Because we’re human, and, ya know, life – sometimes in a friendship, the communicational balance is unequal.
If my friend is making more effort than me for a while, I acknowledge that. I know how much mental and emotional effort it can sometimes take to stay in touch, and I am mindful of the attempts my friends make to connect.[1]
If I am making more effort to stay in contact for a little while, I give my pal the benefit of the doubt.
But if I’m beginning to notice resentment on my part, or if the communication is not balanced in either side for a prolonged amount of time, I examine if I and the other are OK with the imbalance. If it’s not, can we try to come up with a solution that suits both of us? For conversations like this, intentional dialogue can be useful…
If the other person is initiating far more and the balance feels off, I agree with Dr. Miriam Kirmayer: “Addressing friends’ bids for attention can mean the difference between having a dear friendship flourish or fade during a frantic time.”[2] In my experience, it’s really important to give validation and affirmation in that situation, rather than just dismissing and saying we’re too busy.
[1] Miriam Kirmayer quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[2] Miriam Kirmayer quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
Last year I decided to compare the carbon emissions of a ferry-rail journey to a flight, from Ireland to the UK. The research took a lot longer than I anticipated; it turns out that the internet is full of aged, blunt, biased, or limited carbon-emission calculators, which gave answers ranging from 41kg to 900kg for the same flight. ! Here’s 5 I reviewed… read on to find out the best one!
For each calculator I used the example of a flight from Dublin Airport to Leeds-Bradford, a distance of 357km.
– has an option for aircraft type or automagically shows the airlines who service that route
– knows the aircraft used by particular airlines, and uses that info in the calculation
– Aso from text accompanying result I assume it includes winglets (which has an impact on emissions) and CEP (climate efficiency points – which I know nothing about) in its calculations
– can’t find a single flaw. !
ESTIMATE: this calculator gave 2 results, depending on which air carrier I chose to fly with. Ryanair = 46kg, Aer Lingus = 110kg.
Conclusion: to a clueless consumer, Atmosfair seems by far the best flight emissions calculator. The consumer can tweak many knobs when inputting data, plus their documentation is published on-site; this gives me the impression of a rigorous research foundation. I’m really impressed, and I’ll be using this service from now on.
*Carbon emissions from planes at high altitude have an increased effect on global warming. Some calculators allow you to multiply aviation emissions by DEFRA‘s recommended Radiative Forcing factor of 1.891
Most of us should eat at least 20g of protein in every meal. Here’s a list of common vegetarian & vegan protein sources, with required portion size & approximate price included. Hrrrrmm… now all I want is a Fulfil bar… ! 🙂
Most of us should eat at least 20g of protein in every meal. Here’s a list of common animal protein sources, with required portion size & price included. Top tip: meat portions are generally around the size of your palm. I must confess that tip doesn’t work for me, though, as I have pretty big hands. ! 🙂
Protein is the very stuff we are made of, and yet most of us don’t know how much we need, or why. Here’s a few facts I found really helpful in improving my physical & mental health.
The amount of protein you should eat depends on loads of things, including:
– your gender
– your age
– your level of physical activity
– your health
– The basic recommendation for protein intake is 0.8 grams per kilogram of weight in untrained, generally healthy adults. So a person who weighs 68kg should consume 0.8 x 68 = 54g of protein a day.
– There are tons of good reasons to eat protein, but one of the most important is that it reduces age-related muscle loss. As we age, we lose muscle, which reduces life expectancy, health, & well-being … but eating protein slows down this process. So if you’re over 65, please read this article, weigh yourself, and then start eating more than 2g of protein per kilogram of your body weight.
– We can only process a certain amount of protein in our bodies in one go. So going without protein all day, then eating a massive steak for dinner, won’t fulfil our protein needs that day. We have to eat protein at regular intervals, to stock up our bodies’ protein stores.
– In particular, ideally we eat protein in the 45 minutes after a workout to help the body recover.
– 20g-30g of protein is the optimal amount the body can process, and maximize recovery.
– We can get some protein from starchy carbs, but it’s quite little:
grams of protein
2 slices of toast
5g
100g rice
2.7g
180g potato
3g
… so I’m now going to write another blogpost showing what 20g of protein from a high-protein food looks like.
