All posts tagged: felt

‘Heads felt disrespected, but now it’s time for solutions’

‘Heads felt disrespected, but now it’s time for solutions’

Published by skeptic

More from this theme Recent articles The new leaders of the Headteachers’ Roundtable want a “solutions-focused conversation” with the new government, rather than “chucking rocks” from the sidelines. Caroline Barlow, the head of Heathfield Community College in East Sussex, and Keziah Featherstone, executive head of Q3 Academy Tipton and The Ladder School in the West Midlands, were this week named as the group’s new co-chairs. They replace Caroline Derbyshire, the chief executive of Saffron Academy Trust, and will lead a larger group after four more leaders joined their ranks. Formed in 2012 out of a “frustration regarding government educational policy”, the think tank aims to provide a “vehicle for people experienced in school leadership to influence national education policymakers”. ‘We’re pissed off’ Its growth has coincided with an increase in school leaders wanting their voices heard on issues such as funding, the impact of Covid and the pressures of school inspection and accountability. “We’re pissed off,” Featherstone says. “It became really obvious that the sector was disliked, disrespected and marginalised. And what happens to the …

When social media felt real

When social media felt real

Published by Sam

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. Scrolling through social-media apps can be a monotonous exercise. My feeds are full of well-lit, curated posts that aim to be clickable and likable, an algorithmic bore that prioritizes grabbing my attention and persuading me to buy something. So when I open Venmo and see an old middle-school friend requesting money for “bathroom toilet paper” or “2 margs & split apps,” I smile at the reminder that the people I once knew are still known to me in such innocuous ways. It’s an experience that I share with my colleague Lora Kelley, who explores in a recent story why Venmo just might be the last true social network. “Venmo’s feed is hardly social media at its most riveting,” Lora writes. Yet it “feels like a classic social network in part because the people on your friends list may …

I tried this physical therapist’s stretch to fix rounded shoulders and my spine has never felt better

I tried this physical therapist’s stretch to fix rounded shoulders and my spine has never felt better

Published by skeptic

When browsing Instagram I often come across claims like, “this stretch will change your life.” I usually scoff and continue scrolling but a stretch from physiotherapist Claire Sobolewski made me pause—the supposed benefits were exactly what I needed. “This stretch helps to open up the chest muscles, shoulders, and lengthen through those tight hip flexors, which often become tight from sitting and slouching,” says Sobolewski in her caption. At the time of watching, I was hunched over my phone and wondering why my shoulders were sore. So, I decided to give it a shot. How to do Sobolewski’s spinal extension stretch Come into a tabletop position with a wall behind you Shuffle backward so your knees are close to the wall and shins resting vertically up the wall Keeping your arms extended for support, move your hips slowly towards the floor, opening up your chest and lengthening your spine as your hips come down How I did it During my working day, I took five one-minute breaks to do this stretch with the support of …

‘I felt the water tremble’: Ukraine’s Olympic swimmers train as bombs fall | Paris Olympic Games 2024

‘I felt the water tremble’: Ukraine’s Olympic swimmers train as bombs fall | Paris Olympic Games 2024

Published by skeptic

Oleksandr Zheltyakov gazes across the pool and points towards the hundreds of yellow seats that run along its flank. He has cast his mind back to December 2019, when he was 14 and won his first Ukrainian championship in front of a delighted home town crowd at Dnipro’s Meteor facility. “Just thinking about it fires me up,” he says. “It was before the war, a full stand, supporters cheering, adults, children, in a place I know so well. When you win here, it feels like you’re at a Taylor Swift concert.” There is a different soundtrack nowadays. A few minutes later, the air raid siren sounds and an employee at this famous venue, one of the main training bases for Ukraine’s Olympic swimmers, walks over to suggest we continue our conversation on that opposite side. We have been sitting beneath the row of huge windows that usually give a humid arena its sense of light and space. The panes are already in a bad way: some cracked, some taped over, others replaced by material of …

