SCABs

Victoria Sponge. @dinglebobs

By Ben Conway 

4 ounces of unsalted butter.

4 ounces of granulated sugar.

2 large eggs.

4 ounces of self-raising flour.

1 tsp. of vanilla essence.

Sorry to disappoint, but this SCAB isn’t going to be about baking cakes, not even a Victoria sponge. Four days ago I had a SCAB to hand in and I fell asleep. We’re going at five percent and I’m knackered – not tired, just lacking the energy after SCA (importance in the ‘after’).

 

I’ve bought a self-journal. I’ve used headspace three times. I am the literal representation of a man who says to his family “these heart palpitations aren’t serious” but has a triple bypass three weeks later and plays the survivor card at the gym “Oh you had a double? I had triple, it’s taking longer to recover.” My dad/granddad have a mild complex of doing this, and I saw a guy on the tube today with crutches refuse to take a seat while he struggled to stand up.

 

I’m trying to illustrate that I had goals in my mind at the beginning of the year, one was going to be that I was never going to hand something in late and I didn’t upkeep it. My downfall was bad planning; you need a mix of everything to stay sane. You need a mix of everything to make a cake properly.

 

Forget to use butter or an alternative, the cake won’t have a good texture. No sugar, no sweetness. The cake will be pale as sugar makes it golden brown. Egg is there add structure and with the flour, brings everything together into a mixture so it can rise. I have been neglecting my cake (and no that isn’t a euphemism the newfangled millennials are using).

 

So this is a shout-out to everyone else feeling overburdened or tired. Forget it. When it’s all too much, you are doing something wrong – the process isn’t correct and you need to reevaluate what you are doing.

 

I’m going to call myself out – but I wasn’t happy with the design your agency name and pitch briefs we were given. That isn’t a reflection on my team, my brain wasn’t 100% invested for it throughout and for some reason I wasn’t critical enough. To the point where the night before the pitch, I had no energy to work on anything and slept once again.

 

My mix was bad, and I had a realisation that the saying ‘only do what you can do’ is full of it. I improvised last minute (watch Lost in Translation to understand where it came from) and used that disguise to hide the fact our agency design wasn’t as complete as everyone else’s.

 

My point that ties everything together, so I don’t say three things and not one, is that I was at my lowest when I relied on something I knew before. I know the recipes and weight for a Victoria Sponge without having to look at the book; but when faced with something new that knowledge held weak. I thought the way I lived before was enough to get me through this year, but it clearly isn’t.

 

So ditch the old recipe and adopt the new, you can only make something new. 

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