Week 34/2025: A catch-up post

Week of 18 August

I’m watching the weeks slip away and posts not being finished. My uni assignment has taken up a lot of my time and there hasn’t been much else going on. So this is a quick catch-up post. There are more to come!

This post is wholly researched and written by me. I do not use AI in my writing. I will always bring you my stories in my real human voice.

A catch-up post

The newly elected members of parliament went back to work this week to decide if they could work together. Labor presented a no-confidence motion, it failed, and we have a very similar government to what we had before last month’s election.

Fun times.

I (don’t) want to ride my bicycle

The absolute worst thing that happened this week was that I rode my bike to work one morning and it was colder than I realised and my hands were colder than I have ever experienced before. I am not kidding, This was next level pain. It was up there with the day I hurt my back. I was telling myself it wasn’t really that cold and I was being a big sook but when I rode past cars with frosted over windscreens I realised I was wrong and that this had been a Very Bad Idea. (Yes, I did have gloves. Two pairs. )

When I got into the bike room at work I was in so much pain I was nauseous and I was babbling all sorts of nonsense. Someone in my office said when they saw me I was white and I looked like I was in shock.

This was a HORRIBLE experience.

It doesn’t inspire me to go bike riding again.

Habit tracker

Existing habits

• Go outside first thing (7 days): 7/7
•  15 minutes morning exercise sequence (7 days): 6/7
•  Hip exercises (5 days): 4/5
• Walk (7 days): 5/7
•  Walk 8,000 steps (7 days): 5/7
•  9.00 shutdown & dim lights (6 days): 3/6
• Evening routine (6 days): 5/6

New habits

• Fill water bottle in the morning (5 days): 5/5
• Carry a notebook with me when I walk (5 days): 3/5
• Mid-day journalling (7 days): 2/7
• Thinking time (4 days): 3/4
• Read aloud (7 days): 7/7

Summary of the week

What did I learn this week?

According to Ian Cole, retired school teacher and columnist for the Mercury, in the 1950s and early 1960s in Australia, the daily meals were called breakfast, dinner and tea. He says the word ‘lunch’ began to emerge as the midday meal in the 1960s, possibly due to English immigrants using the word ‘luncheon’, but even so, this wasn’t an everyday word in Australia. He suggests that during the West Indies cricket tour of Australia, sports reporters would give a ‘lunch’ score and that this is when the term began to be used commonly. At the same time, the word ‘tea’, was used to refer to the afternoon tea break in the cricket, and the word ‘dinner’ began to be used for the evening meal.

What did I notice this week?

The boat-without-a-home, which arrived in Hobart this week, on the docks.

The gulls weren’t interested.

And the water rippling on the hull of another boat.

What was the best thing this week?

I got some positive feedback and recognition at work.

What am I reading this week?

• The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr
• Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
• Unruly by David Mitchell

What am I watching this week?

• Twelfth Night National Theatre (2017) and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre on Screen (2012)
• Resident Alien
• Doctor Who ‘Time Flight’

What am I listening to this week?

• How I Write podcast with David Perell (Guests: Robert Macfarlane and Will Storr)
• Humanity Chapter IV by Thomas Bergersen