The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan

I first bought a Fitbit two years ago and it changed my life. For anyone who doesn't know, Fitbit's are one of the many fitness trackers around. Mine looks like a watch and sits naturally in the watch position on my wrist. I've upgraded from a "Charge" to a "Charge 2" and have replaced the strap quite a few times but for two years there's always been one on my wrist. Fitbit sets a standard target of walking 10,000 steps a day which is something I've stuck with stubbornly. Every single day from 27th April 2016 right through to 27th April 2018 I've achieved at least 10,000 steps a day. It feels both ridiculous and pleasing that I've not failed on a single day. My job is a fairly active one and I tend to do around 7-8,000 steps a day at work. That though still requires a reasonable walk in the evening which is not something that's much fun during the winter. Working in a school also means I only work full-time 40 weeks a year...

This week a thing was going around Twitter where people shared the four films which defined them so that's what this post is going to be. These aren't necessarily my favourite films but ones which are important to me. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Future generations will not grow up in a Potter-obsessed environment like I did. Indeed, the films mostly grew up with me- Harry, Ron and Hermione were eleven in this film and I was only a few months behind them. The Wizarding World is like a second life for me and this film was the start of much of my tastes too. It got me into fantasy and even the idea of live-action films was fairly new to me at that age.  Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World This is such a cult film now where Scott Pilgrim has to fight Ramona Flowers' seven evil exes in order to secure their relationship. It was probably the first film I'd really engaged with that was about relationships and it taught me a lot about them at the time. I...

It feels like there’s more pressure to be a vegetarian in 2018 than ever before. I try to live ethically and do as much as I can to protect the environment and make the world better. The next logical step is to become a vegetarian but it’s not something I’m going to do. In principle I am against killing things. There has been talk on bringing back the fox hunting ban recently and grouse shooting still happens every year. How can killing an animals ever be fun? It’s not sport unless the animal you are trying to kill has an equal chance of killing you. Ruthless murder is not a hobby. Sometimes it’s argued that foxes are pests, as are many other animals. The usual answer is to kill them (it’s still perfectly legal to shoot foxes). I have some sympathy here but culling should be a last resort if an animal is genuinely having an adverse effect. It’s society’s fault that animals are causing us problems, not the animals. Deterrent and relocation has got to be a better method than killi...

2018 is so far proving to be a particularly odd one in term of weather. It wouldn’t surprise me if I saw an old man herding pairs of animals onto a sizeable vessel given the amount of rain we’ve had over the last week. Before that, it was snow. Anything more than a few flakes here in the South of England is quite unusual and I have to confess to being delighted when it meant I ended up with an extra two days off work. Whilst it can be immensely inconvenient if you need to travel in it, I love the way snow can make anywhere gain a magical quality- it’s like the ultimate Instagram filter. The cold temperatures remained for a few days and so all the snow froze making getting about something of a challenge. The roads were like speed skating tracks which inevitably led to me falling over dramatically twice. It turns out dyspraxia and a shit load of ice are not a good combination. Two weeks later and we had another barrage of snow, an unprecedented occurrence (in my life...

I’m currently doing my best to enjoy the Easter holidays, even if the weather is doing it’s best to prevent that. It was another really challenging term at work and the long nights didn’t help. But despite all sorts of challenges I made it through. A few weeks ago was my twenty-sixth birthday. I’m not sure how I feel about being twenty-six- if anything it feels like somehow has miscalculated or I spent a few years in a coma. This year I tried the revolutionary strategy of not telling anyone it was my birthday. I don’t like being the centre of attention and I feel like people should be celebrating the life of someone who deserves it. Obviously my family knew as did a few friends but I made no effort to celebrate. I removed my birthday from Facebook too. Whilst some people actually do care, I know the majority of birthday messages on the social network are insincere. People write a message because Facebook tells them to and if they really did care they might actually show some int...