Category: Personal

Anything and everything about me and my life. You’ll have to hunt a lot for gossip-worthy tidbits, though.

Hors du temps [fr]

[en] India, out of time. Not doing much. Some thoughts on where I'm going professionally.

C’est ce qui se passe quand je suis en Inde. Le temps au sens où je le vis en Suisse n’existe plus. C’était le but, d’ailleurs, pour ce voyage — des vacances, de vraies vacances, les premières depuis longtemps, saisissant l’occasion de la fin d’un gros mandat (près de deux ans), décrocher, me déconnecter, avant de voir à quoi va ressembler mon avenir professionnel.

Ça fait dix ans, tout de même. Dix ans que je suis indépendante. J’ai commencé à faire mon trou en tant que “pionnière” d’un domaine qui émergeait tout juste. Aujourd’hui, en 2015, l’industrie des médias sociaux a trouvé une certaine maturité — et moi, là-dedans, je me dis qu’il est peut-être temps de faire le point. Ça semble un peu dramatique, dit comme ça, mais ça ne l’est pas: quand on est indépendant, à plus forte raison dans un domaine qui bouge, on le fait “tout le temps”, le point. Souvent, en tous cas.

Il y a des moments comme maintenant où “tout est possible”. C’est un peu grisant, cette liberté de l’indépendant. Effrayant, aussi. Y a-t-il encore un marché pour mes compétences? Serai-je capable de me positionner comme il faut, pour faire des choses qui me correspondent, et dont les gens ont besoin? L’année à venir sera-t-elle en continuité avec les dernières (blogs, médias sociaux, consulting, formation…) ou bien en rupture totale? Si je m’autorise à tout remettre en question, quelles portes pourraient s’ouvrir?

Alors, vu que je peux me le permettre, je me suis dit qu’un mois en Inde loin de tout, ça me ferait du bien. Il faut des pauses pour être créatif. Il faut l’ennui, aussi, et l’Inde est un endroit merveilleux pour ça.

Steph, Palawi and Kusum

Oui oui, l’ennui. Alors bon, je parle de “mon” Inde, qui n’est peut-être pas la vôtre. L’Inde “vacances chez des amis”, où on intègre gentiment la vie familiale, où acheter des légumes pour deux jours est toute une expédition, et changer les litières des chats nécessite d’abord de se procurer des vieux journaux et de les guillotiner en lanières. Où votre corps vous rappelle douloureusement que vous êtes à la merci d’une mauvaise nuit de sommeil (les pétards incessants de Diwali sous nos fenêtres, jusqu’à bien tard dans la nuit, pendant plus d’une semaine — ou le chat qui commence à émerger de sa narcose de castration à 1h du mat, bonjour la nuit blanche) ou d’un repas qui passe mal. Où le monde se ligue contre vos projets et intentions, vous poussant à l’improvisation, et à une flexibilité qui frise la passivité. On se laisse porter. Moi, en tous cas.

Alors je lis. Je traine (un peu) sur Facebook. J’accompagne Aleika dans ses activités quotidiennes. Je joue avec les chats. Je cause en mauvais hindi avec les filles de Purnima (notre domestique), qui ont campé dans notre salon pendant 4-5 jours la semaine dernière. J’attends. J’attends pour manger. J’attends pour prendre mon bain. Je passe des jours à tenter de régler mes problèmes de photos. Le gâteau? On fera ça demain. Je fais la sieste, pour compenser les mauvaises nuits ou attendre que mon système digestif cesse de m’importuner.

Ce n’est pas que ça, bien sûr. Mais comparé au rythme de vie frénétique que je mène en Suisse (même si je sais m’arrêter et me reposer), ici, je ne fais rien.

Hello From Kolkata [en]

[fr] En Inde. Des trucs (très) en vrac. Un podcast en français dans les liens.

I’m in India. For a month.

I did it again: didn’t blog immediately about something I wanted to blog about (the rather frightful things I learned about the anti-GMO movement, if you want to know) because of the havoc it wreaked on my facebook wall when I started sharing what I was reading. And as I didn’t blog about that, I didn’t blog about the next thing. And the next.

Steph and Coco

And before I know it I’m leaving for India in two weeks, have students to teach and blogs to grade, and don’t know where to start to write a new blog post.

