'Oregon Trail' Gen X Nerd

Image from https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/time.htm Why time speeds up as we get older (my hypothesis) by Jen Davies, nerd September 30 October 6, 2026 It was a week last week. Take a moment and reflect on the endless summer days of your childhood. Every day, every hour, every  minute held something that was a little bit new, not so practiced, somewhat unfamiliar. The moments are intense and they hold onto our attention. Now reflect on today: there isn't a lot new every day. Maybe a few moments. Not a lot gets our attention. We are better are directing our attention to tasks we have chosen to do, but that doesn't mean those tasks capture us. The intensity is missing. (There's a whole conversation on the concept of Flow to be had here, which I'm going to skip but I believe it would bolster my hypothesis. You can watch  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 's TED talk and decide for yourself.) And there you have my theory in a nutshell, on why it ...

  Image from https://www.ted.com/playlists/870/what_to_do_when_it_feels_like_the_world_s_on_fire Getting creative (or, publish or perish) by Jen Davies, nerd September 23, 2026 A significant challenge for me as a university professor is the pressure to write. I've never minded writing, I'm just not good at doing it on-command, you know, like "Hey, I have an hour, let me get some writing done." My motivation to do it is not on a switch, so I have so far struggled to get done all the writing that I have to get done. The expression we use in academic is "publish, or perish" - meaning, write stuff and get it into print (preferably peer-reviewed print in the sciences) or you'll lose your job. One of many reasons I started this blog was to put myself on a weekly schedule of writing something. Anything at all, really. And it has been fun, and I don't plan to stop yet. I also chose the blog format because it's a practical outlet: the occasions when I hav...

Photo taken by https://www.instagram.com/mistymeadowsphotography/ Ottawa Comic Con: Anything for Ben Solo by Jen Davies, nerd Sept 16, 2026 You can see the IG Stories we posted here as Highlights: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18132942568645476/ And the best-ofs are here:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DdXIemzkkoh/ or  https://bsky.app/profile/thehuntforbensolo.bsky.social/post/3mvnx7u64dk2z (It's on all the socials at savebensolo.com if you prefer TikTok or whatever else.) Last weekend I was in Ottawa for their annual Comic Con. It was a convenient halfway point more or less for me and my fan campaign friend who cosplays Leia from Star Wars, and we figured it was time to send Ben south with her to tour the US East Coast a little. It was such a fantastic weekend! See the photos on social media (links above) - we had such a great time. Highlights included meeting Giancarlo Esposito, who was delightful. He co-starred in Megalopolis with Adam Driver, and he sh...

Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn  Autumn = Change by Jen Davies, nerd Sept 2, 2026 Fall is probably my favourite season: it's warm but not hot, the leaves change and are beautiful, and generally change is in the air. I like change, too much my spouse would probably say. I have none planned for myself this fall, for a change, not even a new haircut. It's going to be a hell of a fall for me because of work. As a professor I teach, serve, and do research. I'm teaching 3 classes (that's a lot because of the other two commitments), may be integrating more effectively into the social services network in my community, and both wrapping up a small research project as well as drafting some articles. And I have an idea for a professional book. It's a lot to get done. It's also a continuation of the ongoing self-perception shift I have been having to make, from frontline service provider or service manager to faculty member. The priorities are very different...

Image from https://sacredharp.com/product/sacred-harp-2025-edition/ Filling my cup: Belonging to a community by Jen Davies, nerd Aug 26, 2026 I lost my grandmother last week, and if I could say the timing was lucky it's because just a few days later it was time for the Central Ontario (ie, Toronto) Annual Sacred Harp Convention. It's 4-part acapalla music with a tradition of travelling to sing in each other's communities, which emerged in the US in the 1800s as both entertainment and worship. It can now be found all over the world. Like a lot of people, I stumbled on it through the film Cold Mountain . It was not a great movie, but the scene in the church where people are singing in harmony and waving their arms to keep the rhythm with each other... I was entranced. I learned it was called shape note singing, the most popular book is called the Sacred Harp (ie, your voice). We found a group in Toronto and showed up at their next "singing" (a noun). Someone pushed...

