January Icebreaker: Rose, Thorn, Bud

My goofy twin brother K actually introduced me to this little thought exercise coming out of 2019, and I noticed Canadian Living mentioned it in their January 2021 issue. 

I'm sharing it here cuz it's a good way to review a rough year, at the very least you can use it for your back-to-work icebreakers or a journalling exercise.



Here's mine for 2020:

Rose - absolutely my sweet nephew D born in the summer. I will never tire of being an Auntie, and I'm so grateful that my sister and brother-in-law are such good parents. I personally think babies always give you hope, even if you don't want them for yourself! D is niece/nephew no. 3!!

Thorn - I choose to be opaque here and not mention my actual thorn, but to offer a quote from David Whyte's Crossing the Unknown Sea which captured the feeling of my 2020 thorn:

"It's all right, you know, to support yourself with something secondary until your work has ripened, but once it has ripened to a transparent fullness, it has to be gathered in. You have ripened already, and you are waiting to be brought in. Your exhaustion is a form of inner fermentation. You are beginning, ever so slowly [...] to rot on the vine."
- David Whyte

Bud- moving to a new city in November 2020! When things eventually start opening up again, we will have much to explore and a new city to frolic around.

Above: this is the rose garden at the Vancouver campus of UBC! I can neither confirm nor deny that I have thrown a bird funeral here sometime in the last decade.



Popular posts from this blog

9 Reasons Why Zack on Gilmore Girls is the Worst

Image
Of all the men in the Gilmore Girls world, I think Zack was the worst. Here's nine reasons why. I'm currently re-watching Gilmore girls for the umpteenth time, and once more I find myself loathing Zack in particular. Normally we all get caught up in Luke vs. Christopher, Dean vs. Jess vs. Logan, etc, but I think these debates distract viewers from realizing that Zack is the worst Significant Other of all the women in the show. I think the actor Todd Lowe does a great job portraying Zack, so my critique is def not his performance , my issue is the  character of Zack   who is sooo contemptible. In a way, Lowe's performance of Zack is all the more remarkable - when it comes to the Bad Men of Gilmore Girls, Zack rarely tops the list. I think it's because his many flaws are so *shrug* boys will be boys. As viewers I think we're meant to be distracted by the explosive incidents related to Logan's elitism, Mitchum's tyranny, Dean's cheating, Marty's obvio
Read more

VIDEO: Tips for Better Dailies Notes

Image
Here are 11 tips for taking better notes in dailies. If you’re in Production, good note-taking practices are essential and it never stops. As a coordinator, you might take notes for dailies. As a Production Manager or Producer you might have Production reports, all of these tasks rely on good note-taking.  A huge part of our role is data entry and management. Getting specific, let’s take a look at what you can do to take better notes in lighting/comp dailies. Even if your artists are in dailies, still make sure your notes are as specific as possible, don’t leave it to them to take their own notes, let them have that time to answer their supervisor’s questions or to focus on the feedback.  Let me be very clear: if you are in production and you are taking notes in dailies, it is your job to take accurate, efficient notes. Wherever possible, give the frame range.  Don’t just say ‘near the beginning of a shot’, say F8-12 if you can. If there are multiple characters in a scene, use their na
Read more

2 New-ish Perspectives on Work-Life Balance

Image
Who needs work-life balance when you can 'Drop the Ball' or put your priorities 'in conversation' with one another? With the onset and endurance of the COVID19 pandemic, there have been many hot takes and disturbing changes in work-life balance. All over North America at least, we have seen women drop out of the workforce at such an alarming rate that many experts are calling this pandemic-induced trend a “shecession”. In animation, we have fortunately been able to work from home, though the balance between work and life has become a lot more blurred, if existing at all. Production staff and supervisors have observed a rise in ghost hours - people quietly logging on and working on their shots or assets at all times of the day, night, weekends because our work is well, there . This is a very complicated issue, and as I am neither an economics or business expert, I wanted to offer two specific takes on work-life balance, one from Tiffany Dufu and the other from David Why
Read more