The weather in Kolkata is OK. The trip to come was exhausting: 20 hours for the flights, add on a bit before and after. I didn’t sleep on the Paris-Mumbai leg because it was “too early”, and spent my four hours of layover in Mumbai domestic airport in a right zombie state. Needless to say there is nowhere there to lie down or curl up, aside from the floor. I particularly appreciated having to go to the domestic airport for my Mumbai-Kolkata flight only to be ferried back to the international airport while boarding, because “Jet Airways flights all leave from the international airport”. But I laughed.

It was a pleasant trip overall. Nearly no queue at immigration. Pleasant interactions with people. And oh my, has Mumbai airport come a long way since my first arrival here over 16 years ago. It was… organized. I followed the signs, followed instructions, just went along with the flow. I’ve grown up too, I guess.

I slept over 12 hours last night. I can’t remember when I did that last. I walked less than 500 steps today, bed to couch and back. I’ve (re)connected with the family pets: Coco the African Grey Parrot, (ex-)Maus the chihuahua-papillon-jack-russel-staffie mix (I can never remember his new Indian name), and the remaining cat, which I’ve decided to call “Minette”, who “gave birth” to two empty amniotic sacs yesterday and is frantically meowing all over the place. Looking for non-existent kittens, or missing her brother, who escaped about a week ago? Hopefully she will calm down soon.

Maus and Minette

I plan to play about with Periscope while I’m here. Everyday life in India seems like a great opportunity to try out live interactive video. Do follow me if you don’t want to miss the fun.

Oh, and don’t panic about the whole “meat causes cancer” thing.

Some random things, listened to recently, and brought to the surface by conversations:

  • Making Sex Offenders Pay — And Pay And Pay And Pay (Freakonomics Radio)
  • Saïd, 10 ans après (Sur Les Docks) — an ex-con, 10 years after, and how hard reinsertion is, when you’re faced with the choice between sleeping outside, unable to get a job, and committing another offense so that you can go back to prison; extremely moving story
  • You Eat What You Are, Part I and Part II (Freakonomics Radio again)
  • When The Boats Arrive (Planet Money) — what happens to the economy when immigrants arrive? it grows, simply;  migrant workers need jobs, of course, but they also very quickly start spending, growing the economy and creating the need for more jobs; the number of available jobs at a given place is not a rigid fixed number

Yep, random, I warned you.

I can now do the Rubik’s cube and have installed Catan on my iDevices, if ever you want to play.

I’ve activated iCloud Photo Library even though I use Lightroom for my “serious” photos. Like the author of the article I just linked to, my iPhone almost never is connected to my Mac anymore. And the photos I need to illustrate blog posts are often photos I’ve just taken with my phone. I end up uploading them to Flickr through the app.

It seems the “photos ecosystem” is slowly getting there, but not quite yet. I’ve just spent a while hunting through my post archives, and I can’t believe I never wrote anything about using Google auto-backup for my photos. At some point I decided to go “all in”, subscribed to 1TB of Google storage, and uploaded my 10+ years of photos there. I loved how it intelligently organized my photos. Well, you know, all the stuff that Google Photos does.

Why am I using the past tense? Because of this: seems automatic upload of a whole bunch of RAW formats has quietly stopped. This is bad. Basically, this paid service is not doing what I chose it for anymore. I hope against reason this will be fixed, but I’m afraid I might be disappointed.

One thing I was not wild about with Google Photos was the inability to spot and process duplicates. And duplication of photos when sharing.

Flickr now has automatic upload and organising. Do I want to try that? Although I dump a lot of stuff in Flickr, I’ve been slack about processing and uploading photos lately. I’m hesitant. Do I want to drown my current albums and photostream in everything I snap? Almost tempted.

I think that’s enough random for now. It’s 10.30 pm and I’m starving, off to the kitchen.

Coloriage, Catane, Rubik’s Cube [fr]

[en] Offline toys.

L’autre jour, j’ai eu une bonne surprise d’absence de file d’attente à la PMU — j’y allais pour faire le point sur mes vaccins pour mon (très) prochain voyage en Inde. Ouille, je dois encore demander mon visa. Aujourd’hui, promis.

Bref, j’étais en ville et c’était allé plus vite que prévu, j’ai du coup profité pour faire des achats non-prioritaires qui étaient sur ma liste depuis longtemps.

Offline toys

Quelle excitation de ramener ça à la maison! C’était presque Noël. J’ai tellement l’habitude de mes jouets high-tech, ça faisait un bon moment que je n’en avais plus acquis de low-tech.