Grieving my own way by Jen Davies, nerd Aug 19, 2026 If you're reading this, my grandmother has passed away. My grandmother was born in 1933 (Great Depression still raging, even in Canada) and grew up in a house with her father's parents and aunts/uncles from both sides of the family. Because that was what you did. Family and community were essential to making life happen (and remain so). And I'm feeling like I need to do more of "that". She was beautiful. She married at 18 and was a mother at 19. My mother made her a mother, the same way that my arrival in the world made her a grandmother. I had the great pleasure of taking them both to Las Vegas in 2017 or 2018, with my spouse's help of course. Why Las Vegas? I can vividly remember childhood sleepovers with my cousins in Grandma's upstairs, so "the ladies" could play poker, curse up a storm and smoke cigarettes all night at the dining table. Seeing the Grand Canyon with them was unf...

  Image from https://www.betterup.com/blog/types-of-rest Too much R&R by Jen Davies, nerd Aug 12, 2026 Apparently there is such a thing as too much R&R because I didn't get around to prepping any ideas for a blog post this week. Briefly, then, I'll talk about the importance of taking a break for refreshing your brain and therefore the quality and/or efficiency of whatever you're doing. I won't cite any resources, but it's pretty easy to find the psychological and educational research on the value of taking a break. Breaks can be short or long. Sometimes 5 minutes is all you need to refresh. My eye doctor says I should look away from my computer screen for 2 minutes every 60 minutes to let my eyeballs relax (not likely, but I do think of it, Doc!) On the bigger scale, I'm actually not a fan of long vacations, because more time off only has the effect of making it harder to get started again. Sometimes a break means doing something else , rather than doin...

  Image from https://tenor.com/view/reylo-ben-solo-kylo-ren-the-rise-of-skywalker-tros-ben-solo-gif-11375326834185082205 Ben Solo Joy: A Star Wars Experience by Jen Davies, nerd Aug 5, 2026 I feel like we get Ben Solo for about 5 minutes in SW Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker - apparently we had about 8-10 minutes depending on where you think Kylo Ren goes away, but it wasn't enough. Here is a collection of most of those too-few minutes in case you're not familiar with them (links below). If you ARE familiar with Episodes 7, 8 and 9 you might choose to rewatch these things, and I'd like to encourage you to pay attention to two things that I will talk about more below: a) the incredible shift in body language from actor Adam Driver, who plays the character(s), and b) the musical themes (which return in modified form from earlier in the films). Start where Ben throws Kylo Ren away:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yENbL9YwEg4 Arriving on Exegol Pt 1: https://youtu.be/4zCuOf...

Image from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076740/ Thief, Sorcerer, and being fated to psychological work (not a D&D post) by Jen Davies, nerd July 29, 2026 Like a lot of young people, my early taste in films was influenced (and managed) by my parents, and I'm grateful that I was subjected to a minimum amount of infantalizing TV and film due to the place and time that I grew up. As a result I saw a great many high quality films that young people might not otherwise get to see, just because they were what was available. There were many FEWER choices in the 1980s and 90s. Two films that were highly impactful on me were two films you might not be familiar with, because they did not become any of the masterpieces by the filmmakers. One is Sorcerer, starting Roy Scheider and directed by William Friedkin (most famous for The French Connection), based on the French novel The Wages of Fear. The other is Thief, starting James Caan and written and directed by Michael Mann (prob...

On the value of longstanding traditions by Jen Davies, nerd July 22, 2026 This month my spouse and I are making our annual pilgrimmage to Stratford, Ontario for the theatre festival. It was our honeymoon spot - all we could afford was a long weekend. We chose it because I had such fond memories of going in high school, and because he and I both appreciate literature, especially Shakespeare. To the best of my memory we have done it every year, except of course during COVID but we bought access to the online service launched by the Festival at the time so it feels like we attended, and we went to their open air tent production as soon as that was permitted the next year.  I'm not sentimental. If it were not for other people enjoying traditions, I would probably only recognize birthdays and holidays that have special memories for me like Christmas. I don't like to go to the same place when I travel. I like a weekly routine but it's fine if I don't end up sticking to one, s...

