Join 10,000 readers (and counting!) Dear Reader, I hope you were busy enough with some lovely Sunday activities that you didn't miss me at all last week! Cooking? Hiking in the beautiful autumn colours? A bit of dreadful trick or treating for good measure?¹ Whatever you got up to, I hope it was enjoyable. On my end, life got in the way last week, which prevented me from putting out the newsletter - but I'm back with a bang this week. A slightly meditative, lovely poem about life in the form...
about 16 hours ago • 11 min read
Join 10,000 readers (and counting!) Dear Reader, Leaves are falling, temperatures are dropping, and that pesky evening darkness arrives earlier and earlier with each passing day: it's safe to say, Autumn is upon us 🍂 I live in a place where the sun will soon go down at 3.30PM (yeah, you read that right), which tends to fill me with a sense of gloom that only hot chocolate seems to soothe. In anticipation of this, however, towards the end of October I always go to a really cool arts and lights...
15 days ago • 6 min read
Join 10,000 readers (and counting!) Dear Reader, It's soppy, but I have to do it, so bear with me: the newsletter has officially hit 10,000 subscribers (10,025 actually), so I have to say... I know it's not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but that's good because I'd be a really subpar influencer. I'm extremely content serving the needs of this relatively small but growing community, and let me thank you again for reading this newsletter every Sunday, or some Sundays, or whenever you...
22 days ago • 9 min read
Join 9,900 readers (and counting!) Dear Reader, Are you having a blessed day? I'm writing this on a Friday, and I can't deny that the thought "TGIF" has been flashing in my mind on repeat like the sign of an American diner from the 50s. This week was somewhat heavy for me because I had to sit on a few academic panels investigating so-called "academic malpractice", i.e. for the most part, students writing their assignments with AI. We used to do these meetings for plagiarism, but now...
29 days ago • 7 min read
Join 9,800 readers (and counting!) Dear Reader, As your trusted Sunday newsletter companion, I feel pretty much contractually obligated to start today's email with a very heartfelt: happy World Teachers' Day! I'm not one for platitudes, but if there is a day to remind ourselves that teachers are valuable, I say: why on earth not? To me, teaching is a myriad things - exhilarating, rewarding, confusing, challenging, and I could go on. But I know that it can get tiring, so sometimes it's useful...
about 1 month ago • 8 min read
Join 9,800 readers (and counting!) Dear Reader, My devotion to this newsletter is such that it sometimes gets into my everyday life. A good example of this has been this week. I knew I was going to write today's newsletter about the topic of habits; specifically, good habits to start incorporating into our routine that will serve us well down the line. And lo and behold, I started seeing signs of this... everywhere. First, I was asked not once, but twice, to re-explain for what I feel is the...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
Dear Reader, If I could summarise this week in a word, that word would probably be... ennui. Some days, Michel from Gilmore Girls is my spirit animal Not familiar? Ennui is a word describing a mixture of boredom, dissatisfaction and tiredness. In other words: a delight. I think the reason is twofold: summer is properly ending, and I've been marking almost non-stop this week. Indeed, September is marking season in the glittering world of precarious academics: dissertation after dissertation,...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
Dear Reader, 'tis that time of the year again (no, not Christmas, I'm not that big a fanatic): the sublime time of 4 seasons in a day. And I'm not talking Vivaldi, I'm talking actual meteorological manifestations of the 4 seasons in the same day. England is at the forefront of this avantgarde and since this morning has delighted me with about 10 bursts of rain, 10 of sun, and it's currently raining while sunny¹. As if I needed to get more confused than I already am - spoiler: I don't. I am...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
Dear Reader, What is this feeling in my gut that tells me in no uncertain terms that I can wear t-shirts and make pitchers of lemonade as much as I like, but the truth is that the summer is pretty much over? Are you, by any chance, also burying your head in the sand and deluding yourself September isn't right around the corner? A visual representation of me right now If so, welcome to the club, my deluded friend. But the hard truth is that September always comes around, so at this time of the...
2 months ago • 9 min read