I’ve recently moved to an offshore island. My relationships are really important to me. How can I lovingly maintain them? I’ve done some reading on the subject, and formulated the following game-plan …
In an ideal scenario:
1. I return my friends’ calls – because in a study of 8 million phonecalls, this was the leading cause of a lasting relationship.) [1]
2. I have contact with my friends at least once every 15 days. (Research says this is the golden numba to keep a pal.)[2]
4. I attend milestone events, even if it’s challenging – I drive out of my way to visit their new home, I make an effort to see my friend before the new baby arrives, I book that flight to attend their wedding.[4]
5. If a pal with a young kid rings me, I make a special effort to take their call there-and-then (they have fuller schedules, & a higher need!).
I have the following strategies for getting more ‘friend-time’:
6. I identify a habit, and if possible, associate a communication with it – e.g. for the last fortnight, I’ve done my daily run and rang my Dad afterwards. Today I ‘ran, then rang’ automatically. Less conscious effort + more communication = good!
7. I combine a task / activity with friend-time: e.g. I call Sarah on a walk; chatted to my my uncle Maurice while cooking; I’m attending an online history course with Claire.
8. I think outside the phonebox. I really enjoy emails, postcards, & letters; if I don’t have time for that today, voicemails & video messages are a nice runner-up.
9. I haven’t tried it yet, but I dream of making regular dates with friends: e.g. every second Monday at 11am I call Valerie? If possible within the two schedules, I suspect this strategy could be really effective.[5]
But inevitably there are certain days or weeks / a period where I am less available.
How to minimise the impact of this? Well, I can give my peeps a ‘heads-up’ to so that they don’t feel unimportant or abandoned.[6] I can include the following:
a) how long I expect to be off the radar (“I’m pedal-to-the-metal writing a grant for the next few days…” )
b) what’s the best way to reach me during this time (“So I’m really sorry, I haven’t even got the time to pee, not-a-mind listen to a voicemail; wil ya send me a text?!”), and
c) when my schedule is expected to go back to normal (But the deadline is due on Tuesday at 5pm. Gimme Wed to sleep and I’ll ring ya Thu! 🙂 )[7] and …
d) and I then make a conscious effort to connect with my friend, after I emerge from the work-vortex. [8]
I try to never say “I’m too busy”. The receiver doesn’t know if that’s my temporary reality, or if I am trying to brush them off. Instead, I
a) qualify the busyness: “I’m busy for the next 10 days,” or “I’m tied up until the end of the school year.” and then
b) make a counter offer. If I can’t meet face-to-face in the near future, I suggest a phone call, video call, or another way to connect so the pal doesn’t feel abandoned.[9]
And if I have the headspace, I try to send short, but thoughtful, texts. I try to …
– make the text as personal as possible to show the cara I’m thinking about them, e.g. remember small things like the presentation that I know they have coming up, and check in with them to see how it went
– ask questions that invite reveals (“How was the holliers? How did the gig go?? How’s the new job?”)
– give information about my day that my friend couldn’t glean from mutual acquaintances / the online world
– avoid statements (“I hope you’re having a great day!” or “You’re in my thoughts”), as they don’t prompt meaningful back-and-forth exchanges. (But if desperate, I think a one-liner statement like ‘you popped into my head today – hope you’re doin’ OK!!’ is better than nothing.)
Remember that regular date idea I aspire to but have not yet succeeded in setting up? Current opinion is that a regular friend date as rare as once a year – e.g. an annual festival / Christmas party – is more powerful than one might think, and, once again, better than nada.[10] This concurs with my experience; I have a good pal living abroad whom I only meet once a year (at a music festival), but that one meeting suffices to keep us so connected that I feel I can pick up the phone and ring him anytime.
And it’s important to keep dear friendships, coz they make life worth living[13].
Apparently, as we grow older, it’s rare that we make new friends[14]. So let’s hang on to the ones we got!
