Feature Friday: I’m Not Your Inspiration, Thank You Very Much!

Earlier this week, when I asked my uncle to review my CV (he used to work at IBM), he told me to include the fact that I’m an ambassador for the autistic community.

In response, he gave me a link to a Ideas.Ted.com blog post regarding the late Stella Young’s 2014 Ted Talk I watched way back then (see at the bottom of this post). I wrote a little comment about it underneath at the time, and promptly forgot about it.

Six years later, I’m surprised to find that my words got included in the blog as a Smart Comment. This is what I wrote:

Mini Post Monday: Education

Over the last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about education. I always say that my greatest privilege is my education, but really, it should be a right – for everyone.

I’ve been so fortunate to earn two degrees – a Bachelors in Professional Musicianship and a Masters in Medieval Studies. They are both strangely linked my performance and music. I like how I started with the modern music and then went back 800 years to medieval music.

But I’ve noticed that a thread that has been weaved into my life is the need for constant learning. Whenever I’m learning something new, my head is always in a much better place and depression is kept at bay. After my first degree, I went downhill straightaway and for the longest time, I couldn’t work out why…

Mini Post Monday: Fame – the Musical

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Over the weekend, The Shows Must Go On made a return to YouTube. I had missed my culture, so needless to say, I was ecstatic with the opportunity.

The first show was Fame – the Musical (35th Anniversary Tour).

I actually first saw Fame back in 1995 with the Original London Cast. Richard Dempsey from The Chronicles of Narnia (1988) was in it, and he was magic.

So this for me was the return of an old favourite that filled me with so much joy of song and dance. I remembered every lyric of every song, but having it subtitled helped me make sense of the story, which I guess I never understood completely.

Wednesday Wisdom: HaleyDrewThis

It’s September now. My favourite month of the year. A month of renewals, wisdom, and changes. Ah, the possibilities…

Now that I’m in Australia now, the seasons have flipped with it going into spring (or in my case in Queensland, it’s getting warmer!).

But I think the wisdom of September remains.

I was going to post a motivational quote, but then I saw this on my Instagram just now, and I think it’s full of wisdom to remind us to keep doing the best we can.

View this post on Instagram

Keep doing the best u can, September

A post shared by Haley Weaver (@haleydrewthis) on Sep 1, 2020 at 7:45am PDT

Mini Post Monday: My Twitter Poem

Despite feeling unwell and extremely tired, I couldn’t sleep last night.

From my experience, everything seems worse at nighttime. Even if it isn’t.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling… contemplating the job hunt, how every job listing asked for “experienced”, and how I was never going to be able to break into tech.

Suddenly, I decided to write a poem. But, out of all places, on Twitter:

There’s something about nighttime when you’re lying in bed.

Staring at the ceiling – negative thoughts creep in your head.

Will I? Won’t I? Will I be able to make it?

Can I? Can’t I? The heart hurts a bit.

Sleep is restless.
Too much to assess.#sleepless #poem

— AZ (@azambakides) August 23, 2020

Having had not written any songs or poems in over 10 years, this was a rather cathartic exercise.

With only one like (from my best friend, no less!), I fell right asleep.