J’attends donc impatiemment dimanche, première séance agendée pour jouer aux Colons de Catane. C’est un jeu auquel j’ai joué quelques fois il y a une dizaine d’années, mais qui m’a laissé une vraiment forte impression. J’ai adoré l’idée qu’on construit le plateau de jeu à chaque partie. C’était une idée complètement nouvelle pour moi, et ça m’a fait un peu le même effet que la découverte d’Ingress, et l’idée d’un jeu qui superpose à l’espace réel des objets fictifs appartenant au jeu.

J’attends aussi d’agender une rencontre avec la copine qui m’a initiée au Rubik’s Cube. Petite, j’en avais eu un entre les mains, et comme beaucoup de monde, j’ai abandonné très vite après avoir tenté de tournicoter un peu la bête. Ce que j’ignorais à ce moment-là, et que j’ai appris il y a quelques mois, c’est qu’il y a une méthode. On fait d’abord la croix, puis on rajoute les coins, puis les bords de la couche du milieu, etc. Je sais faire les deux premiers étages, mais pas le dernier. Impatiente! (Oui, je sais qu’on peut trouver les instructions en ligne, mais c’est tellement plus cool quand c’est quelqu’un qui nous montre.)

Ma première œuvreLe coloriage, c’est une image coloriée de chat qui m’en a donné envie. J’ai passé l’autre jour un moment sur Amazon et je me suis retrouvé avec 9 livres de coloriage dans mon panier. Un peu excessif. Après m’être un peu renseignée, j’ai décidé d’aller acheter feutres et crayons quelque part, et de voir par la même occasion d’il y avait moyen d’acheter des livres direct. Impatience, quand tu nous tiens! J’ai manqué syncoper devant les prix des crayons et feutres, puis me suis souvenue que j’avais une boîte de 30 Caran d’Ache dans un tiroir. J’ai acheté des feutres, trouvé un cahier et des cartes postales, et l’autre soir, je m’y suis mise.

Alors c’est cool. J’aime bien. Seul bémol: ça me fait un peu mal, mine de rien. Je ne voulais pas l’admettre, mais colorier, c’est pas terrible pour mon poignet. C’est pas pour rien que je n’arrive presque plus à écrire à la main. Aux feutres, ça va bien mieux qu’aux crayons, par contre. Alors bon, je ferai des petites séances. Peut-être avec l’entraînement je me décrisperai et j’aurai moins vite mal? J’espère…

Sleeping in India and Putting My Brain Straight [en]

[fr] Le silence nécessaire au sommeil, c'est il me semble quelque chose d'acquis. Un segment du podcast mentionné avant-hier parle de l'Inde... je ne pense pas que donner des boules quiès aux indiens améliorera vraiment leur qualité de sommeil. Et sinon, je continue avec intention à reprendre mon cerveau en main, y compris pour l'administratif et la compta!

After writing my post the day before yesterday, I listened to the end of the two-part series on sleep from Freakonomics Radio. I like Freakonomics because they go beyond the easy fluffy questions, and dig down to where things can be uncomfortably unclear. Maybe I should read the book.

Liseron coloré

Anyway. There was a segment on sleep in India (Chennai to be precise), and some of the comments stuck me as a little… ethnocentric and uncritical. Yes, India is noisy, definitely. And we westerners have trouble sleeping in the noise.  But remember that we have had to learn to sleep in the calm. The womb, where we all come from, is a noisy place. It is only with time that noise starts waking us up.

I remember hearing about the miller who will wake up when his mill stops (sound gives way to silence). More recently, I’m sure I read something about a study where they put volunteers in a terribly noisy sleep lab and kept their eyes open to flashing lights, and they fell asleep just fine. (Couldn’t dig it out, if you find it let me know.)

Many Indians, in my experience, have no trouble whatsoever sleeping in the noise. Some cannot sleep without the noise and wind of the fan whirring above their heads, even when it is cold. So, I’m not sure that providing Indians with earplugs will actually help them get better sleep.

Also, one thing that stuck me in India is that a bed is just “a place to sleep”. It seems to be less of a private, intimate place than in the West. In that respect, I’m not sure one should interpret people sleeping in weird places the same way one would here: maybe they’re just sleeping, and not “passed out from exhaustion”.

This Indian sleeping comment aside, I’ve been mulling over my efforts to get my brain back on track. One thing I didn’t mention in my last post was that I am trying to put more intention in things. If I realise I have forgotten something, I make an effort to recall it. I make an effort to be organised and not let things slip. I am making a conscious effort to get back on top of things, and it seems to be working.

