I have a feeling that like me you’ve recently found yourself on your phone, or other internet connected device, looking for anything to entertain you and take your mind of the situation at present. I thought it would be fun to make a little selection each week highlighting things I have found “around the web” that might be of interest to others.
- Laurel Bristow, @kinggutterbaby, on instagram. I happened upon Laurel’s instagram quite by chance after seeing her mentioned by the bloggers Young House Love. I’m so glad I checked her out. A heads up, this kinda doesn’t fall in the *taking your mind off COVID* category, but I think her approach is really good for keeping a more relaxed perspective on it all. I for one have been feeling WAY LESS worried since following. She is an Infectious Disease Researcher working on studies at Emory Hospital (Atlanta, USA) who gives really clear and well researched information about all things COVID and disease. At a time where the information disiminated from governments, newsagencies and social media can be really hard to comprehend because the information is reported with little time for explanations for us “common folk” it is nice to have someone who understands the science explain, in a concise way, what some of all the terminology and studies mean.
- The women who created a new language, by Kelly Grovier for BBC Culture. I happended upon this interesting article on BBC Culture the other day, introducing a few English words that you might not know were coined by women. I for one didn’t know that those terms were coined by women writers, but as with many other achievements by women that kind of information is usually only something you find in articles that take quite a bit of effort to come across. I really enjoyed the read, and I highly recommend checking out the BBC Culture section for other interesting articles.
- Keeping with the topics of knowledge and learning new things I want to highlight the VIA Institute of Character‘s character strengths survey. This past week I’ve started taking part in the Yale course called The Science of Well-being on Coursera to learn more after listening to Dr Laurie Santos’ podcast The Happiness Lab. So far it looks like a great opportunity to learn about applying science to real life situations, but I also hope it can help on a more personal note with tips and tricks to increase my own happiness (contentness). The assignment for the first week is to do the above survey, an experience I found really interesting which is why I’m sharing it. After answering a few questions, 24 positive character strengths are ranked giving you an idea of which comes natural to you, and which might require a bit more work. I found it really interesting that some of the strengths that I thought would rank the highest didn’t and others that I wouldn’t have thought of were among my highest scoring, e.g. teamwork which is something I value highly came in 10th, whereas love of learning came in 4th, despite it not being something that I would have thought ranked so highly. I am excited to take on this weeks challenge of doing an activity every day of the week that plays to my top 4 strengths (btw this document might be useful for finding new activities to do within your strengths).
- Epic Gardening on youtube. Since moving home after completing my Masters, and with the whole COVID thing, I’ve really gotten into getting my vegetable garden back into shape – it lay dorment for a good three years. I happened upon Kevin Espiritu’s youtube channel when I was looking at videos about growing food scraps and spotted his video on growing ginger… and I’ve been hooked ever since. If you want tips and tricks for keeping houseplants alive/making them thrive hes your guy too.
- @Samsonthedood on instagram. Three Goldendoodles (f1b) and a baby boy… What is not to like?! I for one didn’t realise just how much joy a baby in a babyseat on a romba could bring… although that might say more about how delirious I am from all this social distancing and isolation.
I hope some of this was useful for you. I’d love to hear from you, so please leave any suggestions for fun, thoughtprovoking, educational, happy, etc. things to check out around the web below. And as Laurel Bestow says “Be excellent to each other and wash your hands”.
Featured photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com
SASHA KIRSTINE 