and it often singles out differences that can be seen or differences in behaviour that can be jumped on. It’s interesting how quickly the mentality of singling people out starts so early and is so reinforced by the collective, and it is that which gives me the view that, generally speaking, human beings are not inherently good. The nicknames given by two friends or partners to each other can be friendly but they are not often for public consumption.
So, for me the nickname is a source of Childhood embarrassment and I will always go by the name David.
What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
I have found that a good way to reduce the pressures that life puts on you is to have regular routines. If there are things you do everyday you can add activities to them on a regular or sporadic basis and benefit even more from those activities.
My first strategy is to make sure I get enough sleep. I am an early riser, but as long as I have had seven hours sleep I feel like I have rested enough. If I have a late night I sometimes find it difficult to get my seven hours, but over time I find it averages out fairly well.
My second strategy is to avoid the news as much as possible. That may not be the best option in a number of ways but for me it’s essential. If I read rather than watch the news I have the opportunity to move on at my pace and decide what to read and what to ignore based on the headline and the subject matter.
My third strategy is to build my online day around certain repeating activities. The blogging is one, of course, but I also have three apps I use every day. Happy Colour, Calm and Duolingo. By ensuring that I use all three I give my mind a framework for relaxation. I sometimes share my Happy Colour pictures, so here’s one from yesterday.
My fourth and final strategy is to remind myself of the support of my family. I know that this may not be the case for everyone, but if it isn’t, look for the support of friends, colleagues, people who share your interests or online communities you value.
Good luck with your health and wellbeing. Remember to do the best you can for yourself and remember it is a work in progress.
What are your future travel plans?
As regular readers of my blog – and I know there are some! – will already know I have decided to finish year round teaching and will instead look to work during the summer and pick up other opportunities that might arise during the rest of the year. If you are interested I explain everything here Embracing Life After Full-Time Work but the short version is that I wanted to be able to look beyond the classroom and find out who I am and what I could do in other areas.
One of those areas is visiting places I have always wanted to go but not really had the time to. I put together a list of five places, all of which, coincidentally, began with an S! As you will see, none of these places are renowned for their beaches or their heat. I have always preferred the cooler climes, with the exception of Australia in the summer, because you can put more layers on to keep warm. If you are in temperatures above 80 Fahrenheit (I still work in those units!) there is no way you are going to get any cooler.
So, there’s the Top 5 places I want to visit. The first of these is booked for September, the stone circle experience at Stonehenge. I never wanted to go when I thought that you would just see the stones from a distance, but you can walk in the circle if you are able and willing to pay an extra £40 or so on top of the normal entry price. So, that will be the first one ticked off. Obviously I will blog about my experience so watch out for that one.
The second one that has already been booked is the Salzburg Christmas Market trip. I am trying to learn enough German to communicate at a basic level so it has already been worth doing from the point of view of encouraging me to embrace a new experience, namely a language I had never studied before. As a Christmas lover this has always been high on my list and my affection for The Sound of Music and Mozart made this a must visit. The Christmas Museum in the city is a total bonus! At least three blogs will come out of that visit!
So what’s after that? Well, who knows? I feel as though the Northern Lights may be the last ticked off the list but we don’t know what lies ahead. One thing is for sure. Life is going to be full of new experiences all being well.
A I Generated Picture
What would you change about modern society?
This could be a rant, it could be overly bleak, it could be controversial. There’s so much I could write about the biggest issues facing us, but I have decided to take a different tack with this post. I am going to look at a change that society will not make, but that we can. It’s a change that will make us feel calmer and more in control of our surroundings.
There is an excellent Ted Talk by Adam Alter called Why our screens make us less happy. The main focus of this talk is the lack of stopping cues given to us in modern life. Stopping cues are simply opportunities to reflect on what we’re doing and to decide whether we want to continue or to finish. What I would change about modern society is that I would bring these stopping cues back to our televisions in particular. So how would I do this?