Obviously it’s not enough to help me keep track of everything I’ve read, because I can’t seem to find the piece which talked about this guy who made a conscious effort to floss every day as an exercise in self-discipline. If you can’t get yourself to floss each day (less than a minute of your time!), how can you hope to stick to bigger things?

So, I’m flossing. These last two nights, I also went to bed with my phone on airplane mode and in the living-room — just me, the cats and my kindle. This morning, I didn’t touch my e-mail or social media until I had showered, had breakfast, and headed down to the office. Environment design…

I’ve also decided to stop being flaky about certain things, in particular around admin and accounting. I have no love for either of them, and like to say that I am with financial stuff like some are with algebra: my brain just blacks out. Well, enough of that. It’s not rocket science. If I was capable of doing Fourier transforms at some point in my life, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to remember which papers I need to bring my accountant for my taxes and accounting each year. Hell, I’m even enjoying listening to Planet Money!

Quintus a eu beaucoup de chance [fr]

[en] Quintus is a very lucky cat indeed. He used up one of his nine lives the night before last. He almost certainly chocked on a piece of kibble. Luckily I was there. In panic, because I thought he was dying in front of my eyes, I stuck my fingers down his throat repeatedly (met kibble, got bitten, didn't solve the problem). At one point I thought he was dead, lying unresponsive on his side, blue tongue hanging out of his open mouth, not breathing but heart beating under my bloody fingers. That must have been when I shook him upside down in despair, what was there to lose? To cut a long story short, when I got the emergency vet on the phone, he was breathing, not well, but breathing, and he slowly resurfaced. I found a piece of kibble on the carpet the next day. No certainty, but it might be the culprit. I spent the rest of my night at the ER for my bite, which thankfully is not too serious.

Quintus a failli mourir durant la nuit de mercredi à jeudi. Je vous rassure tout de suite, il est en pleine forme maintenant.

Smilimg Quintus

2h du matin, je me couche tard (pas bien je sais) et pendant que je me prépare à aller au lit, Quintus, qui vient de rentrer, mange ses croquettes.

Je le vois débouler dans la chambre pour se cacher sous le lit, ce qu’il ne fait qu’en cas d’orage ou d’aspirateur. Il n’y a ni l’un ni l’autre. J’aperçois un filet de bave au passage, je plonge pour extirper le chat de sa cachette, il a la bouche ouverte et la langue dehors.

Ni une ni deux, je plonge mes doigts au fond de sa gorge, me disant qu’il doit y avoir quelque chose de coincé. Je rencontre des croquettes. Il m’échappe, toujours bouche ouverte, langue dehors, ne tousse pas et ne respire pas.

Mes souvenirs sont mélangés, parce que je suis sous le choc. Mais je sais que je l’ai attrapé plusieurs fois pour aller grailler au fond de sa gorge. Je sais que je me suis fait mordre. Je sais qu’il a sauté brutalement sur le lit pour y faire un bond, paniqué. Je sais qu’entre deux tentatives de l’attraper, j’ai réussi à enfiler un pantalon et un t-shirt, à prendre mon téléphone, à chercher le numéro du vétérinaire d’urgence. Je sais que je n’arrivais pas à trouver ce putain de numéro parce que mon doigt pissait tellement le sang que l’écran du téléphone ne répondait plus. Je sais que j’ai cru que Quintus était en train de mourir. Non, non, non, pas ça, pas ce soir, non. Je sais que j’ai réussi à essuyer assez de sang pour appeler le vétérinaire. Je sais qu’au retour de la salle de bain où j’étais allée essuyer le sang, je l’ai vu étendu sur le flanc, inerte, bouche ouverte, langue bleue, regarde vide, et j’ai pensé qu’il était mort. Je sais que j’ai mis la main sur sa poitrine et senti son coeur battre. Je sais que je l’ai saisi par le milieu (était-ce à ce moment? avant? je ne sais plus) et secoué la tête en bas, de désespoir, le tout pour le tout, je pensais que c’était fichu. Je sais qu’il était couvert de sang, mon sang, partout. Je sais que quand j’ai enfin eu l’assistante vétérinaire de garde au téléphone, Quintus était couché devant moi, inerte, mais respirant très vite et très superficiellement.

