So this is it! The final episode! It has been a wonderful experience making this podcast of the last four months. This week Katie and I discuss whether we believe that it is even possible to be perfect (spoiler alert… we don’t!)
When we started making this podcast we didn’t really take the list of attributes that seriously. To be honest we still don’t, but there is something genuinely life changing about any experience which allows you to stop, listen to people’s stories and then try and apply what you have learnt in your own life.
As we mention on the podcast we got a lot of inspiration for this episode from this excellent TED talk by Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code.
We also were inspired by the work of Brene Brown. Her amazing TED talk on ‘The Power of Vulnerability’ is a game changer. IT is a bit long, but highly recommended!
I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped us on the Just Ten Things journey. All of the people we have spoken to and all the people who have taken the time to listen!
If you have any comments or thoughts on anything we have cover on the podcast please do get in touch. I know have the exciting task of producing a reflective essay about this whole process so I would love to hear any insights that you have!
After talking to Tommy we took his advice and went to the sea to release some of our anxieties. We decided to visit the seaside town of Folkestone. What we hadn’t realised is that outside of London, Bank Holidays are sacred, people actually stop working. Whilst this was a wonderful call back to the good old days when rest was a bigger part of our national story, it does not lead to the most exciting day out! However, you cannot say the Katie and I are not troopers and we persevered in finding the joy in taking a little time out.
This was the first indication that Katie was not feeling laid-back as she led me through a detailed critique of this ad.
Katie hated this ad too.
This is on the wall of Folkestone Station. It’s cool, but at the same time it makes you feel like there are hundreds of people trapped within the walls of the station, silently screaming.
A quiet oasis which made me yearn for my own living bench.
Yup, Folkestone is the type of place where they have mosaic QR codes.
Ah! The joy of being by the sea.
Who would have thought that a chip shop would be so stressful.
Katie, before she cracked.
The perfect place to release ons’s anxieties
I have no idea what this is.
The front cover of my YA book – Faded Glory
This week we spoke to Tommy and Taaka and they helped us explore our supportive sides by guiding our listeners. We dished out some some excellent advice.
So we took a little break over Easter to rest up and get ready to attack the summer with vigor! We also took a little bit of that time to do some research for the intelligence challenge that JP set us.
Quick recap, JP suggested that we research a topic that we didn’t know anything about that we have always been interested in and then prepare a presentation about it.
I found it to be a really interesting experience and it reminded me how rare it is that I embark on learning for learning’s sake. Even though the podcast was the motivator for this learning it did make me think about how much richer learning feels when there is a sense of intrinsic motivation.
Please find below the slides that accompany my presentation. Yes, I know, these are not some of the most inspiring slides, but they will provide a little visual interest whilst you listen to my story.
Katie’s presentation was far more visually appealing and as such could not be constrained by the limits of the audio format. She will be dropping her presentation on another platform, but I will ensure that I include a link on the blog for wherever it lands.
This week on the podcast we spoke to Tommy about being laid-back and basically how we can learn to chill the heck out.
So I guess we are headed to the sea to become super laid-back individuals. Let’s see how that works out for us.
I kicked off the prank war whilst Katie was on holiday. As pranks go this one was pretty tame. I was hoping that I could set the tone for the rest of the pranks. I was shooting for light-hearted japes.
Hugest apologises for the vertical video. There are no excuses – I should know better.
Katie struck back with an attack on my one place of comfort and security. I think what made this worse was the fact that it had come so long after my original prank that I had actually forgotten about it.
Salt! In my bed! When she knew that I didn’t have any clean sheets. My thought process on seeing this was “Urgh, this is the absolute worst!”
This is how I decided to hit back. If it is not clear, I taped up Katie’s room. It was simple and hopefully effective. Just a mildly annoying prank with very low stakes.
This was the move Katie chose to make next. Once again, she was fully aware that I had not recently done any washing. (Although, fortunately for me Katie is not aware of my ’emergency towel’ squirrelled away for such emergencies.
This prank got my blood boiling and so I did the only thing I could think of in the heat of the moment and I went and hid Katie’s pillows. Petty? YES! Satisfying? OH YES! I was feeling pretty smug because I could see Katie frantically searching for her pillows. Little did I know that this was all a ruse and she had already given up on the lost pillows. She had used this drop in my guard to launch another attack. A classic, she had teepeed my room.