Rein in the 24 Hour Society
The first stopping cue to bring back would be the closedown on the main channels. In the 70s, 80s and even the 90s, the channels all stopped at a particular time in the night. It varied, but usually between 11pm and 1am the announcer wished you a good night’s sleep and then played the national anthem or gave way to a high pitched continuous note. There were no satellite channels, no streaming services and very few, if any, home computers with more than 48k of memory, so when he said goodnight you switched off the set. These days you could keep the set on and move to Netflix, but at least you would have reflected as to whether that was what you wanted to do. Simply doing this would also have, I think, a knock on effect for your phone scrolling because it would be a clear indication that you needed to get some rest. Yes, you could override it but I feel as though you are less likely to.
The second stopping cue I would bring back would deal with the ever worsening and trivial news cycle. 24 hour news channels are not only unnecessary, they are damaging to society. When we had 3 news bulletins a day and a paper printed the following morning reflecting on the events of the previous day, the treatment of the news was generally more serious, more considered and more balanced. Now, with endless hours to fill up we have pointless speculation, constant repetition, many unqualified members of the public being asked for their ill thought out opinions, and politicians trying to govern according to what they see on these programmes. It has made newspapers worse, because they are also trying to keep up with 24 hour demands, it has made interviewing worse as there is no time for proper reflection, and it has made us worse as we are just not evolved to deal with this constant diet of fear and misery.
The third and final idea is to say to iPlayer, ITVX and 4OD etc, that they are only allowed to stream an entire series once that series has finished on scheduled television. Let’s bring back shared experiences and discussions. Nowadays you can’t start conversations about ‘last night’s television’ in many cases because some people will have gone ahead and binge watched the whole series while others have decided to keep the binge watching until next week or next month. It has robbed us of the water cooler moments that we used to share and which made television a national experience rather than the solitary atomised and largely sterile one it has become.
Final Thought
My ideas above will never be taken on board on a national and international level, but they are totally possible on a personal level. We can choose to watch TV until a certain time and institute our own closedown, recording what we otherwise would miss as we have been doing since the advent of VCRs in the late 1970s. We can avoid 24 hour news channels and perhaps only watch one bulletin a day to get the news we need. Finally, we can watch that new series at the speed of one episode a week, or however often it is on, and savour it as an individual entity.
What do you listen to while you work?
I am a teacher so I will often be in the classroom with no opportunity to listen to anything other than the sound of my own voice and the occasional interjections of the students! When I am planning I will keep background noise to a minimum, even escaping from my old staffroom when the conversation became too distracting.
However, I will often be found with headphones on or, if I am on my own, music coming out of a CD player or speaker if I am marking. I am one of the quickest markers around and part of the reason for this is my ability to focus. Music helps immensely with this process, but it has to be music without any lyrics. If there’s lyrics in a song I listen to them and completely lose my thread! So, what do I listen to? Two types of music, classical and electronic.
My Spotify Playlists for Marking
I love making Spotify Playlists and I have three in particular that I earmarked for the marking process. First up is this one
I have always loved synth instrumentals and the first track, Alpha by Vangelis is my absolute favourite. For anyone who wants to concentrate whilst being taken on a journey that track is the absolute best. I have included soundtrack tunes and a number of the 80s greats to create a playlist that will wash over you while keeping you focused.
Next we go classical
It’s a selection of my favourite pieces of classical music, some familiar, some not. My favourite on here is Vltava by Smetana which I loved from the first time I heard it in music class. It is sublime and perhaps the only piece of music on here that I can be distracted by because I love it so much!
Finally we come to one of the forms of music I grew up with, the TV Theme Tune.
This is an instant nostalgia rush with tunes from the 70s in the main, the tunes that were so familiar to my younger self. If I had to pick a favourite it would probably be Galloping Home, the theme from Black Beauty, but there is some absolute gold on here.
So there you have it, three playlists that fuel my concentration when marking. Please feel free to add these to your playlists and if you do please let me know what you think, or perhaps give it a like on Spotify. Happy listening!
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 