C’était mon cabinet qui était de garde. Ils connaissent Quintus, bien sûr. L’assistante m’a posé une série de questions sur l’état de Quintus, y répondre m’a calmée, je n’étais plus toute seule face à mon chat en train de mourir. Elle a appelé le vétérinaire, m’a rappelé droit derrière, Quintus respirait toujours, il a même levé la tête. Elle est restée en ligne avec moi pendant qu’il semblait respirer de mieux en mieux et reprendre ses esprits. Elle m’a rassurée que je pouvais le laisser une fois qu’il semblait reprendre pied pour aller soigner ma morsure.

Je n’osais pas y croire.

J’ai passé le reste de la nuit aux urgences du CHUV. Une morsure de chat, ça peut vite devenir mauvais, je le sais, et je sais qu’il ne faut pas attendre. J’ai pris mon mal en patience. Les morsures sont superficielles, heureusement. A mon retour, à six heures du matin, Quintus dormait paisiblement dans son panier, et il a ronronné quand je l’ai pris dans mes bras — comme d’habitude.

J’ai eu tellement peur. Je suis encore sous le choc, je crois. Tout l’épisode a un goût de mauvais rêve, le même goût que le cauchemar de la nuit dernière dans lequel un proche mourait. (N’allons pas chercher très loin…) J’ai cru qu’après Bagha, j’allais encore une fois devoir assister, impuissante, à la mort de mon chat. J’ai vraiment pensé qu’il était mort. Et je lui ai probablement sauvé la vie.

Après avoir passé mille et mille fois la scène dans ma tête, au point que je ne sais plus maintenant où sont les “vrais” souvenirs et où j’ai bouché les trous, je pense que la croquette est probablement sortie quand je l’ai secoué. Sa langue était vraiment bleue, ça j’en suis sûre. J’ai retrouvé en nettoyant une croquette sur le tapis, là où elle aurait pu tomber quand je l’ai mis la tête en bas. Certes, il y a souvent des croquettes qui trainent chez moi, mais la femme de ménage était passée la veille et je n’ai pas souvenir d’avoir lancé des croquettes dans le coin mercredi. Donc… probablement la croquette coupable.

On a quand même fait un petit saut chez le vétérinaire l’après-midi suivant, surtout pour me rassurer. Son examen confirme l’hypothèse de la croquette (on écarte définitivement l’épilepsie et les histoires cardiaques) et il m’a confirmé que c’était extrêmement rare, un chat qui fait une “fausse route” comme ça avec une croquette. J’essaie de me rassurer que ça n’a aucune raison d’arriver à nouveau, mais je ne peux pas m’empêcher de garder un oeil sur Quintus quand il mange. Je frémis de penser à ce qui aurait pu arriver si je n’avais pas été là…

Bad Cat Photos (And Links. Non-Cat Links.) [en]

[fr] Des liens. Surtout.

I still haven’t found the magic solution to grab interesting links on-the-fly and collect them for a future blog post. I easily share to facebook, G+ and Twitter from any device. Anything shared on Twitter ends up in delicious, and so does everything shared to facebook (albeit privately). I stuff things in Pocket when I don’t have time to read them and the tabs start piling up. I’ve started sticking things in Pocket that I have read but want to blog about. It’s going to be messy.

The Basket is a Little Tight

I hardly got through the first item in my notes with my last post. So, sorry for the somewhat stream-of-consciousness blogging. Welcome inside my head.

A facebook friend of mine asked us what we thought about couples who have shared email or facebook accounts. The reactions were mostly swift and strong: eeeeeeew! Mine was too.

Online, your account is your identity. Are you “one” with your significant other? Joint accounts, for me, point to symbiotic relationships, which I really don’t consider healthy. Are you nothing without your SO? Do you have no individuality or identity aside from “spouse of”?

This reminds me of how in certain communities the “second” of a couple (ie, not the primary member of the community) sometimes feels a bit like a satellite-person, using the “primary” as a proxy for interacting with the rest of the community. This bothers me.

It bothers me all the more that the “second” is (oh surprise) generally the woman of the couple. It’s a man’s world, isn’t it, and women just tag along. Enough said. A bit of reading. Not necessarily related. And in no particular order.

In “offline” news, I’ve been redoing some of the furniture in my living-room. (“Cheese sandwich”, here we come.) One part of trying to solve Tounsi’s indoor spraying problem is getting rid of the furniture he irremediably soiled, and that was the opportunity for some changes.

New Furniture

The picture is bad, but you see the idea. Huge cat tree on one side, and “cat ladder” created out of two LACK bookshelves from IKEA (don’t put all the shelves in). More for Tounsi than for Quintus, clearly, who is more comfy in the ground-level basket I brought back with him from England three years ago. His elbows aren’t what they used to be, so jumping down from anywhere is a bit of a pain.

