All posts tagged: taught

Zelda taught me the importance of play – and has helped me deal with work, parenting and grief | Culture

Zelda taught me the importance of play – and has helped me deal with work, parenting and grief | Culture

Published by Sam Flores

I had a complicated relationship with video games when I was a teenager. I had straightforwardly, wholeheartedly loved the Nintendo games that I’d grown up with, tumbling around primary-coloured dreamscapes in Super Mario 64 and having the time of my life. But as I grew into a pretentious young adult in the early 00s, I started to want more from games, and I wasn’t finding it. So many of them were mindless, or juvenile, or needlessly violent. So few seemed to have anything to say. I started to wonder whether games might really be a waste of time, like the judgy adults in my life kept telling me. My response to this was to relentlessly intellectualise the games I played, in order to justify the time and attention I was expending on them. I mainlined highbrow gaming magazines and wrote grandiose blogs about serious adult themes in Deus Ex and Metal Gear Solid and the ancient Fallout computer games. My childhood love of Nintendo, with its bright hues and unselfconscious approach to play, felt embarrassing. Then I switched on The Legend of …

The One Thing My Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis At Age 27 Taught Me About Conflict That Completely Changed My Marriage

The One Thing My Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis At Age 27 Taught Me About Conflict That Completely Changed My Marriage

Published by Jenni Sidey

I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2012. I was 27, turning 28 a few weeks later at the time, and engaged to be married the following year. One minute I was an excited, expectant bride obsessing over mermaid vs. princess-cut gowns, and the next I was strapped to an IV with steroids pumping through my body to calm the inflammation in my optic nerve. After that, the changes happened almost overnight.  My eye, a victim of optic neuritis, went dark and blind. My body, strong from the steroids but weak once they wore off, became a stranger to me. I suddenly noticed the tremors in my hand and the way my leg would suddenly become numb in the morning.  What my multiple sclerosis diagnosis taught me about conflict completely changed my marriage Rapha Wilde / Unsplash My MS diagnosis meant one thing: I would have to take better care of myself if I wanted to survive. And I did. I started going to yoga to improve my balance. I started taking vitamins (hello, Vitamin D!) …

Los Angeles taught me to let go without burning everything down

Los Angeles taught me to let go without burning everything down

Published by Sam Flores

As he rolled up in front of my Van Nuys duplex, his teal Ford Tempo shimmering in the speckled fall sun, a wave of first-date excitement flooded my system. Leaning across the center console, he flung open the passenger door. “Sorry,” he said brightly, “I threw up in that seat on the 405 yesterday, but I think I mostly cleaned it up.” I paused, looked at the seat and then back at his hopeful, earnest face. “I ate vitamins on an empty stomach then sat in traffic,” he said with a shrug. Well, I thought, at least it was just partially digested vitamins and not a carne asada burrito. It could be worse. Deciding to be the cool girl, I slid into the not-quite-clean seat and took a deep breath. Brian was 6 feet 4 and a moppy-haired brunet musician with magnetic stage presence. We’d met through a mutual friend from his band, a guy who made me laugh by drawing inappropriate images on my spiral notebooks in my theater classes at Cal State Northridge. …

What growing up with an unfaithful father taught me about love

What growing up with an unfaithful father taught me about love

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more My mum and dad were childhood sweethearts. They met, aged 14, on a council estate in Essex. In 1971, aged just 19, they were married. By the time I came along six years later, my dad was at the start of a long and successful powerlifting career. Growing up, my parents seemed ridiculously happy. Dad owned a building company and Mum looked after the books. It was the 1980s, and the building boom and rapidly gentrifying London suburbs were good to us. Like all self-respecting cockneys done good, we had a holiday home in Spain and a Jaguar XJS on the drive. In my last year of primary school, Dad won his first world title. In 1988, he travelled to South Africa seeking gold …

How Apple taught its flagship AirPods Max headphones new acoustic tricks

How Apple taught its flagship AirPods Max headphones new acoustic tricks

Published by Jenni Sidey

Sign Up For Goods 🛍️ Product news, reviews, and must-have deals. It’s a murky March evening, and I’m walking to a metronomic throb wrapped in neon fog. I’m also walking underneath a flight path. I’m heading north along Long Bridge Park, planes taking off from Ronald Regan Washington National Airport to my right, and the deliberate pulse of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” precisely outlined around me. Intimate but uncluttered, the kick-synth interplay is uninterrupted because I’m wearing an appropriately spring-colored pair of purple AirPods Max 2 headphones, though the jogger passing me by in a similarly colorful orange pair wouldn’t know these are an upgraded edition from the outside.  The AirPods Max 2’s ability to keep my synth-pop groove’s lateral focus amid ambient intrusions comes down to several invisible yet highly perceptible factors. While not physically redesigned, the AirPods Max 2 adopts new silicon in the form of its updated H2 chip, bringing with it experience upgrades. I recently got the chance to talk with Eric Treski, director of Apple’s Audio Product Marketing, and …