Image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Love_vs._Hate.jpg Note what's wrong, appreciate what's good (CW: some strong language) by Jen Davies, nerd July 15, 2026 In an era when people earn an income on social media via watches and click-throughs (and ads), I find myself being choosy about what content I engage with because there are lots of such people who aren't interested in truth. They don't feel the need to fairly represent whatever thing they're talking about. Their headlines are typically  clickbait (surprising or controversial) because all they want is to get paid by having you look at their content. And I can tell from the trends in the bylines for all that click-so-I-get-paid content that negative things get more clicks: shitposting, criticism, and tearing down must get views, even though I myself choose not to engage with it. It actually isn't hard to write that stuff either, I don't think, just put your blinders on and get mad, so I rese...

  The soundtrack in the back of my head by Jen Davies, nerd July 8, 2026 Today's blog has a soundtrack! It isn't necessary though. https://youtu.be/cD7MuSTu7ss Ludovico Einaudi: Fox Tracks (Day 3) I have only experienced life in two ways: long periods of time when music is essential to existing day to day, and long periods when my head is too full of ideas to accommodate much music in there. I'm currently in a strange period when I seem to be able to handle both: I'm not as quick to push the ideas out into the world, but I'm still able to do it and make space for music. In fact, with music playing I find it a little easier to sit at my desk (a constant problem: making myself sit down and DO it, so you can imagine how difficult writing my doctoral thesis was). My relationship with music began early, because both my parents loved it and played it pretty much daily. I also grew up in the 1980s and had the benefits of children's television with incredible music, es...

Image from https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/61719320 Making friends as an adult: "THAT one" by Jen Davies, nerd July 1, 2026 Making friends as an adult is a lot harder than making friends as a child. As a child in school, there are typically two dozen kids in a class (and more in the overall school) who might be candidates, and you spend 6 or 7 hours every day with them, forced to interact in class and at recess and on the bus. Kids in the neighbourhood you live in are all often versed in the same set of 5 or 10 games (jump rope, Tag, or Minecraft), so they're all candidates for friendship too. As an adult, you never know what someone is "into" - the range gets a lot broader as we get older and we have different life experiences and develop different interests. We get pickier and more set in our ways, too (that's a different topic for another blog post). Our pool of candidates often gets smaller as well: we aren't surrounded by two-dozen or mo...

Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_drawer Adding to your "junk drawer" by Jen Davies, nerd June 24, 2026 Please let me invite you first to watch Hank Green's video, No Effort is Wasted (25 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgBaU9mmceQ The rest of this blog will make a lot more sense. As a career counsellor I've seen a lot of people who are concerned about the outcome of a particular effort. If I do X, will I get Y? Like, if I take on this project at work, will my boss give me a raise? I see a similar concern in the Save #TheHuntforBenSolo fan campaign. If we do Z can we be sure to get a Ben Solo movie? And the answer to both of those questions is unsatisfying. As wise scientist and negotiator Ben Franklin gets credit for telling us, the only guarantees in life are death and taxes. We can rarely be 100% certain of the outcome of a social behaviour because people are complex. Occasionally someone will then express the idea that maybe they shouldn...

Image from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/ The movies we have obsessed over June 10, 2026 by Jen Davies, nerd Last week I hosted a Watch Party for the #TheHuntForBenSolo fan campaign, and I noted that I have now seen the featured film - 65 - 8 or 9 times now, and that's a lot for me. I rarely revisit movies or TV shows. Something has to really grip me to get me to rewatch.  And it got me wondering about the movies I have obsessed over. Which movies have YOU obsessed over? Do you think it says anything about us? Childhood... The Princess Bride Willow SW Ep456 things with puppets I cannot remember a time when I did not know Star Wars (original trilogy). My father showed it to me as soon as he thought I could handle it, and I know I saw all three movies in the first home that I can remember. We moved from there when I was 7, so I know I had seen all three by that age. Likely thanks to Frank Oz's Yoda, I loved rewatching The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock for years, which had...