Basket for Quintus

Yes, today comes with a lot of bad cat photos. Sorry.

Anyway, I had to remove all my books from my bookcase to move it over one metre, which gave me the opportunity to start sorting, now that I’ve gone all digital with my kindle. I’m finding it very liberating. All those kilogrammes of books I’ve been carrying with me for 20 years! I can now feel free to let go of all but the most meaningful or precious. My Calibre library only takes up space on my hard drive — and hardly any.

(The WordPress editor is doing horrible things to the formatting in this post. My apologies.)

Back On The Heat Wave [en]

[fr] L'oeil qui voyait trouble? Pas un coup de soleil, mais un mini corps étranger métallique. Oui, ouille. J'en ai monstre marre de voir flou de mon oeil dominant, juste là.

It was much cooler up in the mountains. Here I am in Lausanne, with another heat wave hitting us. Or the same. I don’t know anymore, this summer has been endless days in survivor mode trying to keep my flat cool. The largest part of my flat faces southwest. As soon as it gets warmer outside than inside, I close everything. I close the blinds so the sun doesn’t heat my rooms through the windows. And late in the evening, when the temperature has dropped a few degrees, and the outside air is finally cooler than inside, I open everything wide.

heat wave 2015

No ceiling fans or AC here. Swiss buildings are designed to keep the cold out.

Remember the fuzzy vision I told you about a few days ago? Wednesday morning I headed over to Lausanne’s eye hospital. I spent most of the morning there. The fun bit is that I got to see two young doctors doing their internship. They were very friendly and relaxed, went through all the preliminary questions, examined my eye, tinkered with the devices in the room (they usually saw patients in another room, they explained, and weren’t familiar with this one), and then went to present my case to the doctor supervising them, who then saw me to close the case.

Turns out it wasn’t too much sun. Oh no. It was a speck of metal dust stuck in my eye, right in the middle. Tiny, a fifth of a millimetre or something. My first reaction was “OMG metal in my eye”, followed straight behind by “OMGOMG you’re going to have to remove it!” The doctor reassured me that this was something they did many times a day and was no big deal.

A few drops of anaesthetic in my eye, some deep breaths (well, I tried, at least) and clenched hands on the handles in front of me, staring straight ahead with my other eye, straight ahead, very important not to move, straight ahead… and that was it. He scraped out the nasty little thing from my eye. Oh, and a tiny layer of my cornea, too, he explained. (Luckily I’ve had enough feline eye adventures with Sir Quintus that this didn’t alarm me. But still.)

So, now I’m left with gooey antibiotic drops (we don’t want an infection there) and still-blurry vision. It’s really making reading (on-screen or off-screen) difficult and frustrating. The blurry eye is my dominant eye, otherwise it wouldn’t be so bad. It still hurts a bit at night, but hopefully the pain should go away in a few short days. I don’t know about the timeline for the blurry vision, and it’s starting to distress me. The nurse on the hotline suggested I give it the week-end and come around on Monday if it was still bad. At this stage what’s going through my mind is “I hope I get all my vision back at some point” and “I hope it doesn’t take too long, because it’s starting to impact my ability to work”.

A Patchwork Post From The Chalet [en]

[fr] Plein de choses en vrac. Y'a des liens qui mènent vers des trucs en français.

I keep falling into this trap. I don’t blog about something because there is something else, more important, that I should blog about before and haven’t got around to writing.

In this case, it’s the fact that just over a week ago, I finally got to see Joan Baez live on stage. I’ve been listening to her since I was seven or so. I know most of her songs. I’ve always listened to her. And a few years ago I decided that I should really go and see her live soon, because, you know, she’s not getting any younger, and at some point people who spend their lives touring and singing on stage might decide that they want to stay at home and paint instead.

Joan Baez at Paléo

And she was coming to Paléo, in Nyon, just next door. I think I cried during the whole show — not from sadness, just from too much emotion. I was glad to be there that evening, because it was the evening to witness, with Patti Smith and Robert Plant, too. Isn’t it strange how somebody can be such an important part of your life (the soundtrack of many of my years, like Chris de Burgh) — and yet they have no idea you exist?

If you’ve never listened to Joan Baez, just dive into YouTube.

During the drive to the chalet a story came up on the podcast I was listening to which is exactly about that. The Living Room, a story from the podcast Love + Radio, which I’m going to add to my listening list as soon as I have a good enough data connection.

