Category: Uncategorized

Allo chums, Katie blogging for a change this time. I’m here to tell you all about my little anti-materialism journey. Last week we spoke to one of my favourite people, Vicky, about how she tries to live ethically in the big smoke.

I decided to take on the live below the line challenge, spending only £5 on my food for 5 days to simulate living below the breadline, or as one of my colleagues called it “Katie’s being fake poor”. The actual campaign is taking a hiatus this year, but I definitely recommend considering trying it yourselves, either now or in 2017 when they relaunch.

I won’t get too self-righteous, though, I am still a long way off on this one, and it was a very challenging week. I also decided not to spend any other money which forced me to confront my lifestyle more than I expected.

Here’s how I got on:

On spending some dollar

Morrisons was my supermarket of choice, with the promise of a kilo bag of carrots for 47p I was happy to make the extra journey rather than indulging in the convenience of Waitrose 5 mins from my house. I’m glad I did because it enabled me to have a very humbling interaction with a homeless man sat outside, and that served as my motivation the rest of the week…I guess a lot of people can’t even be assured of having a pound a day, definitely a tear-jerking moment for me.

What did you buy Katie?! I hear you cry.

1 bag medium potatoes: £0.76

1 bag carrots: £0.47

1 bag oats: £0.75

Jar of pasta sauce: £0.83

1 bag pasta: £0.61

2 bananas £0.30

Tin of sweetcorn £0.35

Tin mixed beans £0.57

Total: £4.64

I was actually pretty impressed with how far my fiver spread, but what stuck out the most was the price of just about anything with flavour. Stocks and spices were outside of my budget, so I pledged 6p to a housemate for some salt and pepper for my soup. She also dropped a few mushrooms on the floor for me to ‘forage’ as they’d have ended up in the bin otherwise.

The meal plan for the week was porridge with water for breakfast, pasta with sweetcorn and beans for lunch, and potato and carrot soup for tea.

On eating gruel

The porridge. Indisputably the worst part of my day. I have a raging sweet tooth and don’t enjoy eating porridge any day of the week. It was like eating flour mixed into wallpaper paste, and sorely missed the additions of milk and fruit/syrup that I usually make. Still, it generally filled my stomach like cement until lunch, so it was helpful. I actually gagged at one point eating it and sacrificed my bananas to the cause after a couple of days of forcing it down. The soup wasn’t much better; I declined to add a photo, it became a hideous grey/brown sludge. My soup-making abilities leave a lot to be desired even when I have flavour at my disposal.

The brightest part of my day was the pasta, which actually had a little more to taste from the pre-made sauce and the sweetcorn. I could’ve happily skipped the beans and bought a couple more bananas, though.

On scavenging

It was only day two before disaster* struck and I forgot my lunch for work. I spent my morning contemplating the most realistic outcome of this mistake in a real life situation.

I considered going without until dinner, taking a ‘pay-day loan’ from one of my colleagues with a high level of interest, sharing someone’s lunch and sacrificing half of mine the next day, outright theft, accepting handouts and scavenging.

I landed somewhere between the last two and scrounged together the little feast above from various people and went for a walk at lunchtime to avoid seeing everyone else eat. That backfired a little as I arrived back just in time for the waft of burger and fries smell from the Deliveroo order they’d made. I felt a little bit violent.

*may have lost some perspective here.

On Fred-no

I had set aside 30p of my budget to get a Freddo later in the week. I’m a chocolate fiend, and the sugar crashes were worryingly noticeable. I expected I would need a pick-me-up and budgeted accordingly.

This was perhaps the saddest part of my week, heading to Sainsbury’s full of the joys of spring, and returning with this bread roll. That’s right. No Freddos. The shelf where they should have been was empty. I know. Heartbreaking.

In retrospect the roll was the best thing that could have happened to me that day, because later on this happened:

On sitting through a three course meal

This one might divide the crowd. You might think I’m a total loser, that when offered a free three course meal you wouldn’t/shouldn’t turn it down. Either because people below the poverty line wouldn’t, or because it makes you awkward and lame company. Fair play if that’s you, I might have made those comments too.

The thing is though, people below the poverty line aren’t offered a three course meal one out of every five days, and they don’t have an end in sight like I did. So my plate (bottom right) stayed that way all night, and I enjoyed the wonderful company of my colleagues regardless.

To say I didn’t want to grab their plates and eat everything on them would be a lie. I was jealous, and I was hungry, and I’m pretty convinced my breath didn’t smell all that good after having no food since 12pm. One of them groaning “I’m SO full” got a sarcastic “That must be nice” but other than that I held out relatively graciously I think.

I have to say, it at least made that pasta taste reeeeeeaaaal good.