So I would say we were pretty even in the prank stakes and I am glad I pushed myself to indulge in something that does not come naturally to me.
On the podcast this week, we talk to JP, one of Katie’s colleagues.
We spoke about the links between intelligence, learning and teaching. We also touched on the importance of acknowledging the different ways in which intelligence manifests itself.
JP has challenged us to learn about something completely new and present it. If you have any ideas of something we could learn about feel free to comment, email or tweet us with suggestions.
This week we have a little bonus episode for you. When we were preparing to start podcasting we tested the quality of our skype audio by having a few chats with my parents.
During one of these chats, they told us a story of how they decided to deal with some internet hoaxsters. My parents are both fans of a good tale and a good prank and this is the kind of thing they do regularly just to amuse themselves.
The prank war is well underway and for once my inclination towards being a homebody is serving me well. Although I am running out of ideas and so therefore just resorting to being mischievous and slightly annoying!
We will be back next Monday with another full episode!
So, my learning from this week’s honesty challenge is that I have no awareness of my own Nutella consumption and I am incapable of telling when Katie is lying. (A fact which is not a surprise to me.)
This week we spoke to Jon, a good friend of both Katie and myself. Jon is by far the most playful person I know. I had the joy of working with Jon for a few years and he never missed and opportunity to dress up in a silly outfit or wind someone up in his perpetually good-natured way.
Jon, probably getting ready for some kind of mischief!
This is a challenge that I really need to steel myself for, because as you will hear on this episode I am not a prankster. I am always acutely aware of not wanting to stress people out, which seems to be the sole purpose of pranks. I also have a deep, deep fear of going up against Katie in a prank war because she operates on a daily basis at least 110% to my 80%. I am terrified at the thought of what this is going to mean for me!
We are well past the mid-point of the just ten things journey and what began as an attempt at a humorous response to a questionable article has led me to some real moments of challenge and self-reflection. I feel like I might be well on the way to becoming a little bit better!
Apologies for the late blog this week! As you might be able to hear on the podcast I got hit by a bout of the flu. However, a little bit of lemon, honey, menthol and a whole lot of sleep and I am feeling a lot more like myself!
We practiced some independence this week! Katie went on a street art tour in East London. You can see some pictures of the amazing artwork she saw below. The thing that struck me about Katie’s take on the challenge is how much easier spontaneity can be when you are not beholden to anyone else. I guess this is a little byproduct of independence!
Katie’s guide Josh.
Not actually part of the tour, Katie just liked it.
The Nomadic Gardens – Shoreditch
Breakdancing Beefeater
The Nomadic Gardens – Shoreditch
Ben Eine – Like Nothing Else
C215 – Portrait of his daughter
Bar Stamp
Stik
I decided to go to the cinema to watch How to be single, the new film starring Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson. In a bid to take my independence to the next level I decided to run the battery on my phone down beforehand so I would not be tempted to text other people or look at my phone. The idea was to try and experience the feeling of being completely cut off from people I knew for a for a time. It was a strange experience, but I found that it allowed me to be far more observant and in a strange way it allowed me to connect more deeply with what was essentially a pretty lightweight film. (Which I loved)
This week we also talked to the wonderful Becca about honesty.
We talked about the importance of integrity and emotional honesty. She also weighed in with her thoughts about compliment-gate. You can listen to us talk about why apparently honesty of off the table when games are involved!
Hope you enjoy listening this week. If you do please send us a message or even better write us a review on iTunes!
Allo chums, Katie blogging for a change this time. I’m here to tell you all about my little anti-materialism journey. Last week we spoke to one of my favourite people, Vicky, about how she tries to live ethically in the big smoke.
I decided to take on the live below the line challenge, spending only £5 on my food for 5 days to simulate living below the breadline, or as one of my colleagues called it “Katie’s being fake poor”. The actual campaign is taking a hiatus this year, but I definitely recommend considering trying it yourselves, either now or in 2017 when they relaunch.
I won’t get too self-righteous, though, I am still a long way off on this one, and it was a very challenging week. I also decided not to spend any other money which forced me to confront my lifestyle more than I expected.
