Tom Nicholas
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Last Week of Term! | The Friday Update
🕑 Added 2024-02-12 18:00:09 +0000 UTCWelcome to this week’s edition of the Friday Update, in which I give a little insight into what I’ve been up to for the past seven days.
What have I been up to this week?
I’ve come to think of this week as the “last week of term”. Regular readers of the Friday Update might be used to me writing about how busy I’ve been over the past seven days.
This week brings a slightly different angle to the business though…
Next Tuesday, I’m due to take my first proper holiday in a long, long time when I jet off on my honeymoon.
My wife and I are going to be spending just over two weeks in Japan, travelling around to a bunch of cities and towns.
I cannot wait, it’s going to be so, so exciting. I’ve never been to Asia before; in fact, I’ve never been to a country which is quite as culturally different to my own.
I’ve even spent a lot of time on Duolingo making sure I can at a least take a stab at reading some of the symbols.
The flip side of all this excitement is that it gives me a pretty hard deadline for finishing a bunch of work!
Because, whilst I’m taking a couple of weeks off, my editor Georgia is not, and I need to make sure she has enough work to be carrying on with while I’m away.
The result has been a pretty hectic couple of weeks as I try to make sure I not only finish writing the script for the third entry in the Vape-o-nomics trilogy, but also put together the production script for that video too (this is the document we use to plan the editing and filming of our videos).
I’m almost there but it’s gonna be a close run thing! And then, two weeks to replenish and reflect as I travel around Japan!
^ Hard at work!
And outside of work?
For obvious reasons, much of my time outside of work this week has been spent putting the final touches to my honeymoon plans with my wife.
With neither of us having been to Japan before (and with only a tiny bit of the language), we’re keen to make sure we’ve got a good idea of what to expect when to land, where to head and what we might get up to each day.
We’ve also had a few last minute purchases to make as well. I didn’t have a particularly great suitcase or rucksack for travelling for quite as long as this. We’ve also needed to ensure we have e-sims to use our phones and travel cards to use local trains.
The plan we’ve ended up with is super exciting. I think we’re going to manage to sample a bit of all the varying different aspects of Japanese culture from karaoke bars to shrines and deer to peace monuments.
As someone whose life is pretty dominated by work (because I love it!), I can’t wait to have a bit of time away from things so that I can come back replenished and excited to make more videos!
^ My (hopefully) cool and useful new suitcase!
What have I been reading/watching/listening to?
I’m currently trying to polish-off a couple of books I’ve been halfway through for some time.
My main focus this week has been the short(ish) story How to Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
This book went semi-viral a few months back with the general advice to do no research on the book to enable yourself to go in blind.
I picked up the e-book some time ago and made a start on the book, but decided to start it again and finish it this time around.
I’m not sure I’m 100% enamoured with it as things stand. I don’t dislike the book, but I’m not quite sharing the enthusiasm I saw others recommending it with online.
Nevertheless, it seems like it might be picking up as I head into the final quarter, so I’ll let you know how it turns out!
That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of the Friday Update. I hope you’ve found it mildly insightful.
Thanks as ever for your generous support and I’ll look forward to updating you more next week!!
Comments
Tom Nicholas
I actually didn't really have any expectations at all. Almost finished it now though and I've not disliked it, just wasn't as blown away as I thought I might be. Maybe that's my fault for being too whipped up in the hype though! Yeah, I'm pretty good at the Hiragana and Katakana from Duolingo now. But being able to sound stuff out is only half the way where—I don't know loads and loads of words! That should be part of the fun though!
Zachary Read
The book was different than I expected going in, but I did like it! Where are you going in Japan? I went in October and it was wonderful. Learning the katakana I learned was helpful several times.
