Had several students say how useful and good my assessment feedback was today 🥰 always makes the slog worth it

This is a debate that I have had with myself (as I await news about PhD apps) - as this stage, my resolve for how *important* history is (and that my research is *about* controlling historical narratives) is keeping me along for now. Will it always? I don’t know

A screenshot of a post titled ‘on the acceptance of GenAi’ it then has a check list, like when you agree to terms on a website. These are: • l accept the models were trained on stolen data. Ol accept that the data was labeled by exploited workers. • I accept the environmental costs of the data centers running these models. l accept that I am outsourcing some of my skills to a company. Ol accept these companies don't have a viable business model. • I accept that I am granting more power to big tech and their vision for the world. • l accept that I am granting more power to the United States. Ol accept that all this effort could have been spent elsewhere.

Saw this on instagram and honestly, I might just include it in my materials when I talk to my students about their upcoming essay - possibly with an added comment at the bottom that they accept that they’re making me sad :(

Storycrafting Sessions: Disability in Writing FULL SCHEDULE - Weeknight Writers We are pleased to announce our full schedule for Storycrafting Sessions: Disability in Writing, happening on May 30th! This will be a full day of FREE virtual panels discussing various aspects of effe...

Hey! Authorly types, especially disabled authorly types: I and a bunch of other much cooler people will be talking craft, process, and representation FOR FREE on May 30. Check out the schedule here. Join us!

weeknightwriters.com/2026/04/18/s...

Reminder that if you live here, you can vote in local elections whether or not you're eligible for national ones!

One of my students put in their ‘ai disclosure’ for their last assessment a sentence that said ‘with respect to the advice of my tutor and personal morals, no ai was used’ and I was so pleased

You Do Not Need an AI Policy — Sonja Drimmer You do not need an AI policy. Forget the crisis in plagiarism and cheating; that’s yesterday’s news. It is becoming increasingly common for my colleagues, both within my own university and elsewhere,...

sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2026/...

Was at my grandma’s going through some things and looking for photos to use in granddads funeral.

In her bedside table, I found her weekly diary planner from 1957 😂 not only does she still have it, but the bedside table of all places?

I will face God and walk backwards into hell

PSA that lilies are deadly to cats. So even if you don’t have cats, something to think about if you are gifting flowers to someone who does

(We currently have some beautiful lilies in lockdown in a bathroom to keep our little chomper out of them - one bunch came from someone who has cats herself!)

A cat sitting on the edge of a bath, learning over, with a paw raised. She is looking at the camera. Beside her is a tap with a water drip coming down

Look at her

A photo taken of a cat sitting in an empty bath. On the edge of the screen is a blurry tablet with ‘marking rubric’ visible

There aren’t many unique experiences in the world, but marking while sitting on the floor by the bath because your cat wants to play in the drips and demands you be there has got to be close to one

Also deadly to the extent that by the time you notice symptoms, it’s almost always too late!

I am getting discouraged by the amount of students acknowledging AI use in understanding things in their assessment (although it’s probably equal to those who aren’t. Curious to go through and actually see the stats)

Might think about how I can talk to them about it again, sigh

Earlier this year I was gifted lilies and I put them on the top of a bookshelf, pushed to the back, to keep them away from our cat.

A petal happened to fall just right to fall on the floor in the middle of the night and I found it with chomp marks at 6am.

Even when you’re careful, things happen

There’s some benefit to my several paragraphs of pure ramble that I send you. At least I wrote it myself 😂

PSA that lilies are deadly to cats. So even if you don’t have cats, something to think about if you are gifting flowers to someone who does

(We currently have some beautiful lilies in lockdown in a bathroom to keep our little chomper out of them - one bunch came from someone who has cats herself!)

Petition: Hold a referendum to bring the water industry into public ownership Hold a binding national referendum on whether the water industry should be returned to public ownership. Water is a basic human necessity; we believe our privatised system has failed, so the public sh...

If you're sick of water companies being allowed to pump s**t into our rivers with no accountability:

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

Heart preservation technique increases pool of organs available for transplant Vanderbilt Health has pioneered a safe and effective technique for recovering hearts for heart transplantation.

Scientists triple the time we can preserve human hearts. Donated hearts usually can survive outside the body for a maximum of four hours. A team at Vanderbilt University developed a preservative fluid that could triple the time the heart can survive outside the body buff.ly/fnwUtnZ
#ShareGoodNewsToo

It’s an effective tone setter

I had some absolute gems from mine this week. It’s a great activity and they always seem to enjoy it a lot

One group however went rogue and instead of being diplomatic started with ‘I hope this letter finds you before I do’ 😂

Thank you ❤️

Thank you ❤️

My granddad died overnight and there’s fragments of unwritten poetry swirling through my mind. I got in the car and immediately put on Taylor Swift’s ‘Marjorie’. And the way I grasped immediately onto art. It’s art, it’s art, it’s art. Astronauts visit the moon, and we’re made of stardust and art

And the fact that the American and Israeli governments are completely unreliable sources in their accounts of what is happening also does not mean we should take the accounts of the Iranian government at face value. None of these are good faith actors; all are engaged in propaganda.

No matter what some people on here seem to think, it is in fact entirely possible to oppose all US and Israeli military actions in Iran, without pretending that this somehow makes the Iranian government into the good guys. They did in fact murder tens of thousands of innocent civilian protesters.

Ugh, that’s awful

A square cross stitch piece on beige Aida cloth. Hearts, flowers, and flourishes in red and blue form a frame. Text in the center reads, “we are here to make art.”

Not slop. Not war.

Adapted for personal use from free sampler “Old Times” from DMC. Still needs pressing, mounting, etc.

Wonder where the shift to white vinegar came from though!

It’s interesting how different Aus and the US are in those aspects despite both being predominantly white British-colonised countries.

Vinegar on chips is definitely a UK import - the only people I know who do it have families who immigrated in the last couple generations.