Happy Photo A Day - September 28, 2025

Alan being like a big brother to me.

List It, Make It, Shake It

Yesterday, I took up the delightful task of writing lists in my notebook like Barbara Ann Kipfer once did growing up all the way through to the time when she first wrote '14,000 Things To Be Happy About'. You see, Wys - whoops, I mean, Lady Penelope - told me from Kipper's perspective that there are lots of small things to be happy about, even things that occur in my mind. My peer on the other hand told me to really immerse myself in my stories and other worlds, and whatever occurs to me the moment I see them, like Kipper for instance, and the episode 'The Swimming Pool'. Apart from the Wave Machine, there's the frog which 'vomits' out water, and the purple elephant slide.

Also today I have thought up a few new therapy methods and techniques, meaning you will never look at my ideas as stories the same way again, but rather, *in a jumpscare inducing tone* LIST ENTRIES!!!

Okay, okay, was I being too scary for you? I should stop researching Channel 4's 100 Greatest Scary Moments. Anyway, since Lady Penelope told me to really immerse myself in what I think up, I put down what I found from immersing myself in these fantasies in my lists. These are the true things to be happy about. Remember those entries in 14,000 Things, where Kipfer mentioned a rabbit named Buns and friendly aliens from Outer Space? I wonder if they predicted Learning With Pibby or the Kipper episode The Bleepers? Who knows.

But I do know that each of these worlds, whether it's Pibby, Alloy Boy, Melira or Minimon - represents a different notion or emotion. Pibby's world represents joy and positivity, Alloy Boy's world represents heroism and bravery, Melira's world represents richness and indulgence and the world of Minimon represents teamwork and perseverance. As for the horrible black substance that kills every one of the worlds we know and love...it's a symbol of negativity, meaning to me, my school years, which were sad and upsetting, brought on this black substance in my mind.

In fact, when I was asked by my therapist which world I want to live in, I said I wanted to break free from my sad, negative school years (the Glitch) and replace it with the joy and positivity found in Pibby's world, where she, Bun Bun, Ally, Buggy, Terry, Daisy and Libby all play together and have s'mores at the end of the day. A perfect life deserves a perfect world for representation.

Speaking of therapy, yesterday and today I thought up a lot of new therapy techniques. The first one required making a divided list on a piece of paper - one side tells about the things you can't do (mainly because they cost thousands of pounds) and one side is a list of things you CAN do. The second? Taking a colouring picture of a beautiful sunset sky and writing down what you can accomplish among the clouds.

And this morning, I thought up two new ones, about breaking away from your negative and upsetting school years. One is based on Netflix's popular series Wednesday, and it's where you use outlines of Wednesday and her friend Ingrid to write down what made you sad about school (Wednesday) and what made you happy about the freedom of adulthood (Ingrid). The second new one is based on a segment in Here Come The Teletubbies (or Meet The Teletubbies) and it's where you divide a piece of paper into four sections to talk about four things that made you unhappy when you were at school. On the other side of the paper, you can write down all the things in adulthood that make you a free bird, with no job, no responsibilities and lots of variety.

Now I'm not saying that either Pibby, Wednesday or the Teletubbies have anything to do with therapy at all, but hey, there's my In The Night Garden & Teletubbies method about the cycle of emotion, soooooooo....who cares? Ha ha!