Hi friends!

Cecily here, standing in for Alex. I hope you have all been thriving since the last time I wrote for Fem Friday.

It's Mass Observation Day today. I love Mass Observation day. I always start with high hopes that I will produce a very detailed and highly personal day diary, from which some future researcher will get not only some useful data points for whatever they're doing but also a sense that here is a charming friend separated from them only by time and anonymity conditions. I generally give up after about lunchtime. Things get busy, or the business of remembering details turns the whole thing into a messy jigsaw, or I start to feel self-conscious about what my diary reveals about my bad habits (did I really just spend an hour reading twitter in bed?). I'm never going to manage the achievement of a Nella Last, and keep my Mass Observation diary going for 30 years. But surely this year I can manage a day of it. Maybe you want to write one too! It may be evening now but it's not too late to remember what you've been up to.

I like the idea of my day diary being sorted away with thousands of other day diaries, part of an archive, to be read or not to be read. I like the idea that a diary of my day could be part of an archive that, collected together, represents an ordinary day in the everyday life of ordinary people. It's taken a lot of years, but now I like the idea that I am very ordinary. That everything about me that seems weird and specific, that people might comment on or that I might feel pride or shame for, is extremely normal - that the parameters that define an ordinary person have to be set pretty wide if they're going to reflect anything like reality. That, it turns out, I get to be the person who sets those parameters. 

Of course, this isn't just an ordinary day. All days are special in their own way! Plus today I handed in my notice, so that is pretty unusual. As someone who graduated into a recession and highly alienated job market (or, if you like, "a millennial") I'm not sure I've ever had to hand in formal notice before. Truly the future is always full of new and exciting experiences. Like, for example, being extremely demob-happy even though you've got a month-plus of work to go. 

I was discussing the phenomenon of the "career change" with a friend just now and learnt a great Eurovision Fact. Remember Ruslana's 2004 Eurovision tribute to Xena Warrior Princess? (ok ok "Ukraine's 2004 Eurovision entry") Turns out:1. 'Wild Dances' is still a banger 2. She subsequently became a Member of Parliament as well as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. That's the power of Eurovision!