sometimes I think I’ll never stop feeling kind of dumb in French but then sometimes I actually put an hour long interview on 1.25 speed and still make full notes

clocks changed, tomorrow I have to spend 7 hours on a night ferry and 1.5 hours on a train to go to a funeral, its forecast to rain during every distro this week and I have two presentations to give next week. BLEAK! 

HOW will I balance 5 distress a week and a full time course and 12 hours of teaching!! howwwww

I got my visa this week! This time in two weeks I will have done my induction day and be back in my cosy lil flat with my beloved! 

only 12 days until I get on a night bus to begin my 500 mile, 12 hour journey back to a place that I keep calling home! 

no offence but I truly believe that anyone genuinely involved in “politics” in the sense of like ... ascribing to a certain political party/affiliation, being a member of it, going to conferences, is actually not doing anything useful to improve the material conditions of literally anyone struggling in the world. (”politics” as in ... labour tory lib dem marxism literally whatever) 

& like ... I read theory!! I am not dissing theory!! look at my bookshelves!! but also if you spend all your free time debating marxism and none of it in actual useful forms of solidarity ... you're kind of a wanker! thank you bye. 

you know when you just realise ... you’re moving into a new Joni Mitchell era! Becoming an adult who has faced new and complex forms of heartbreak! Hell yeah! 

When me & my friend were first listening into Blue, her dad told us Joni would stay with us throughout our lives, and we’d find a new album at different points, and I guess he was right. 

probably not going to become a KNITFLUENCER because I just, um, sat on my knitting needles by accident? snapped one of the 3mm interchangeable needles but glued it back together and hoping for the best. 

but I did just block my gauge swatch for some very cute lilac shorts I'm going to knit soon & I'm watching a YouTube video for provisional cast on to start knitting this bra : https://nakedknit.com/products/the-shell-bra-english

I don’t want to actually have a knitstagram because it feels very side hustle to me in a gross way, but I want to tell people what I'm knitting! so this is what I’m knitting, guys! 

I also really want to make a colourwork jumper. My problem is that I don’t really like patterned yokes - I want all over colourwork! & not intarsia! (I love intarsia splodges but I also want to learn a new skill w every sweater) I might try the rumble raglan https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/rumble-raglan but I’m not sure what colours to go for. 

Anyway! Knitting is bringing me a lot of joy. I finished Camisole no. 2 from my favourite things knitwear a week or two ago and I’ve not started another project since then. Ready to literally knit for three hours straight now or something!!!

occasionally getting messages on makes super happy so ty!!

I don't use my goodreads account; I tried using story graph for a bit but honestly I haven't updated it for months and I'm really bad at writing reviews when I do use it. But - to give you some recommendations of things I have enjoyed lately ... & I would also love some recs in return.

The first book I read this year (which, since it's now June, is maybe not recently?) was The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak, which was very very good. I also read and really enjoyed The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki. Very much here for books narrated by not-people! Trees and library books can be essential narrators. I think I will read anything Elif Shafak writes; her worse books are still really good, and the good ones are great. I also really enjoyed reading Still Life by Sarah Winman; I read it in a very snowy town in northern Serbia, just after I had left the project in Bosnia, and I was exhausted by how fucking horrible the world is, and I just wanted to read something that made art feel important, and humanity feel generous. And it absolutely did that for me.

I've noticed my own growing frustration with a certain auto-fiction "lite" lately; I read Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan and it exhausted me, I forget the titles but two other books I read a few months ago left me similarly frustrated by the ennui of being in your early twenties and making bad decisions. Like, hello, I have voice notes from my friends to fulfil this urge, I don't need a novel to read about it! But - seriously - trying to turn more towards books with complicated plots, and so many characters that maybe a family tree could be useful. I finished White Teeth by Zadie Smith this afternoon, and although it wasn't as good as I expected it to be, it absolutely scratched that itch.

I think I should read Middlemarch? This could solve a lot of my problems.

I still read a lot of romance novels too, but I honestly inhale them in single sittings when I feel like shit and I cannot give you titles or plots or anything meaningful here.

realising that I'm about to move to a foreign country w no job prospects just because I'm very in love .. I feel pretty good about this decision! 

delighted to be sharing a flat w my love, even in a country that's about to elect a far right government

in two weeks I get to see my wonderful boyfriend and then we just ... have to separate again because borders suck and visas are hell! I rejected two jobs this month, for a mix of reasons that essentially simplify down to the fact that he can’t move here. I just want to be living with him! more than anything! 

all my ambition has temporarily dissolved and been replaced by a deep longing to be in the same place as the man I love, to fall asleep next to him every night and drink coffee with him every morning. 

every week just feels like an endless maze of googling residency permits, fantasising about the future, crying about the instability of it all, then thinking about how much I love him and how there is literally no one else I can fathom going thru this much bureaucracy for