Immunity : Unfiltered

It has been a little while since I’ve written here properly, and I just wanted to check in. Firstly… thank you. =) yay!  🌞 This past month has been incredibly full. Busy in the best ways, occasionally overwhelming, and somehow both exciting and nerve-racking at the same time. Summer feels like it’s stretching out in front of me now, full of possibility, and I’m genuinely excited for it… even if there’s a slight wobble of nerves sitting alongside that. Some changes have been deliberate. Others have just quietly happened while I wasn’t paying attention. I’ve also realised that some of my recent posts have become a bit formal. That was never the intention. I think months of academic writing have quietly rewired my brain, and I’ve started writing blog posts like essays. I’d much rather this feel like a proper catch-up than a submission deadline in disguise. So I’m trying to come back to something more honest. More immediate. More chill... Being snooty was never my intention on ...

This semester has been intense. To be fair, summer semesters always are. They condense enormous amounts of work into a shorter space of time and expect you to keep pace. It is, as they say, the nature of the beast. But I think that intensity has exposed something else that I've been carrying around for a very long time. Internalised ableism . I realise now that this is partly why it has taken me so long to write a blog post. I've been standing at a crossroads. Do I pursue what I truly want? The thing that genuinely excites me, inspires me and could lead to a sustainable future? Or do I take the road more travelled and settle for an "easier life" simply because other people would prefer not to put accommodations in place or do the inclusivity checks they proudly claim to champion? The fact remains, I do not thrive in a distance learning situation. I love where I am at right now, and couldn't be more in love with this subject. The disability reforms in the media cu...

Weekly reading reviews ? (and the slightly inconvenient habit of everything turning into autobiography- How very "2010 influencer-chic"...) This week’s reading list looks, on paper, like a mix of classics, travel writing, academic texts, and one very committed detour into moral discomfort. In practice, it turned into something else entirely: a series of books that kept reflecting each other, and me, in ways I did not particularly ask for. Lewis Carroll — Through the Looking-Glass (5/5) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is the reread that anchored everything else. I first read Through the Looking-Glass when I was around seven years old. It was the first novel I ever read completely on my own, which already gives it a slightly unfair advantage in my personal hierarchy of books. At that age, I identified with Alice very directly. Not as a character in a story, but as a mode of being in the world: slightly displaced, observant, trying to understand rules that kept changing depending on who was speaki...

Early May always feels strangely bittersweet to me. The light changes almost overnight. The evenings begin stretching themselves lazily across the garden again, the air softens, and suddenly everything feels alive after months of damp British hostility. Even the birds seem unbearably pleased with themselves. One blackbird outside my window has recently begun performing at approximately 5am every morning with the confidence of a West End lead who believes the nation personally requested his return. And somehow, alongside all of that renewal, comes this horrible creeping awareness that the academic year is ending. I genuinely don’t know how I’m supposed to cope with that. This semester has done something to me intellectually that I was not prepared for at all. Somewhere between lectures, heritage work, books piled dangerously high beside my bed, museum visits, essays, and fieldwork discussions, I seem to have fallen completely and irrevocably in love with my subject. Not in the vague “th...

These little eggs made a smiley face!- so CUUUUUTE!  There are days when cooking feels like a chore. A series of timers, washing up, and wondering why everything always ends up needing more salt than you think. And then there are days when it feels like something else entirely. Something softer. Slower. Almost like therapy you can eat. This was one of those days. I made gnocchi for the very first time. Not the shop-bought kind that quietly sits in your cupboard waiting for a moment of desperation. Proper, handmade gnocchi . Soft little dumplings that somehow manage to feel both rustic and elegant at the same time. The kind of food that makes you feel like you’ve briefly stepped into a quieter version of your own life. And I don’t say this lightly, but it genuinely made me happy in a way I wasn’t expecting. Ingredients (for spinach gnocchi with ricotta) 2 eggs 900g / 2lb spinach leaves 225g / 8oz ricotta cheese 225–275g / 8–10oz plain flour (depending on texture) ½ teasp...

 Spring is sprung! Finally! The birds are singing, the sun is shining... and the seasonal depression is finally lifting from my system! . What a few weeks it has been, and although I wanted to update my blog sooner, the best laid plans go awry and whatnot! haha!  I have been a bit nose to the grindstone over recent weeks but with good reason... I have had deadline season, but also I have had in general several appointments. The joys of admin!  How good it feels to finally shake off the snow, and feel like it's finally a new year and a chance to reset!  LOOK how Pretty my Uni is in the spring!- I love this place and I hope I get to make it my home for the next 3 years!  Well.... the last few weeks have been truly intense! Several deadlines, a 4-day migraine, and I was beating myself up because I needed to ask for an extension for the first ever time... I was hoping to be able to keep up without any need for any such measures! I hate feeling like I am different to...