This is the Meitan Tea Museum in Guizhou, China. You’d never believe me if I told you it was the largest teapot structure in the world at 74 metres high. I mean, you’ve probably seen others that come close, but this one takes the cake.
It’s this sort of whimsy that has taken over my brain this week — curious trivia that has no relevance to COVID-19. This is because this week I’ve tested positive to ‘CoronaCrisis’. Symptoms include existentialism and swimming against a whirlpool of uncertainty. I’m out of a job and my industry — teaching English to international students — is in free fall. There’s no ‘getting back to normal’ any time soon and there’ll be more redundancies before there’ll be jobs again. I’ve been able to pick up some copywriting work in the past couple of weeks, but getting any job right now would be miraculous.
The blessings I count are that I’m with a very supportive partner, I have plenty of hobbies, and I live in a country that is supporting the unemployed financially. It could be a lot worse.
This uncertain time has also forced me to make some big decisions about my life and my future. The first big step was deciding to trial antidepressants for anxiety. While in the first week my body struggled to accept the chemical change, I’m feeling pretty normal again now. The anxiety had been keeping me from feeling positive towards or even imagining a future for myself with proper foundations. It has kept me in teaching even when I saw no future in it. So, the second step I’ve taken recently is deciding to go back to study and pursue another career.
This decision was not easy. There were many considerations: what brings me joy in work? What career offers more opportunities for growth and diversification? What course will give me skills for an actual job and not just a bunch of interesting readings? The answer struck me suddenly. I want to go into counselling. Student counselling, refugee and new migrant counselling, clinical social work, and so on.
Sure, I’d love to study linguistics, but I already do. Sure, I’d love to pursue all my creative passions, but I already do (although, if anyone wants to hire me at the ABC or SBS, hit me up). The latter is just so fraught with uncertainty and hyper-competitiveness but I’m sure *something* will come of this *gestures at newsletter/writing/etc*.
(Please share this newsletter if you enjoy it.)
Anyway, here’s an assortment of interesting miscellanea I saw this week.
A rare disease that reveals the pattern in which the cells of our body grow.
The promising news that fossil fuels are on their way out in light of the COVID-19 crisis, according to the International Energy Agency.
If you’ve read Bruce Pascoe’s award-winning Dark Emu you’d know about how much of Indigenous Australian history has been obfuscated. This video from the ‘cogito’ channel does a great job at condensing some of the most enlightening points. It would make a great teaching aid.
I saw a couple of articles about this next topic last week, so I guess orange juice has been on the mind. This video explains why the beverage became popular and why it has recently fallen out of favour. Quite interesting for something I took for granted all my life.
Another thing I’ve taken for granted all my life is the plastic chair called a ‘Monobloc’. This was genuinely one of the most interesting videos I watched this week:
A video of people trying to date through an online translator. It’s cute and hilarious in parts.
And finally, a plan for Sydney to take advantage of a pandemic and pave more comprehensive bike infrastructure. It’s been so nice riding around without the usual aggressive traffic.
Thanks again for subscribing. It means a lot, and let me know if you’re getting something out of it. Please share with anyone you know who’ll get a kick out of it, too.
Until next week!