On contemplating theft

That full box of grapes, apples and oranges lying around on peoples’ desks, I definitely thought about stealing. A lot. The closest I came was a can of San Pelligrino, boy did I want a sugar hit bad. I’m so weak. It was only 5 days.

On feeling grateful

The fact I had the ability to cook my food, and have clean water genuinely moved me. I missed sugar, I missed variety, I missed treats, I missed the structure of socialising over food that’s a big feature in my life. I went for some walks and only went into two shops all week (the initial trip and that ill-fated jaunt to Sainsbury’s) and that was freeing.

I’m sat writing this basking in the glow of a lesson well-learned, and I feel incredibly grateful to have what I have. I just hope I can hold onto that and use it to benefit others, and to consider whether or not I actually need things and where they are from more willingly in the future. Here’s a pass to everyone who knows me to remind me I said that, and also to roll your eyes at me for getting on my soap box.

Onwards.

Independence

This week we gab with Marianne (our lovely housemate) and Courney (Canada’s latest export to Blighty) about their independent lifestyles.

Both these lovely ladies inspire me to push myself further and have the confidence to strike out alone when I need to. Have a listen, and let us know where your independence has led you.

Here are their lovely faces:

 

 

Well, we tried to be spontaneous with mixed results! Herein lies the problem, being spontaneous enough for it to count, but not so spontaneous that you can’t capture it for a podcast! I guess this is where the wonderful Wadham Lodge FC come in! We semi-spontaneously found ourselves at their ground in Walthamstow watching a match (listen to the podcast for tips on how to cheer for the right team at a sporting event!)

What I am learning from spontaneity week is how often being open to veering slightly from a pre-determined plan can lead to moments of connection with the people around you. It helped that we took James along with us on this particular outing because we got to see that this is truly how he lives his life and we got to practice with a master! I love the fact that we got to meet people we would never have met and experience something we would never have experienced.

Anti-materialistic, I’m not going to lie, this was a little bit of a curve ball on the list. It seems at odds with the other attributes. However, this gave us a chance to talk to the wonderful Vicky about anti-materialism and more broadly, ethical living.

It was great talking to Vicky as she does really try to live this stuff out. She has really thought through her position and why she does the things she does. Ethical phone, fair-trade diamonds, fair-trade clothing. These are all decisions Vicky and her husband have made so that id they are going to be somewhat defined by the things they consume at least they are going to try and make sure these things have a positive impact.

This is going to be a challenge that I hope reaches beyond this week for me. I know personally that I need to be far more mindful about how I spend my money. Not just what I buy, but how much I buy and where I buy it from. So let’s see if I can find a way to be a little bit better this week!

This week we have the joy of talking to James about the importance of spontaneity and how he works it into his everyday life.

This has been another interesting experience for us. I am not a naturally organised person so in order to have a sense of control of my life I have has to engage with extreme organisation. To the point that I have become more and more invested in the planner community. It is ridiculous, however, it soothes me to know that my life is planned out and that those plans look pretty boss written down.

So being spontaneous is a challenge. One of the things that has become evident after the conversation with James is that spontaneity is about openness to new experiences.

This is why I am opening myself up to a brand new experience! As we said last week I am well on my way to becoming a life-long fan of Wadham Forest FC. We have had a pretty exciting week as the Wadders have asked us to join them at their match on Wednesday (7.45 @ Wadham Lodge, Walthamstow) to settle once and for all who owns the hashtag lodgelife. (Spoiler alert… its probably going to be them. They are a semi-professional football team who have been tweeting with the hashtag for at least a year. I am a recent lodge enthusiast who has used the hashtag occasionally for limited comic effect)

So I’m encouraging you to find ways to be spontaneous this week. Keep your eyes open for opportunities to give and receive joy. If you are feeling uninspired why not join us at the Lodge on Wednesday night? Wadham Lodge welcome Sawbridgeworth Town to East London for their Gordon Brasted Quarter-Final game. The exciting thing is that the club will be donating a percentage of the gate fee and holding a collection for a very worthwhile cause. Danny Walton is a 16-year-old boy, who lives locally, who has Cerebral Palsy which severely affects his movement meaning he is unable to walk and needs a wheelchair to get out and about. His speech and language are limited and he requires 24-hour care.

So come join us! If nothing else you get to see me at my first ever football match!

-Afua

 

This was quite a week! We released the very first Just Ten Things podcast which was an act confidence in and of itself.

So what did we learn? Well, I learnt that confidence is a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets. That might sound like a trite observation, (especially in light of my poor showing in the challenge) but I genuinely felt that in being aware of the people around me and challenging myself to interact with them my anxiety around interacting with unknown people was diminishing!

Friends, what I would like is your view on the controversy at the heart of this week’s episode. Have a listen and let us know what you think. I think there are two clear camps:

1. When at war, victory is claimed by any means possible.
2. Clouding the truth and suppressing my engagement means that the inherent honour at the core of the challenge is now in question.