Here’s how I got on:
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On spending some dollar
Morrisons was my supermarket of choice, with the promise of a kilo bag of carrots for 47p I was happy to make the extra journey rather than indulging in the convenience of Waitrose 5 mins from my house. I’m glad I did because it enabled me to have a very humbling interaction with a homeless man sat outside, and that served as my motivation the rest of the week…I guess a lot of people can’t even be assured of having a pound a day, definitely a tear-jerking moment for me.
What did you buy Katie?! I hear you cry.
1 bag medium potatoes: £0.76
1 bag carrots: £0.47
1 bag oats: £0.75
Jar of pasta sauce: £0.83
1 bag pasta: £0.61
2 bananas £0.30
Tin of sweetcorn £0.35
Tin mixed beans £0.57
Total: £4.64
I was actually pretty impressed with how far my fiver spread, but what stuck out the most was the price of just about anything with flavour. Stocks and spices were outside of my budget, so I pledged 6p to a housemate for some salt and pepper for my soup. She also dropped a few mushrooms on the floor for me to ‘forage’ as they’d have ended up in the bin otherwise.
The meal plan for the week was porridge with water for breakfast, pasta with sweetcorn and beans for lunch, and potato and carrot soup for tea.
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On eating gruel
The porridge. Indisputably the worst part of my day. I have a raging sweet tooth and don’t enjoy eating porridge any day of the week. It was like eating flour mixed into wallpaper paste, and sorely missed the additions of milk and fruit/syrup that I usually make. Still, it generally filled my stomach like cement until lunch, so it was helpful. I actually gagged at one point eating it and sacrificed my bananas to the cause after a couple of days of forcing it down. The soup wasn’t much better; I declined to add a photo, it became a hideous grey/brown sludge. My soup-making abilities leave a lot to be desired even when I have flavour at my disposal.
The brightest part of my day was the pasta, which actually had a little more to taste from the pre-made sauce and the sweetcorn. I could’ve happily skipped the beans and bought a couple more bananas, though.
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On scavenging
It was only day two before disaster* struck and I forgot my lunch for work. I spent my morning contemplating the most realistic outcome of this mistake in a real life situation.
I considered going without until dinner, taking a ‘pay-day loan’ from one of my colleagues with a high level of interest, sharing someone’s lunch and sacrificing half of mine the next day, outright theft, accepting handouts and scavenging.
I landed somewhere between the last two and scrounged together the little feast above from various people and went for a walk at lunchtime to avoid seeing everyone else eat. That backfired a little as I arrived back just in time for the waft of burger and fries smell from the Deliveroo order they’d made. I felt a little bit violent.
*may have lost some perspective here.
On Fred-no
I had set aside 30p of my budget to get a Freddo later in the week. I’m a chocolate fiend, and the sugar crashes were worryingly noticeable. I expected I would need a pick-me-up and budgeted accordingly.
This was perhaps the saddest part of my week, heading to Sainsbury’s full of the joys of spring, and returning with this bread roll. That’s right. No Freddos. The shelf where they should have been was empty. I know. Heartbreaking.
In retrospect the roll was the best thing that could have happened to me that day, because later on this happened:
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On sitting through a three course meal
This one might divide the crowd. You might think I’m a total loser, that when offered a free three course meal you wouldn’t/shouldn’t turn it down. Either because people below the poverty line wouldn’t, or because it makes you awkward and lame company. Fair play if that’s you, I might have made those comments too.
The thing is though, people below the poverty line aren’t offered a three course meal one out of every five days, and they don’t have an end in sight like I did. So my plate (bottom right) stayed that way all night, and I enjoyed the wonderful company of my colleagues regardless.
To say I didn’t want to grab their plates and eat everything on them would be a lie. I was jealous, and I was hungry, and I’m pretty convinced my breath didn’t smell all that good after having no food since 12pm. One of them groaning “I’m SO full” got a sarcastic “That must be nice” but other than that I held out relatively graciously I think.
I have to say, it at least made that pasta taste reeeeeeaaaal good.
On contemplating theft
That full box of grapes, apples and oranges lying around on peoples’ desks, I definitely thought about stealing. A lot. The closest I came was a can of San Pelligrino, boy did I want a sugar hit bad. I’m so weak. It was only 5 days.
