Logarithmic Time and Other Old and Inappropriate Stories

It’s Friday. Imogen is making dinner. My husband Andy will be home from school soon. And I have just enough time to share a few stories from this week.

Yes, another week has disappeared. Doesn’t time pass quickly? Apparently time acts logarithmically. I read about this in a very interesting maths book called Alex’s Adventures in Numberland. When we’re young, the days seem so long, and a year lasts forever. The older we get, the faster time seems to pass by. I must be quite old because a year doesn’t feel very long at all.

Talking of age, I keep meeting a very young looking Elle MacPherson in my Facebook feed. She’s been trying to sell me some miracle face lotion which will make me look 20 years younger. I looked at Elle’s gorgeous face and then I looked into the mirror, and felt dissatisfied and even ashamed of my appearance. (Elle and I are similar ages.) I was tempted to believe I needed those expensive lotions and potions. Then I began to feel annoyed with Elle for encouraging me to feel this way.

Later my feelings changed again. I started to feel sorry for Elle. It can’t be easy being a supermodel. She is her face as far as the world is concerned. How difficult it must be for her to accept she is getting older and not looking quite as good as she did at the height of her career.

It doesn’t matter at all what I look like when I make a podcast. I could make one with bed hair. I could wear my pyjamas and no one would know. Not that I’ve actually done this. I was dressed quite nicely when I made my second podcast this week. How did it go? So far I haven’t had any feedback so I have no idea what listeners think. But I think it’s better than my first one.

Although I don’t have to think about my appearance when podcasting, I have been forced to think about my voice. I’d rather not know how I sound but I can’t really publish a podcast without listening to myself. I have to play everything back and listen out for mistakes. I’m not entirely happy with my voice and how I’m using it. There’s lots of room for improvement. Ums and ahs seem to sneak into my sentences without me noticing. I decided I have to do something about them.

So I Googled the words, ‘improving speech’. I landed on a website called The Art of Manliness. Just for a moment I hesitated. I’d caught sight of a post about… perhaps I shouldn’t mention what it was about. It was definitely a men-only article, not really appropriate reading for a woman. So I hurried along without looking and arrived at a post called Becoming Well-Spoken: How to Minimize Your Uh’s and Um’s. It’s very interesting. You could read it too. Just be careful to sneak past the inappropriate posts.

Sophie also wants to improve her speech. In particular, she needs to improve her articulation. Unfortunately she always seems to have a stuffy nose due to allergies. This affects her speech. But I’m sure she could work on her voice. We could work on our voices together.

Yesterday a new idea associated with voices popped into my head. I wanted to go to bed but I hadn’t written my diary entry for the day. I was tired. I didn’t really want to start writing. I thought how much easier it would be if I could just dictate my entry into my computer. A moment later I had this ‘great’ idea. I could dictate it. I could capture my words using Audacity, export it as an MP3 file and save it. (Just like I do when making a podcast.) Can you imagine coming back years later and listening to your younger self describing your former days? Grandchildren and great grandchildren might listen to the recordings one day too. Long after we are no longer here, our voices might still be going strong. Yes, this idea is worth considering.

I seem to have lots of ideas. Not all of them are good ones but I did get some feedback about one I shared here a couple of months ago. Do you remember when we were discussing Evernote?  I wrote a few posts and made some videos about how we could use it to keep unschooling/ homeschooling records. Yesterday someone told me she’d watched my videos and then been inspired to keep Evernote records. She recently had her homeschool registration visit and her Authorised Person was very impressed with those records. Isn’t that wonderful news? It seems that untested idea of mine actually worked.

I have some untested video ideas. I’ve been turning them over in my mind, wondering if they will work. I guess there’s only one way to find out. Try them out. Yes, I might do that.

What’s that? Dinner is ready? My writing time has run out? I am getting old and time is logarithmic. I guess that’s why the last twenty minutes felt more like five.

What did you do last week? I’d love to hear!