Growing up during Sri Lanka’s civil war taught me that getting along with people across divides is a virtue we can learn

Growing up during Sri Lanka’s civil war taught me that getting along with people across divides is a virtue we can learn

Published by Sam Flores

(The Conversation) — I grew up in Sri Lanka. Much of my adolescence was spent in Kandy, a city built around a lake, set amid the lush tea plantations of the hill country. Its northern shore houses the Temple of the Tooth, one of Buddhism’s most sacred sites. Each year, it came alive with drummers, dancers and elephants parading through the streets in a “perahera,” or procession, honoring the Buddha’s relic. But Buddhism was only one part of Kandy’s mosaic of religious life. I went to a high school where students from different religious and ethnic backgrounds got along easily. Within walking distance stood Buddhist temples, Christian churches, brightly colored Hindu temples, or “kovils,” and Muslim mosques whose call to prayer echoed across the city multiple times a day. Religious observances filled the calendar; Sri Lanka has more holidays than almost any other country. Our own home was a glimpse into the island’s diversity. I attended both churches and temples with ease. My mother regularly visited a Hindu kovil with a close friend – though …

What a Cheeseburger Taught Me About Grief

What a Cheeseburger Taught Me About Grief

Published by Jenni Sidey

When I was 43, I found myself doubled over in pain at the same emergency room where my older brother Alan had died – at age 43. As I’ve written about previously, Alan had severe developmental disabilities and had died suddenly. While I knew my situation was different and likely not life-threatening, I couldn’t help but think of him and wonder if he was somehow sending me a message. I had been Alan’s younger sister, but also his caregiver. Prader-Willi Syndrome caused him to have violent mood swings and an insatiable appetite. Our relationship was tumultuous, his behavior unpredictable. But one thing I could always count on to calm him down was the promise of his favorite meal: a juicy cheeseburger, thick-cut French fries, and a velvety chocolate milkshake. After doctor appointments, on his birthday, or as a reward for good behavior, I’d take Alan out for burgers. The restaurant staff were patient and kind, refilling his basket of fries and topping his shake with extra whipped cream. The food wasn’t just an incentive for …

As A Gen-X Kid I Was Taught Success Meant My Career, But Nearing 50, I Finally See The Problem

As A Gen-X Kid I Was Taught Success Meant My Career, But Nearing 50, I Finally See The Problem

Published by Jenni Sidey

Halfway through her emotional interview with Ellen DeGeneres in 2016, human fighting machine Ronda Rousey started to sob. And it wasn’t any of this fake TV ratings stuff, either. The 29-year-old began to weep as she recalled her mindset right after she was knocked out while defending her UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship title against Holly Holm in November of 2015, a fight she was wildly favored to win. “What am I anymore if I’m not this?” Rousey recalled wondering in the locker room immediately following her upset loss. “I’m nothing.” She admitted that she seriously thought about taking her own life. “What’s the point now,” she remembered thinking, “people will hate me.” As a Gen-X kid, I was taught success meant my career, but nearing 50, I finally see the problem: Even the most successful have doubts. It was a rare human glimpse into the mind of the sort of person we all expect to be fiercer than us, stronger than us, and tougher than we’ll ever be.  And yet, there she was: Ronda Rousey, the definition of a self-made modern woman doing exactly what she wanted to do in this world, revealing how she …

Len Deighton death: Bestselling spy thriller author, who also taught men how to cook, dies aged 97

Len Deighton death: Bestselling spy thriller author, who also taught men how to cook, dies aged 97

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Len Deighton, a prolific writer whose tough, stylish spy thrillers featured on bestseller lists for decades, has died. He was 97. Deighton’s literary agent, Tim Bates, said he died on Sunday. No cause of death was given. Deighton’s first novel, The Ipcress File, helped set the tone of cool and gritty 1960s thrillers and was made into a Bafta-winning film starring Michael Caine that helped launch long and stellar careers for both author and actor. It was then remade as an ITV series starring Peaky Blinders actor Joe Cole in 2022. “Len was a Titan,” Bates said on Tuesday. “He was not only one of the greatest spy and thriller writers of the 20th century but also one of our greatest writers in any genre.” Born to a working-class family in a wealthy part of London in 1929 – his father …

‘What going on 100 dates in a day taught me about my sex and love addiction’

‘What going on 100 dates in a day taught me about my sex and love addiction’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Can you remember the last time you were obsessed with someone? Like, all-consuming, social-media-stalking, friends-pulling-you-aside-to-have-a-word, am-I-actually-going-crazy, obsessed? We’ve all been there at some point, but for performance artist Harriet Richardson, this extreme version of limerence has been the norm as long as she can remember. When she reminisces on her 30 years of life, they split neatly into chapters, each one named after the man she was infatuated with at the time. “The problem is that ‘sex and love addiction’ has terrible branding,” Richardson says. “As soon as you tell someone, they assume that your issue is not being able to keep it in your pants. And it’s funny, because mine’s the opposite. I’m not looking for a quick shag. I’m looking for an …