Weeknote 18/2025: A reluctant sabbatical
Hello!
This was a different week. I’m coming to you live from my recovery sofa after a long-awaited surgical procedure. In between managing pain and limited mobility, I've had plenty of time to dive into a good book, binge a lot of TV shows and even manage a bit of thinking time around current work projects. This weeknote is a mixed bag of medical adventures, media consumption, and professional musings all filtered through the slightly hazy lens of post-op recovery.
The operation
I think I first went to my local doctor about this issue 11 months ago, got told to ignore it and it would go away (!), kept pushing and finally got a referral. Since then, the process has been much more empathetic, and I was so pleased that the consultant was able to fit me into her schedule during April. Other patients in the queue for surgery on Tuesday had experienced a variety of wait times and, heartbreakingly, one had to head home and make appointments for further investigation prior to their surgery. Some had even been forced to go private to get evidence to convince their medical practice that further investigation was needed. Our NHS is a wonderful provision in general, but - my god - some parts of it are utterly broken, especially the initial doctor appointments.
My trip to Stracathro hospital went well, except for a slightly nervy moment as I was about to get the general anaesthetic when the power cut out. To embed yourself in the moment, think of a pre-jump scare moment in a horror film mixed with some dark humour from the four of us in the room to break the tension.
I had been nervous in the morning before arriving, but the four-hour wait once I’d been checked in and processed helped reduce the nerves significantly, so I was in a good mood just before the trip to the operating theatre. The power issue was quickly resolved, and, after a few more seconds, I was out for the count.
I saw the light just over an hour later and waited for my partner to collect me from an empty ward. The staff there were wonderful and incredibly patient, and they brought me the most delicious chicken mayo sandwich and coffee I’ve ever had!
I am also incredibly grateful to work colleagues and friends who reached out or sent best wishes over the days before and after the operation. Much love! 💖
Absorbing mass media
I had whiled away the waiting time before my operation by making excellent progress through The Wager by David Grann. I’ve had plenty of other things to keep me occupied since I returned home, but I am continuing to get through a few chapters of the book each day.
The story, set around the 1740s, brings together details of the journey of the warship and its crew as they travelled from England to the coast of South America. There are so many twists and turns in this, you’d be forgiven for thinking this is fiction. In 2015 a previously unpublished letter by Captain Cheap was discovered and published. This may have influenced David Grann to retell the story from the point of view of the captain, John Byron (the poet’s grandfather) and some of the mutineers. I highly recommend you read it if you get the chance!
My son is studying for his National 5 exams at the moment, the first of which is next week, but he made time to bring me mugs of coffee and the occasional snack. These moments were a very welcome and appreciated distraction. We had also been working through the second season of Invincible on Amazon Prime and took a break from his revision to watch the finale on Wednesday. The show always includes a little bit of soap opera drama, which, for me, breaks the “angsty heroes on a mission to save the world” tension. I’m really enjoying it but only realised this week how many great actors are involved. I knew Sandra Oh played Debbie (Mark’s mum), but spotting Walton Goggins and J K Simmons in the credits lifted the show further in my estimation.
Thursday brought a Black Mirror marathon, and I worked through almost all of the remaining episodes. I’d been looking forward to Season 7 for a few weeks. Perhaps the series benefits from being watched with a larger gap between each episode, but the standouts were Hotel Reverie and Plaything for me.
In case you haven’t already watched it, Plaything is about an ambitious game that doesn’t just simulate life, it has successfully created it. No further spoilers from me, you’ll have to watch it yourself to see how this turns out, but it reminded me of a mid-90s PC game called Creatures. I never really understood what was going on in the game at the time, most likely due to my lack of patience and the lasting appeal of Pinball Dreams, Prince of Persia and Sensible Soccer. Alan Zucconi explores the game and the artificial intelligence behind it in this 20-minute video:
Can you believe that this game was released in the mid-90s and ran smoothly on Windows 3.1?! Its creator, Steve Grand, is currently working on a game called Phantasia. These two games bookend another impressive project, where he found time to build a robotic orangutan called Lucy. A quick look at the recent video below, showing an early build of Phantasia, demonstrates he is still keen to create an accurate representation of intelligent life, but now in three dimensions!
I loved the tangential rabbit holes that were uncovered as I researched deeper into the Black Mirror episodes. Perhaps I could document similar deeper dives as individual Substack posts in future?
Work-related thoughts
I’m signed off work for the next two weeks, but I still see connections in what I’m reading or working on and sometimes these connections relate to work.
The Edpuzzle playlist cover lessons appeared to go very well. I was able to track how far each student progressed through the playlist, so I can add a little more context to next week’s lesson to ensure a small group of students get extra support to succeed.
Recording the lesson video usually takes a while. I use OBS Studio to get a floating head in the bottom corner while I record the clips I need, then I switch to OpenShot Video Editor to split and trim. Luckily, the cover lesson videos were single takes with minimal editing required. These were all uploaded to YouTube before I used the same link multiple times to create a playlist where each item was a small section of the single video, with questions embedded.
I mean, of course, I could be using a more integrated system… I noticed Camtasia has a free trial, so maybe this needs deeper investigation. I have time at the moment!
I’m looking forward to attending Game On: The Future of Esports in Education on the 16th May. This will be a real test of my mobility as I zip across London, but it’s a few weeks away so I think that I’ll be ready. Unfortunately, there was no sane way to get there before 10 am from Aberdeen unless I doubled the cost by staying the night before. So I have accepted the fact that I’m going to miss Sir Ian Livingstone’s keynote but hope that the rest of the day will be incredibly valuable as we develop our Esports provision for next session.
I won’t sugarcoat this. I hate the limitation of movement I have at the moment and cannot wait until I’m able to walk at a decent pace again. That said, I’m grateful for this additional time to reflect on what I’ve been consuming and expand my understanding through Internet-based voyages of discovery. I just have to keep reminding myself that the operation was essential to improve my mobility moving forward.
I’m hopeful that the shuffle down the street will get slightly less agonising each day, and that this will enable me to take on the challenge of the London trip in a few weeks. In the meantime, I'll be working through more of The Wager, perhaps diving deeper into those rabbit holes I mentioned, and accepting that while recovery isn't quick or even linear, it will happen.
Until next week's note - which will hopefully be written from a slightly more upright position - thanks for reading. Any book or show recommendations for my continued convalescence are most welcome!
Take your time to rest