coffee Archives | A.S. Akkalon

A nerd’s guide to choosing a forever coffee shop

Each week my colleagues and I go for coffee. The decision of which café to visit is momentous and is made only every five years. Here’s how.

I work with nerds. That’s not an insult–I’m a nerd myself. Once a week my nerd friends and I go out to a coffee shop, where we talk about work problems, nerdy stuff, or why everyone must see the Barbie movie right now.

Deciding which coffee shop to visit each time would be time-consuming and might result in a pitched battle in the office, so we go to the same coffee shop every week.

Not just any coffee shop, but the best coffee shop.

How do we know it’s the best?

Learning to say no

For my health and sanity, I need to learn to say no. Starting with big things is too hard, so here are a few easy places I’ll start.

Kristen Lamb posted recently on the importance of saying no. In essence, you need to say no to the wrong things in order to have time to say yes to the right things.

It’s possible Kristen is a genius.

However, recognising the value of her advice is not the same as being able to take it.

If you’re anything like me, saying no is hard.

So I’ve decided to practice. There are lots of big things I ought to say no to–projects at work that I don’t have time for, one more deep fried chicken wing…

But I wouldn’t want to start with anything too hard, so today I’m going to come up with a few practice nos.

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Concerning the appropriate level of silliness

The definitive* guide to the appropriate levels of silliness for all parts of your life. (* Not definitive)

Different social situations necessitate different levels of silliness. If I responded to my colleagues in the office the way I do to my friends on Twitter, they’d probably think I was insane.

Them: Did you break the photocopier?

Me: Sorry, that was probably my dragon. He thinks it’s funny to sit on it and take copies of his… never mind.

You can only say such things in the office so many times before people start to avoid you at the water cooler.

So what are the appropriate levels of silliness for different parts of life? Read on for the definitive guide.**

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How to be a writer: 13 required quirks

I was honoured when the lovely Lucy of BlondeWriteMore invited me to write a guest post, and I thought I’d share the intelligence I’ve gathered in my time undercover as a writer. (Yes, I’m watching Burn Notice again. How did you know?)

I had a lot of fun writing this piece, and I hope you have fun reading it: How to be a writer: 13 required quirks.

Eighty-three percent of people want to be writers, but not just anyone can be.

For the past six months I have been deep undercover in the online world of writers, learning their peculiar ways in order to better mimic them and hopefully one day become one of them.

My research has led me to the conclusion that there are thirteen quirks required to be a writer. Today they will be shared for the first time.

1: You must be crazy about cats

Continue reading on BlondeWriteMore.

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The joy of coffee

I came late to the joy of coffee, and the road there had its fallen trees, potholes, and badly signposted detours, but coffee and I have settled into a very happy relationship.

Did you see that I wrote a new short story? You can read The Emperor’s Cat here. Yes, it’s about a cat.

For various reasons, this week has been hard. Actually, it’s currently only Monday, so let me revise that.

Last week was hard.

Don’t ask why. I couldn’t tell you.

But hard weeks make me appreciate the good things in life, and last week made me appreciate coffee.

Continue reading “The joy of coffee”