Monday - Volunteering
I spend my Monday mornings volunteering at a local day centre, which is always a great way to start my week. I enjoy spending time with the staff and clients, and have got to know them well since I first started.
After lunch, I walk over to Designability for the afternoon, and usually get a good bit of work done. This week was fairly standard, and I managed to complete some administrative tasks that set me up for the week ahead.
Tuesday - Productive
I remember feeling like I had achieved a lot on Tuesday, and was able to tick a good number of things off my to-do list. It was a reflective day as I summarised the events of last week for my steering group members and supervisors.
Wednesday - Busy
In the morning, I had a helpful discussion about ethics with my supervisor, Hazel, and one of our colleagues, Nina, who is an occupational therapist. I put together a draft document of our meeting, but, before I could get a polished version finished, it was time to head to university with my colleagues to prepare for Designability's Annual Lecture and Exhibition.
I demonstrated my research experiment again and had crowds of people come to talk to me, which was fantastic. Here we are just before the waves of people started turning up:
All set and ready to go at #Design51, Designability's annual lecture and exhibition, this year in East Building at the @UniofBath. I'm sharing the results of my #ARforDementia study, and my colleagues are talking about the fabulous products and work of @DesignabilityUK. pic.twitter.com/G8mguWE8bg
— Thomas Williams (@tjw_94) November 27, 2019
Our guest speaker, Ross Atkin, gave an interesting talk about his approach to designing products to enable disabled people to be more independent, which really echoed the work that Designability does. If you missed this year's lecture, you can watch it on catch-up on Designability's Facebook page, and you can recap on what happened last year here.
Thursday - Procrastination
Other than finishing the document summarising our ethics discussion from Wednesday, I just could not get down to work today. I became distracted and followed an online tutorial on how to create isometric pixel art.
Here are the fruits of my labour. Pretty, but not exactly relevant to my research project...
Friday - Catch Up? Or Continuing...
We all have good days and bad days when it comes to getting stuff done. I could think of today as being a day to catch up on all that I didn't do yesterday. Then again, I could view yesterday as a completely valid exercise in creative thinking and learning, and consider today as a continuation of my to-do list, like any other day. The latter approach is a lot kinder to my mental health.
I suppose the message I am trying to get across is, don't be too hard on yourself on the bad days.
The Weekend Ahead - Concerts
Throughout semester, I have weekly rehearsals for a few different ensembles. This weekend, I have two concerts showcasing our efforts. These musical activities are an opportunity to relax and enjoy time away from studying, and motivate me to get through the day. You can find more information about the concerts on Facebook and Twitter.
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