Springing into Action! 🌸

 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 everyone else, even though deep down I know I am because most people do not have C.V.I.D...  

The internalised ableism is taking a while to unlearn... 

That said everyone was more than understanding and I did so much better than I thought I ever could have done, or was ever possible for someone like me. I then realised that I was doing the same thing I tell others not to do like, all the time... writing myself off.... Too often I hear of people doing this when they have chronic conditions and I am not sure why it happens, but we are somehow trained to just, throw in the towel and get a whole new personality the moment we get diagnosed, no matter how inauthentic that feels to us. LIFE IS TOO SHORT! Allowing yourself to ask for things, and allowing yourself to just try to do something is harder than succeeding for most people... Believing yourself worthy of succeeding is something that were are trained to not do!. Fixing that mindset though is easier said than done! 

I also went to the MUSEUM TO SEE THE MOON... Yes that wasn't a typo... it is in fact... an art piece by the artist Luke Jerram. It is called "Museum of the Moon" and you have until the 12th April to go and see it in Cardiff, and then it goes on tour to another museum! 

Speaking of life being short, I spent a lot of time around old things, which is fairly on brand given my area of study, but I really did! 
I went to the Museum.. (The National museum of Wales...) and there was the moon installation there by Luke Jerram, and if you haven't yet seen it, you have until the  middle of April to do so... though if you miss it, it is an installation that is on tour... The art piece is called "Museum Of The Moon" if you wondered... and it is an inflatable, to scale, model of the moon... with a backlight inside it.... very interesting to see up close! 

                                                                                                                                             

I am so incredibly grateful for the fact that I was allowed to pause before sending this in, and send in quality work instead of sending in whatever....
I have never felt more supported when it comes to educational things,
and genuinely,
 I am shocked to have not been rendered unintelligent by several tutors...
I really thought for a moment...
 well more than a moment, that I had peaked in high school actually.
Or that all my intellect had left when the immune disease arrived... 

I have loved the Ancient Lit and society Module more than I can find words for

 on the basis that I never had an opportunity to study these texts up close before...

I went to a state school that didn't offer a classics department... 

We barely had history to tell the truth... 

Welsh History was also barred unless ..

you were a high school student in the Welsh unit in High school, 

and to get into the Welsh unit in school your parents had to also prove that they were born in Wales... 

Being fluent in primary school wasn't enough, 

and the kids that weren't in first language welsh stream were not deemed welsh enough to learn further welsh history 

as their welshness was called into question and it wasn't their history... strange to view it like that in fairness. 

I had always quite liked the Greeks and Romans, 

and it was never really clear from where I got this fixation, 

but I did have a rather strange, 

rather crazy auntie who took us to museums and the library and 

used to let us ask questions to the volunteers at the exhibits or the librarians... 

I think as a childless woman, 

it is now my place to be the crazy auntie in my family and instill the same love of history into the little ones! 

Dr. G, ever the taskmaster had us read the most insane texts every week, 

but overall I really enjoyed it. I did get myself in a bit of a headspin, 

as the hardest thing to do with these sorts of things is not learn new things..

 that is the easy part...

 but rather to unlearn the old patterns of thinking things "Aren't for people like you" . 

I think in general when you think of History as a study, 

and especially the classics it has bloody terrible branding! 

You do not have to come from generational wealth to have the right to read OVID 

if you want to... I bought some things at the bookshop, 

and at no point did they ask me if my family has a coat of arms on the wall 

before they sold me the books (We do... But that is besides the point).

 Having a professor that makes these things so accessible, 

and takes the social coding out the equation is not just invaluable but necessary... 

Therefore several of us students fangirl rather unapologetically. 

Speaking of access, one such place increasing accessibility for people via promoting history 

and heritage is the CAER centre... 

I was so grateful to have been able to volunteer there... 

Although to some people data sounds boring, I love it! I was so in my element... 

There is something so profound about helping someone enter crucial information 

into a spreadsheet in order to prevent it from getting lost. 

Also staring at bags of dirt that contain bones is so beautiful... 5000 years ago these people were as real as you or me, and now they are in cremation shards, categorised by cut numbers, and safeguarded for all time... as evidence, so we can understand they way they lived, loved, died and were precious to their communities. 

I find that so comforting to think that things are not left behind, 

or lost forever, there is always something left behind after all, when we are long gone... 

and with this in mind, living your life is so crucial to human experience... 

more so than what car you drive or whether or not people like you. 

CAER does so much more for the community than just Archaeology though, 

not only is there a direct link to Cardiff uni, 

and facilitation of education there is paramount... 

But also it functions as a community hub, mother and baby groups, 

teaching people cookery skills, skills for life, community support, 

education within the community and gardening... 

It really is an invaluable and special building there

 that operates as a lifeline to the community 

and people of Ely, which feels liek such a full circle moment 

given the hundreds of years of occupation on the hillfort itself!. 

With my whole heart, 

- Clare Alexandra