[1] Zyga, L., 2020. Physicists Investigate ‘Best Friends Forever’. [online] Phys.org. Available at: <https://phys.org/news/2008-04-physicists-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[2] Zyga, L., 2020. Physicists Investigate ‘Best Friends Forever’. [online] Phys.org. Available at: <https://phys.org/news/2008-04-physicists-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[3] Miriam Kirmayer quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[4] Carlin Flora, quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[5] Carlin Flora, quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[6] Miriam Kirmayer quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[7] Miriam Kirmayer quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[8] my addition to Miriam Kirmayer’s recommendations quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[9] Shasta Nelson quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[10] Carlin Flora, quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[11] Miriam Kirmayer quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[12] Miriam Kirmayer quoted in Goldfarb, A., 2020. How To Maintain Friendships (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/smarter-living/how-to-maintain-friends.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[13] Barker, E., 2020. This Is What Your Relationships Are Worth In Dollars: – Barking Up The Wrong Tree. [online] Barking Up The Wrong Tree. Available at: <https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/01/what-are-your-relationships-worth-in-dollars/> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
[14] Gordon, S., 2020. 5 Easy Ways To Be A Good Friend Right Now. [online] Woman’s Day. Available at: <https://www.womansday.com/relationships/family-friends/a31981452/how-to-be-a-good-friend/> [Accessed 27 October 2020]
I’m a female Irish traditional musician
from county Galway, and have played in sessions around Galway city for a
decade. Sometimes I’m one of the ‘anchor’ musicians (paid by the publican to
start and lead a session so they can schedule a trad session at a certain time
for their punters). Sometimes I just go along to a pub session to play for fun.
I’ve played in most of the pubs at one point or another, and with many
different musicians.
Liz Coleman holds a doctorate in Physics from NUIG, and is also an excellent fiddle-player. She did a small study where herself and her partner went to all the sessions in Galway in one week, January 7th – 13th 2019, and noted the gender of every player. Out of the 65 musicians they observed playing in the sessions, 57 of the musicians were men.
9 of the musicians playing in sessions in Galway that week were female: 14%.
“Deconstructing FairPlé: Is There A Gender Bias in Traditional Irish Music Practice? Do We Need To Address It?” Liz Coleman, Women in Traditional & Folk Music Symposium, NUIG, 9/2/2018
As Liz observed, ‘[This is a] temporally and regionally limited sample’. But her findings accurately represent my experience of gender balance when playing sessions in Galway, and all over Ireland, for the past decade.
Why does there seem to be such a considerable gender imbalance in the trad sessions in Galway?
I posted an excerpt from Liz’s research on
social media; one suggestion was perhaps “[female musicans] are just fewer in
number”.
It’s difficult to gain data on how many Irish traditional musicians there are in Connacht, and their gender. However, there’s three sources that can give us a clue: results from the Fleadh, the Leaving Cert. music exam, and university admissions.
Let’s look at the number of adults (over 18 category) who competed in solo, duet, or trio instrumental categories last year. The county Fleadh has no barriers to entry, so let’s ignore those entrants – they could have been playing jazz, for all we know. But a musician who has won 1st, 2nd or 3rd in their county Fleadh is definitely an active Irish traditional musician who has reached a basic level of proficiency in tune-playing.
But maybe this was a freak year? Surely there’s not usually 424 girls of all ages playing trad to a provincial level?
Actually, I think it’s likely this is the norm, as the trend of female over-representation is reflected in general music education.
The Leaving Certificate Music curriculum includes trad, classical, jazz and pop. Every year since records were published, girls studying music at Leaving Cert. level have dramatically outnumbered boys[1]. in 2018, 78% of the students who did the Leaving Cert. Music exam were female[2]. That means there’s currently almost 4 girls to every 1 boy in a school music classroom.
Not everyone who plays trad enters the Fleadh, or does music for Leaving Cert. Ergo these numbers are a subset of the amount of people who play trad in Connacht. However, they tell us that at the exact point Dr. Coleman collected her data, there were at least 44 adult women who were proficient trad players in Connacht. The stats also imply that it’s highly likely more girls than boys learn to play music. They tell us significantly more teenage girls than boys choose to study music in school and enter music competitions. So why were there only 14% women playing in the pubs that week last January?
Let’s say what everyone’s thinking: maybe more little girls learn music, and more girls enter the Fleadh, but maybe adult female musicians just aren’t good enough to play in a session?
