Over the past two years, I’ve been embarrassed to tell people where I live. “Do you live in university housing?” “No, uh, actually, I live with my mom.” I am in my late 20s, married, now with two children on the way, and I live with my mom. Not still, but again. And this isn’t really […]
Last week I stayed home and did some editing. This week I read more medieval writings about urine. So, pretty mundane stuff. Hey, what happened to last week? My flight last Sunday was canceled and I couldn’t get on another one soon enough to make the trip worth it, since I was going to come […]
In 2019, I spent a cumulative three months at home. And I wrote about it here on this blog. It’s a big part of the reason I started writing here. That year was incredibly trying. I was constantly isolated and moving around. I wasn’t able to form new relationships and I was constantly in new […]
It’s a cruel paradox that some of the most antisocial people become academics, because this is a very social industry. Yes, yes, we all hate networking. It’s so superficial and we all feel dirty doing it. That’s because if you’re only goal each time you talk to someone is to squeeze them for their connections, you’re not […]
I got irrationally angry today when I read this New Yorker article. It should be obvious by now that I have very strong opinions about history in general and certain topics in particular, one being the Black Death. And so when large publications make claims about the Black Death that I find … problematic … […]
A few months late to the party, I finally watched Bo Burnham’s Inside. And then I watched it again. And then I listened to the soundtrack on repeat for several weeks. Read More Right before I took my oral qualifying exams, I called my adviser in a panic. I had failed my German and Latin […]
This week I finished my research trips to LA. It feels like a real relief. Read More This week I largely finished with my manuscripts at the Wellcome, reunited with a past professor, and had a fortuitous meeting with a conservator. Read More It’s a cruel paradox that some of the most antisocial people become […]
Haven’t you heard? The universal translators are coming. Read More It’s winter squash season, which means it’s finally seasonally relevant to share my trick – hack, if you will – for cleanly and easily removing seeds from pumpkins, butternut squash, kabocha, and all other manner of hard-sided gourds. Read More Question: what’s the difference between […]
Recently, my medievalist cohort and I got together for a few sessions with the Center for Teaching and Learning to talk about how to write a syllabus, and all my frustrations about TAing came crashing down on me at once. Read More
A few months late to the party, I finally watched Bo Burnham’s Inside. And then I watched it again. And then I listened to the soundtrack on repeat for several weeks. I frankly did not expect to really like this comedy special, much less feel such a deep resonance with it. I had heard a […]
I’ve recently fallen down a rabbit hole of curly hair pinterest. As with almost any primarily female concern, if there is an anxiety, pinterest will exploit it. The site/app may have stamped out the community that previously used it as a haven for eating disorder fueled “thinspo”, but pinterest’s format – and more importantly, its […]
Promotional image for the PBS documentary. The documentary is full of jerky animations in this style, which doesn’t do much to help bolster the scholarship. If you are an avid PBS fan, you may have seen the premier of a new documentary titled Ornament of the World in the last month. It’s a piece about the […]
We’re in a semantic age, when battles are fought over the words we use to refer to people or experiences, and lines are drawn through vocabulary. In a non-political arena, I’m having a similar fight over the specific words historians use. How important are these distinctions, really? I’ve been in a fight with one of […]
Money is perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when most people consider pursuing a graduate degree, and for good reason – this is a life built on financial uncertainty that is, for many people, prohibitively expensive to even enter. Read More It’s a cruel paradox that some of the most antisocial people become […]
