What about day 20?

October 8, 2015 by Colette B 11 Comments

What does the future hold? What would I like the future to hold? Can I think beyond today, this week, next month? Writing101 provided several suggested ways of writing about our personal futures. I had thought I’d like to write myself a ‘twenty years in the future…’ I’ll hopefully be heading toward a healthy enough seventy by then. I will have had these recent years practise of geriatric living and have learnt a lot that may make old age less of a shock. I might even hope to be comparitively capable by then amongst my peer group. My generation will also be expected to be capable of work under current legislation. That’s interesting given the mortality rates and statistical health outcomes of my ‘social class’ as a direct result of deprivation. It’s also interesting that with more or less a century of ‘knowledge and understanding’ and social research to back up political opinion, our current UK government seems determined on wiping out the ‘underclass’. As if policy determines that if we fail to climb their imposed ‘social mobility ladder’ we will be flung to the devil’s pit below.

That’s beside the point of this post but I cannot help myself for reeling.

I should have made a Look Ahead Monthly post by 1st October, not usually at this blog but so far it’s been one at that other blog and the one before at the other other blog… so I could kill two birds with one stone by looking at the month ahead and linking a late entry to that event… day 20 of writing101 task was writing about ‘The Future’ and I really should get something down for that assignment. I might yet make a ‘Look Ahead Monthly’ page…

The only problem I had with Writing101:Finding Daily Inspiration, apart from my blogs being a muddle along journey of process, is that a dozen different ideas would hit me at once – or at least within that day. I can’t keep up with myself. I won’t be doing it again in November as I have done it now and still completing. I’m rubbish at sharing links and requesting feedback. I have a back pocket full of assignments, unmade or outlined, so much to return to. I’m taking Writing201:poetry on the slow for a crash course reminder of form and terminology. I will write poems but more slowly than one each day in a rush. As usual, I will be littering them all over my blogs – or just letting them settle on paper for a while. I love knocking out ad hoc responses but during Iowa’s MOOC ‘How Writers Write Poetry’ earlier this year I learnt to draft and refine my poetry. I haven’t written any like that since but it’s a very different experience and makes for a very different type of poem, carved and sculpted.

Rumour has it (reliably sourced) that there’ll be a blogging201: intermediate customisation course in November.  Perhaps that could be really useful for getting my muddles better presented. I still haven’t managed to retain some of my previous Blogging101 learning although I know how it works in theory. Sort of. I look at doing those things and even with crib sheets my brain won’t process the info to be able to do those actions. Maybe doing a technical blogging ‘course’ focusing on customisation will help me absorb and finally assimilate those earlier learnings. it would provide a clear timeframe and motivation for blog improvements and changes. Hopefully.

So that’s a maybe for next month, having said in the Commons that I wouldn’t be taking a November course!

I wish I’d bought a stylus before this Wednesday for typing on my phone and tablet. It’s so much easier! So maybe I’ll learn to be more productive and efficient with less negative health impacts while I blog. Of course that involves visiting lots and actually reading. I’m hoping to find a screen reader to use to help me enjoy more posts. It could also come in handy for checking my own. It would be nice to think I could make posts and pages that are accessible to visually impaired people. Should I wait for the first such person to visit before considering their needs?

Clearly I’m not visually impaired other than in the sense that I cause myself lots of pain by trying to read online and my brain either drains quickly from reading or I’m trying through thick fogginess and can’t follow what I’m reading well and don’t retain it. There are thankfully better moments between but trying to read lots affects my ability to write my own posts. A screen reader might help no end. By the time my generation are in our seventies visual impairment rate is likely to be much higher than the current 70% or so. Imagine not writing in an accessible format and waking tomorrow with no sight. What an awful thought!

[Time stamp to add to day book, 17:36, tried screen suppression of tiredness by drafting on phone while lay back in bed. Left arm aches for holding phone even though supported. Eyes hurt and getting that kicked in face feeling back. Full rest…(08/10/15) ]

I didn’t write any posts yesterday other than drafting this one, as above, to this point – although in editing I added a bit extra. My ability to think was slowed, my concentration incredibly poor. Not for the previous efforts of blogging but for one simple outing in a taxi to visit the doctor and fetching shopping, with a taxi home. So I walked a few steps from a car into the health centre, had my appointment; there’s a bus stop outside about thirty steps away and for £1.10 bus fare I can travel two stops and get off right outside the supermarket. There’s a couple of steps and a slight slope to walk up, the whole walking journey into the store must be about a hundred steps – of course it’s a lot more to walk round those aisles. it’s my second or third visit there since it opened a few months ago. I also feel like complaining that the freezer aisles are at the opposite end of the store to anything useful forcing shoppers to travel the full distance.

It’s very strange that the freezer cabinets are surrounded by the alcohol aisles and seems very poor store management, ethically. Not that I have a problem resisting the suggestion to purchase some alcohol. A taxi home with a few bags of shopping to carry in:  the one important thing I went in for (a birthday card for my son) forgotten; the confusion a busy environment with so much visual stimuli causes and the discomfort of other shoppers and staff perfumes; too much reduced food that luckily could go the freezer; easy meals to microwave once I manage to wash up and have plates and cutlery and things for cooking  vegetables in; some easy grab snacks like pasties and quiche to eat cold and pot noodles for in the meantime.

 Soon after getting home I had to fall off my feet to bed for horrendous pain. Yesterday was a very slow day, my blogging ground almost to a halt. Today and tomorrow are potentially the biggest after effect days so I’ll have to manage accordingly. Fingers crossed my early rest in response to symptom onset will reduce or even remove the inevitability of pay-back for trying.

I’m trying to get a visual chart together showing my daily life patterns. I’m asked to show diaries for assessment of my current health. I’ve been keeping one for two years now, but it’s a never-ending scrawl and difficult even for me to pick out the relevant detail. It’s also not symptom focussed as it’s not good for esteem or positivity to focus heavily on how dreadful things are. Every entry occurs once I’ve woken, once I’ve made it downstairs, if I forgot to feed the dog even, once I’ve had breakfast, if I wash up or do any housework, if I had a shower and changed my clothes, accidents of various kinds, once I’ve used computer. Some days there’s not much in the way of entry or I’ve been too ill to not even leave my mark – but those are very infrequent as it’s my priority task of the day to keep my record. The process of collating data takes ages.

I managed to complete September’s chart this week but still more detail to pick out and a key to devise. I tried previously using tables or spreadsheets but got in such a muddle with them. Now I’m working on paper, a month to a page, maybe some relevant small notes to add for each day – anything the key does not reveal. An eventual spreadsheet copy would allow ‘reports’ and all the ways of selecting specific types of data content – but I have to learn to use a spreadsheet for anything other than simple data entry first.

My September chart looks nice with less sleep mostly at wrong times of early morning- I’ve been keeping myself awake too much (and causing pain) by using my various screens each at their lowest possible brightness and cursing each for not going lower. Dinner usually happens late in the day or not at all. I’m looking forward to charting my data from June to August to see the differences in patterns while I’ve been blogging. Blogging has been good for both my skills development and ongoing learning and also for my self-esteem. For the first time in six years I now have a small online social life of a sort. That’s really nice.

So, tomorrow, the day after, next month…? Onward!