Comment, tweet and email your thoughts!

Also, after listening to the podcast I’m sure you will want to join us in becoming fans of Waltham Forest’s premier football club Wadham Lodge FC. You can follow them on twitter @wadhamlodgefc.

One attribute nailed!

– Afua

 

So here it is friends, the first Just Ten Things podcast. In the first episode we talk to the incomparable Iona Ledwidge about what confidence is, and how we can get our hands on it.

As a visual companion to one of Iona’s brazen tales, I would like to present for your consideration the ‘spaghetti and marshmallow Louvre’.  I am sure you will agree it is a marvel of food based engineering.

This podcast is a real learning curve for us, going from absolutely no knowledge of how to make and edit a podcast to a tiny bit of knowledge in just a couple of weeks. However, as I’m sure we will learn on this journey, perfection takes time!

This week we will be embarking on a challenge based on Iona’s wise words to develop our confidence. Any ideas? What have you done to boost your confidence? Tell us here on the blog, on twitter or via email (justtenthingspodcast@gmail.com). You can also use the hashtag justtenthings on all social media!

-Afua

 

“You have to be somebody before you can share yourself” – (Jaron Lanier, “You Are Not a Gadget.”)

For my MA this week I read some articles on the idea of online identity. It was interesting to see how the theory within these articles related to the antics at Just Ten Things HQ.

This weekend Team Just Ten Things embarked on a journey into ‘impression management’ After reading David Buckingham’s article ‘Introducing Identity’ I was struck by his explanation of the work of Erving Goffman. In Goffman’s book ‘The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life’ He describes the process of ‘Impression Management’ This is the idea that every social interaction we have is a form of knowing performance. He describes a ‘front-stage’ and a ‘back-stage’ persona. The suggestion he makes is that the ‘back-stage’ persona is a more honest and true reflection of who we are whilst the ‘front-stage’ can be characterised by a level of inauthenticity and manipulation. This was a tension we faced in setting up the blog and preparing to release the podcast. We were aware that we had to create in essence a brand for the ‘Just Ten Things’ idea. The first part of this was taking the pictures that would represent Just Ten Things on social media. We headed out to into the Olympic Village in search of the perfect back drop and proceeded to take pictures of ourselves. We were conscious when taking the pictures of what exactly we wanted them to say. However, I disagree with the idea that my awareness of creating a narrative around my identity some how makes it less truthful.

There can be a conflict at times between our anchored identity which is comprised of elements such as race, gender, nationality and our transient identities, which is formed in part by what we consume and how we choose to present ourselves to the outside world.

Richard Jenkins talks about how what you choose to consume is a marker of your place in the world. He describes social identity as not being ‘a fixed possession, but as a social process, in which the individual and the social are inextricably linked’ I could see this clearly in the process of setting up this blog. There was an acute awareness on my part of who might be reading the blog or listening to the podcast and how we would be perceived. This anxiety is created wholly by the assumption of an audience. These considerations were far greater because of the fact that we were producing online content. The internet has this feeling of permanence. That even though times and trends may change, when you choose to create an online identity and exist on the internet there is the terrifying possibility that this identity you create will become etched into your fixed identity.

In order to mitigate some of that concern this blog, the podcast and even the accompanying twitter account have become an exercise in closely managing our transient identities and engaging in Giddens’ idea of storying the self. That our life is a narrative in which we have to work at to keep going.

If these identities might last forever, we want to maintain a level of control over them. Even if that is just choosing the most flattering angle in a photograph.

Buckingham, David. (2008), “Introducing Identity.” in Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Edited by David Buckingham. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 1–24

Merchant, Guy, (2006), ‘Identity, Social Networks and Online Communication’, in E–Learning, Volume 3, Number 2, 2006

-Afua

There are so many different ways to exist in the world. Sometimes you just want someone to refine it down to its simplest form. That’s how I found myself on Christmas Day reading an article that claimed to have the 10 secret attributes of the perfect woman.

There is something about approaching a new year that makes you want to crystallise change down to some simple things. Some fairly abstract ideas seemed like they might just be the doorway to becoming just a little bit different.

Let’s not get it twisted, I want to be super clear that my aim is not to become completely different person. I am a delight, so I want to retain the essence of me, be just a little better, because that is all anyone really wants right?

So this blog is going to be a slightly more personal look at the attributes that Katie and I (Afua) will be discussing in the Just 10 Things Podcast. With a few thoughts on identity and culture thrown in for good measure.

This is the idea. Over the next 10 or so weeks in the podcast and the blog we will be seeking to embody the 10 attributes. We will be doing some research, listening to some stories and talking to some people who we feel have these traits nailed down.

The aim? After 10 weeks we will be the perfect women.

– Afua