I finished reading “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” by Jon Ronson, after devouring “The Psychopath Test” these last weeks. It’s a great book. Anybody spending time online should read it. It’s important. With great power comes great responsibility, but we the people on Twitter and Facebook are not aware of the power we wield. The power to destroy lives. To get the gist of it, use 17 minutes of your life to watch Jon’s TED Talk.

My reading of this book coincides with the unleashing of online fury over the killing of Cecil the Lion. It has disturbed me deeply. I feel an urge to dig through my archives and see what my reactions to Jonah Lehrer and Justine Sacco were, because I remember the stories. I’m worried of what I may find. I will be watching myself closely in future.

I also find myself shy in speaking up against those piling on against Cecil’s killer. Oh, he has done wrong. And I have no love for hunters, and no love for hunters of big cats. But what is missing here is proportionality. And I am scared that by speaking up I will find myself faced with a wall of “you’re either with us or against us”, ie, if you don’t join the mob then you’re defending the killing of lions. Just the way last year I was accused of “encouraging pedophiles” and whatnot because I was opposed to a stupid piece of “anti-pedophile” legislation. To some extent, I feel like I have let myself be silenced. Parallels to be drawn with the harassment episode I went through earlier this year (more on that, someday, probably).

This interview of Jon Ronson for On The Media also gives a very good summary of his book.

(My only gripe with Jon Ronson and his book is that a blog is not a post, dammit!)

Two local newspaper articles made me react today on Facebook (they’re in French). One about “the ideal age to conceive” for women, and one about a carer who got bitten by a Komodo dragon at the Lausanne Vivarium.

The first made me jump up because alongside statistics saying “if you want three kids you should get to work at this age” we find things like “you still have a 40% chance of conceiving at 40” and “don’t worry, it’s still quite possible to have children after 37”. Well, at 40 your chances of success through IVF are more around 10-15% — I’m curious where that “40%” comes from, and what it’s supposed to mean. Certainly not “4 attempts to conceive out of 10 succeed” but more “4 women out of 10 who are ‘trying’ (define that) succeed”. Another topic that’s keeping me from blogging about other stuff, because I have so much more to write about not having children. Well, you’ll get it in tidbits, it seems.

As for the second, well, I was expecting a “scare” piece. “Look, the dangerous animal.” Or “look, another negative story for the Vivarium” (which was running out of funding a couple of years ago). To my surprise the article was really good (edit: wow! they seem to have changed the title!), with the carer explaining how she was actually responsible for how the animal had reacted, and that showed how affectionate she was towards it despite the bite. I realised that reading the title had prepared me for “bad journalism”. But going back to it, the title was quite neutral: “Vivarium carer bitten by komodo dragon”. And so I wonder: how could the title have been better? Tricky.

Up in the mountains, in my chalet with almost no data connection, it’s easy to slow down and “do nothing”. A couple of weeks ago I decided I was going to consciously try and do less things in parallel, both on a micro and a macro level. Monotask more, multitask less. Try and keep my number of “open projects” under control. My podcast-hopping brought me to the “Bored and Brilliant Boot Camp” episode the other day. It really drove home the fact that my brain needs downtime. Bored time. And probably a holiday (I haven’t had a “real holiday” (= with no work to do) in much too long, and I’m starting to feel it. How did that happen? I thought I was over that.) So now, I’m paying more attention to where my phone is, and trying to keep it more in my bag and less in my hand, more in the other room and less just next to me.

That’s it for today, folks. My plan is to write again tomorrow. Or the day after. Let’s see if it materialises.

A Post About Many Things [en]

[fr] Des choses en vrac!

It happened again. As time goes by and things to say pile up, the pile weighs heavy on my fingers and blog posts don’t get written. Been there, done that, will happen again.

First, a heartfelt thanks to all the people who reacted to my post about being single and childless, here and on facebook. Rest assured that I actually rather like the life I have — it’s full of good things. But it’s very different from the one I imagined. I will write more on this, but exactly when and what I am not sure yet. Also, one can grieve not being a mother but not want to adopt or be a single parent. There is a whole spectrum of “child desire”, and it’s not at all as clear-cut as “no way” and “I’ll do anything”. Check out “50 Ways to Not Be a Mother“.

Most of my working hours are devoted to running Open Ears and a series of digital literacy workshops at Sonova. I’m still way behind on my accounting.