Image from https://freesvg.org/shuttermonkey-movie-clapperboard Movies I'm glad I saw, but I won't rewatch by Jen Davies, nerd June 17, 2026 Last week I wrote about films I've seen a LOT . This week, here are films I've seen only once (and I'm glad I did even though I never want to see them again). I don't think I'm the only one who has only so-much tolerance for films with particular kinds of content. For me, I don't do high levels of violence well (especially not horror movie-type gore - like, the whole Saw series seems like just an ongoing repetition and I don't understand why there is more than one). I can tolerate some sex in a movie (brief scenes that have a story purpose). I don't care either way if there is a romantic plot, and I actively avoid romcoms. And yet I try to avoid spoilers before seeing movies that I know I'm interested in, so certainly I'm exposed to all of those things regularly. Here are a few films that I saw, whic...

  Image from https://tenor.com/view/simpsons-flirting-do-you-like-stuff-walking-gif-16413189 Interviewing and the joy of meeting new people June 3, 2026 by Jen Davies, nerd There was no blog last week - it was just a heck of a week! I had a choir concert to perform in (lots of rehearsals), I taught, and then I had to get on an airplane to a conference where I presented a workshop with two beloved colleagues. A heck of a week, made worthwhile by the fantastic people I got to spend time with. As a counsellor, I interview people all day. That's actually a technical term that we use to describe the process and skills we use to collect a client's story. Unlike a media interview, a counselling interview aims to help a client look at their situation in new and different ways with questions and helpful paraphrases. With new and different understanding of their situations, clients can make informed decisions about their day to day thoughts and behaviour. It's a great career for me, ...

  Image from https://www.youtube.com/@ColbertLateShow Spring cleaning with Stephen Colbert May 20, 2026 by Jen Davies, nerd It's Spring Cleaning season, so I've been rearranging my basement and tidying my house. Winter jacket goes to the back of the closet, spring jackets come forward... putting winter boots away so sandals are easier to reach. My back hurts from all the bending and lifting. All those signs of spring. And throughout, I'm sad because I don't know how I'm going to consume my US news after this week. Stephen Colbert has "pre-chewed" the US news for me since back on the Daily Show in the late 1990s I guess? And then on his own show, the Colbert Report. And then he took over the Late Show from Dave Letterman over a decade ago. At times, the news from the USA has been so hard to process directly: the violence (shootings, hatred), the wars and violence abroad, and lack of action on essential social issues (poverty, addiction).  Having all that to...

Ben Solo Lives (at my house): A Journey of Acceptance by Jen Davies, nerd May 13, 2026 My blog is late this week because it's been a heck of a busy week! And it started with a jump scare by Ben, my houseguest since mid-March when I brought him home from Toronto Comicon. As you can imagine, my spouse was a little concerned to have a lifesize cutout of an artistic rendition of Ben Solo / Adam Driver around the house. He is confident in his masculinity so I don't think it was that he felt like the piece of art was a threat. It's just... it looks like a person! And it's flat but the base is large enough that it doesn't fit conveniently in a closet, so Ben has been floating around the house for a while. The jump scares started with me, setting it up in places I thought spouse might find. I was a bad guesser, it would be days and days before spouse found him. But recently, spouse has deigned to touch the Ben Solo cutout, and now Ben surprises me all over the place. And I ...

Displaying my fandoms by Jen Davies, nerd May 6, 2026 Happy May the Fourth (belated)! I've worked in roles where displaying my nerd side hasn't always been possible. For instance, my primary profession is counsellor, which means that as a rule I don't share a lot about myself at all! Until recently I worked as a middle-manager in colleges and universities which also meant that a significant amount of "professionalism" (suit jackets, meetings with agendas, and staying on track) were required for relationship maintenance both inside and outside the institution. And more recently as a professor I can be a little free-er, but I also have to stay on-topic in class and as such there isn't always room for nerdiness (though I do my best to bring it in once or twice each term). But my car is my own, and while I used to eschew bumper stickers, I decided when I got a new (to me) vehicle last year that I would decorate the heck out of the rear end. Nobody can ...