Firstly: in the majority of sessions, you don’t have to be a brilliant player to participate. Sometimes the stars align and everyone is ‘flying’, but in general, you just have to:
ask if you can join in
play at a sensitive volume
be able to play around 40
common tunes to intermediate standard.
The 44 young female adults who have won 1st, 2nd or 3rd in their county Fleadh in Connacht have definitely reached a standard whereby they could play in a session in Galway city.
Secondly: at senior level, 7 of the women who qualified for the Connacht Fleadh proceeded to the All-Ireland and won first prize in their competition at national level. That means that of all the people from Connacht who proceeded to national level and won first in the the All-Ireland last year, 41% of them were women. This is exactly in line with the national average:
last year, 41% of all senior instrumental champions in Ireland were female.
www.una.ie/all-ireland-fleadh-results-2018
The trend of girls achieving an exceptionally high standard of music performance is amplified at Leaving Cert. music level, where girls don’t just outnumber the boys, they slightly outperform them: in 2018 4.7% girls attaining an A, grade, compared to 3.2% of the boys.
So not only are the vast majority of female musicians good enough to play in a session, lots of them are exceptional musicians. So why are women not playing sessions in Galway?
Well, maybe women who play music don’t want to be professional musicians, or maybe they don’t like performing in public.
But the statistics suggest otherwise: there’s one undergraduate course in Ireland in Irish traditional music and dance – the B.A. in Irish Music and Dance in the University of Limerick. To date, of the 250 students who have graduated from this course, 63% are female.
UL also offer a masters degree in trad.
Many musicians choose to initiate a performance career in the Irish traditional
arts by doing this specialized postgraduate degree. Since 2003, 267 trad
musicians have graduated from the MA in Irish Traditional Music in UL,
presumably with professional development as their goal. Of that 267 graduates,
157 are women. So 60% of the people who have consciously decided to pursue
Irish traditional music performance at a professional level are female.
So where are all these female trad music graduates? They’re not playing sessions in Galway; maybe they’re focusing on concert performance instead.
In fact, all this data shines a positive light on the competitions in Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann: they seem to be an accessible platform for young women to perform instrumental music. When doing this research, I remembered a conversation with a female professional musician years ago: she confided in me that winning an All-Ireland title on her instrument gave her the affirmation, and a kickstart, to ‘go pro’.
However, this is the current situation: 41% of the 2018 senior All-Ireland instrumental champions are female, but only 25% of the instrumental musicians who got a gig at the 2019 All-Ireland Fleadh were female. At least 43% of the adult trad musicians in Galway are female, but only 14% of them are playing in sessions.
Is this a problem? If it is, what’s causing it? How can we change it? My purpose in doing this research was to get some clarity for myself. I thank Liz Coleman for raising this issue; I hope for respectful, constructive discussions on this subject, where we all check our privilege, and really try to listen to one another.
But right now, I’m off to play a few tunes. The best of luck to all competing and performing at the Fleadh. Here’s hoping there’s a warm and welcoming attitude towards everyone there, regardless of gender.
Celtic music is a rich landscape, full of Hills and Vallelys. Here’s a selection of puns to date. (I’ve kept it brief, lest you think I’m making a mountain out of a Noel Hill.)
After a year of experimenting with locally-grown vegetables, I’ve expanded my collection and slightly altered the format.
This time, I calculated every possible combination of vegetables grown monthly in Galway, Ireland.
I paired 2 vegetables with potato and a selection of protein sources available in Galway – plant-based, egg, cheese and fish.
I calculated how much of each protein source, combined with potato, would be needed to provide 20g of protein (the optimal amount for muscle protein synthesis[1].)
I then indexed all the combinations per month, and in order of popularity (as roughly indicated by Google search results).
I also listed
them in alphabetical order (for that day when you sleep in, arrive late to the
market and all that’s left is Jerusalem artichoke and swede. This way you don’t
need to think about how much protein and potato you need for your basic dietary
requirements – just look it up!)
So now, with 181 different vegetable combinations, here’s “Speedy and Seasonal”… take 2! Tá súil agam go mbainfidh sibh tairbhe as seo!
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