‘I felt like a criminal’: Record number of women facing illegal abortion investigations | UK News

‘I felt like a criminal’: Record number of women facing illegal abortion investigations | UK News

Published by Sam

Sarah’s front room is filled with pictures of her smiling baby. He’s now 18 months old. But for almost a year, she was investigated on suspicion of illegally trying to abort him.  In January 2023, Sarah (not her real name) had just delivered her baby prematurely. She called 999 but before paramedics turned up, police came knocking at her door. “The front room was just full of police,” Sarah tells Sky News. “I felt like a criminal.” Her pregnancy was unplanned and she had considered a termination. She went to an abortion clinic but was told she was three days over the legal limit of 24 weeks. “I wasn’t expecting to be that far gone,” she says. “I was hardly showing. It was a massive shock.” When she got home, she panicked and started searching adoption, and adoption to friends and family, online. She even put abortion pills in her online shopping basket – but never bought them. After a few days, Sarah came to terms with the pregnancy. But on the Monday morning, she …

A new start after 60: I was partially paralysed by a stroke – and it felt like hell. Then I found a new sport, family and future | Life and style

A new start after 60: I was partially paralysed by a stroke – and it felt like hell. Then I found a new sport, family and future | Life and style

Published by skeptic

The first two times Rose Chin arrived at the basketball court as a 65-year-old, to try out for the Inverness wheelchair team, she couldn’t make it past the doors. “I looked through the window and just thought: ‘I can’t do this,’” she says. “The third time, though, I made myself go through before I could think about it. The team welcomed me with open arms and it’s changed the way I live in my wheelchair ever since.” Chin was partially paralysed in 2018 after a stroke. For several months, she remained in hospital as she battled through complications and began to rebuild her strength and ability to communicate. “At the beginning, I was so weak I couldn’t even use a wheelchair and I went to a really dark place,” she says. “I realised that I wouldn’t be able to go back to my old life. It felt like hell.” Once she was discharged home to Fort William, Chin began the slow process of adapting to life in a wheelchair alone. She had to leave her …

Keke Palmer Felt Like the Belle of the Ball at the Met Gala 2024

Keke Palmer Felt Like the Belle of the Ball at the Met Gala 2024

Published by skeptic

For Keke Palmer, the “Sleeping Beauty: Reawakening Fashion” theme of the Met Gala 2024 was easy to interpret because there are parallels to her own life. “I am having my own reawakening and becoming a woman in my own right. I do feel like it’s funny how art imitates life in this way,” Palmer told Vanity Fair before hitting the steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday. By Erick Robinson. At the Met Gala 2024, Palmer looked radiant in a custom Marc Jacobs gown (“It’s giving goddess, look at me, look at me, but don’t get blinded because I’m shining so brightly!”) made of gold frayed sheer silk and tulle and delicately covered with antique beaded embroidery. “With the theme ’Sleeping Beauty: Reawakening Fashion,’ meshed with what’s actually happening in my life as a new mom and stepping into the year being 30, I do think both of those things in my life and what I’m trying to express, and what Marc is trying to express within the art, all align. And I …

I stopped lying to please people – and I’ve never felt more free | Radhika Sanghani

I stopped lying to please people – and I’ve never felt more free | Radhika Sanghani

Published by skeptic

I never used to think of myself as a liar. I always saw myself as an honest person. The only time I’d ever veer from the truth was to protect someone’s feelings. But that wasn’t really lying, I would tell myself, it was an act of kindness! And then I had a therapy session, where I realised that all of this was actually people-pleasing behaviour and it turned out I was a prolific liar. Not only that, but according to my therapist, by constantly hiding my true feelings to protect those I loved, I was blocking them from ever getting to know the real me and creating true intimacy. Slowly, I realised that every time I pretended I loved that thing my partner did, or lied about how fun it would be to go away for a friend’s birthday, or forced myself on yet another hen do, I was lying. I was prioritising everyone else over myself, and it meant that inside, I was raging with resentment. I knew something had to change. So, in …