I've been raised by very strict parents who would only congratulate me when I would excel in my activities.

When I was in school, I'd get a pat on the back only for top scores. Anything else meant I was just doing my job and I could be better.

Ballet class? We liked your part but you should have been smiling more, it didn't look natural.

My art? That wouldn't even get a “This is nice”, as it was just for fun.

Useful tools for blogs and websites. Part 5.

Proofreading and self-editing are almost as hard as writing is, and many of us blogging in English aren't native speakers.

This is where tools like Grammarly and Hemingway come to the rescue with their grammar and language checking features.

Life is like McDonald's 🍔

I was talking to a friend over lunch – he is also my neighbour and a co-worker, so it has been fairly easy to stay in touch even during lockdown – when he mentioned the fact that the burgers we were eating were good, but unlike McDonald's burgers, the flavour of sauces and other ingredients would vary slightly each time.

Useful tools for blogs and websites. Home-working well-being. Part 4.

Working all day in front of a computer may not be an intense physical activity, but it is still taxing for our eyes, muscles, and body. stretchly is a cross-platform, FOSS app by Jan Hovancik, that reminds you to take breaks when working with a computer.

A look into my feed reader

Having recently abandoned social media (it feels really good, by the way), and not enjoying the ads, pop-ups, and overall clickbaity tone of most news sites, I have now moved to using rss feeds to get my updates. I find it funny that rss feeds have been around for ages, but after years of not really getting it, I now enjoy this method for getting news and updates more than any other.

Opinions as the source of most misery.

“We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and to not let it upset our state of mind—for things have no natural power to shape our judgments.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.52

I stumbled upon this quote the other day when reading The Daily Stoic, and I was surprised at how relevant this is today, especially for those of us who interact on social media, though this can be extended to anyone who owns a TV or reads the news from national newspapers.

Looking back at a pretty terrible year.

It is that time of the year where we look back, analyse how our year was and figure out where we want to go. Except this my first time doing it. Maybe I feel the need for an end of the year review because it's the end of a decade, or maybe because a lot (of mostly unfortunate events) happened to me this year. So here we go...

Useful tools for blogs and websites. Part 3.

Photo by Ella Jardim on Unsplash.

Images are useful tools to set the mood of a blog or website; they attract the attention of readers and let people know at a glance what is the topic of the article they are about to read.