Tounsi (and his pal Quintus) went to see an animal behaviour specialist, because I was starting to get really fed up cleaning after Tounsi’s almost daily spraying in the flat (thankfully his pee doesn’t smell too strongly and I’m good at spotting and cleaning). I plan to write a detailed article on the experience in French, but it was fascinating and I regret not going earlier. As of now, spraying is pretty much under control, and I’m in the process of finally chucking and replacing two pieces of furniture which are soiled beyond salvation.

What I learned:

  • outdoor cats can also need stimulation (play, hunting…)
  • even a 20-second “play session” where the cat lifts his head to watch a paper ball but doesn’t chase it can make a difference, if this kind of thing is repeated throughout the day.
  • making cats “work” for their food can be taken much further than feeding balls or mazes: change where the food is all the time (I wouldn’t have dared do that, didn’t know if it was a good idea or not, but it is); hide kibble under upturned yoghurt cups; throw pieces of kibble one by one for the cat to run after (another thing to do “all the time”); use an empty egg-box to make kibble harder to get to; etc. etc.
  • clicker training for things like touching a reluctant cat: my baby steps were way too big and my sessions way too long
  • Feliway spray is way more efficient than the diffusor (at least to stop spraying)
  • cleaning with water (or water and neutral soap) is really not enough, there are products to spray on soiled areas which break down urine molecules (even if you can’t smell anything, the cat can)
  • spraying can simply be a “vicious circle” — it seems to be the case with Tounsi: he sprays in the flat because it’s a habit, and because there are “marking sign-posts” (ie, smell) everywhere

While we’re on the topic of cats, I’m playing cat-rescuer and looking for homes for Capsule and Mystik (together, used to living indoors but that could change) and Erika (has been living outdoors for 5 years but super friendly).

I don’t think I mentioned StartUp podcast or Gimlet Media here yet. Anyway: want great podcasts? Listen to Startup, Reply All, and Mystery Show. And in addition to Invisibilia and those I mention in that article, grab Planet Money (I swear, they make it interesting even for me!), Snap Judgement (great storytelling), and This American Life.

Reading? Spin, Axis, and Vortex, by Robert Charles Wilson.

Something I need to remember to tell people about blogging: write down stuff that’s in your head. It works way better than doing research to write on something you think might be interesting for people.

Procrastinating and generally disorganised, as I am? Two recent articles by James Clear that I like: one on “temptation bundling” to help yourself do stuff while keeping in mind future rewards (delayed gratification, anybody?) and the other on a super simple productivity “method”. I read about it this morning and am going to try it.

Related, but not by Clear: How to Get Yourself to Do Things. Read it, but here’s the takeaway: when you procrastinate, the guilt builds up and you feel worse and worse. But as soon as you start doing it gets better. And so the worst you’ll ever feel about not doing something is just before you start. Understanding this is helping me loads.

Enough for today. More soon, or less soon.

Thanks to Marie-Aude who gave me a nudge to get back to this blog. I’d been in the “omg should write an article” state for weeks, and her little contribution the other day certainly played a role in me putting “write CTTS article” in my list of 6 things for the day. Merci 🙂

The Right to Grieve — And That Means Being Sad [en]

[fr] Avez-vous remarqué comme personne ne veut qu'on soit triste? La tristesse est néanmoins une émotion nécessaire, celle qui nous permet d'accepter une perte, d'en faire le deuil, et de pouvoir continuer à avancer à travers et au-delà de la peine.

Have you noticed how nobody wants you to be sad? Tell people around you that you’re sad, and immediately they’ll want to cheer you up.

Sadness is not bad. Sadness is necessary. It is through being sad that we are able to accept our losses and move on. That is what grieving is.

Our friends don’t want us to feel sad, because they don’t want us to suffer. But refusing to be sad and to grieve brings along a lot of suffering — certainly more, in the long run, than the pain of sadness.

Sadness is not depression. Unprocessed grief can lead to depression, though.

Sadness is the feeling of loss.

A person who is experiencing loss needs the courage to feel sad, and in a world which wants to shove sad under the carpet at the first opportunity, that can be far from easy.

What is valued is staying strong in the face of loss, grief, catastrophe. Not collapsing. Not showing how much pain we’re in.

But what we need when we’re sad and in pain, most of the time, is support so we can dare to feel all this. A safe place to be heard, recognised, and not judged. Love and acceptance that does not desperately want to save us from our emotions, but on the contrary, regard them as part of ourselves and our journey through life.

To grieve and to move on from all the various losses in our lives, all the nevermores, we need to be able to be sad. It is a good thing.