On feeling grateful
The fact I had the ability to cook my food, and have clean water genuinely moved me. I missed sugar, I missed variety, I missed treats, I missed the structure of socialising over food that’s a big feature in my life. I went for some walks and only went into two shops all week (the initial trip and that ill-fated jaunt to Sainsbury’s) and that was freeing.
I’m sat writing this basking in the glow of a lesson well-learned, and I feel incredibly grateful to have what I have. I just hope I can hold onto that and use it to benefit others, and to consider whether or not I actually need things and where they are from more willingly in the future. Here’s a pass to everyone who knows me to remind me I said that, and also to roll your eyes at me for getting on my soap box.
Onwards.
Independence
This week we gab with Marianne (our lovely housemate) and Courney (Canada’s latest export to Blighty) about their independent lifestyles.
Both these lovely ladies inspire me to push myself further and have the confidence to strike out alone when I need to. Have a listen, and let us know where your independence has led you.
Here are their lovely faces:
Marianne somewhere, exploring something no doubtCourtney in Stockholm
Well, we tried to be spontaneous with mixed results! Herein lies the problem, being spontaneous enough for it to count, but not so spontaneous that you can’t capture it for a podcast! I guess this is where the wonderful Wadham Lodge FC come in! We semi-spontaneously found ourselves at their ground in Walthamstow watching a match (listen to the podcast for tips on how to cheer for the right team at a sporting event!)
So the Wad Army are in the white!
What I am learning from spontaneity week is how often being open to veering slightly from a pre-determined plan can lead to moments of connection with the people around you. It helped that we took James along with us on this particular outing because we got to see that this is truly how he lives his life and we got to practice with a master! I love the fact that we got to meet people we would never have met and experience something we would never have experienced.
Us with the coach and some of the young supporters of the Wad Army!
Anti-materialistic, I’m not going to lie, this was a little bit of a curve ball on the list. It seems at odds with the other attributes. However, this gave us a chance to talk to the wonderful Vicky about anti-materialism and more broadly, ethical living.
It was great talking to Vicky as she does really try to live this stuff out. She has really thought through her position and why she does the things she does. Ethical phone, fair-trade diamonds, fair-trade clothing. These are all decisions Vicky and her husband have made so that id they are going to be somewhat defined by the things they consume at least they are going to try and make sure these things have a positive impact.
Vicky, hanging out with her fair phone, ethical engagement ring, fair-trade jeans and fair-trade top!
This is going to be a challenge that I hope reaches beyond this week for me. I know personally that I need to be far more mindful about how I spend my money. Not just what I buy, but how much I buy and where I buy it from. So let’s see if I can find a way to be a little bit better this week!
This week we have the joy of talking to James about the importance of spontaneity and how he works it into his everyday life.
This has been another interesting experience for us. I am not a naturally organised person so in order to have a sense of control of my life I have has to engage with extreme organisation. To the point that I have become more and more invested in the planner community. It is ridiculous, however, it soothes me to know that my life is planned out and that those plans look pretty boss written down.
So being spontaneous is a challenge. One of the things that has become evident after the conversation with James is that spontaneity is about openness to new experiences.
This is why I am opening myself up to a brand new experience! As we said last week I am well on my way to becoming a life-long fan of Wadham Forest FC. We have had a pretty exciting week as the Wadders have asked us to join them at their match on Wednesday (7.45 @ Wadham Lodge, Walthamstow) to settle once and for all who owns the hashtag lodgelife. (Spoiler alert… its probably going to be them. They are a semi-professional football team who have been tweeting with the hashtag for at least a year. I am a recent lodge enthusiast who has used the hashtag occasionally for limited comic effect)
So I’m encouraging you to find ways to be spontaneous this week. Keep your eyes open for opportunities to give and receive joy. If you are feeling uninspired why not join us at the Lodge on Wednesday night? Wadham Lodge welcome Sawbridgeworth Town to East London for their Gordon Brasted Quarter-Final game. The exciting thing is that the club will be donating a percentage of the gate fee and holding a collection for a very worthwhile cause. Danny Walton is a 16-year-old boy, who lives locally, who has Cerebral Palsy which severely affects his movement meaning he is unable to walk and needs a wheelchair to get out and about. His speech and language are limited and he requires 24-hour care.
So come join us! If nothing else you get to see me at my first ever football match!
just ten things 