Hello friends 🤗
The Christmas period has flown by! Somehow we are a good way into the New Year already. I thought January was supposed to be slow-moving. What happened? Anyhow, as it is my first newsletter of 2025, I am still going to do my review of the past year. So buckle up and let’s get on with it…
📆 Activities 🛼
Tuesday 16 December. Initial meeting with new manager for internship (online)
Wednesday 18 December. Emergency meeting with Neil and Duncan; EDIFY meeting (online)
Thursday 19 December. Therapy (online)
Friday 20 December. Disability Staff Network Christmas quiz
Monday 23 December. Family meal at Primavera
Wednesday 25 December. 🎄☃️ Christmas!! 🎄☃️
Sunday 29 December. Local pantomime (Peter Pan)
Monday 30 December. Phonecall catch up with Darya
Thursday 2 January. Family meal at Tomahawk
Friday 3 January. Virtual medical appointment
Saturday 4 January. Nando’s with J and August
Monday 6 January. Coffee with Lucy
Tuesday 7 January. Discord call with J, Arlo and Darya
Thursday 9 January. Therapy (online)
Friday 10 January. Train back to apartment
Saturday 11 January. Samuel visiting! Meal at the Harvester
Sunday 12 January. Sea Life and Trafford Centre with Samuel
Monday 13 January. WFH with Samuel; Mario Party with Shen; online webinar Careers Within and Beyond the Health and Medical Humanities
Tuesday 14 January. Samuel leaves
Thursday 16 January. Simon Watts workshop On the Job: Securing a First Academic Post; Therapy; Supervisor phonecall with Neil
🏆 Work achievements 🏆
Reviewed Gemma Almond’s Spectacles and the Victorians for BJHS
Fellowship at Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
Conducted my own oral history interviews, speaking to lots of new people
Presented my first big in-person history conference (Social History Society)
Approached for information on white canes by curator at the V&A Museum
First time as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, for Madness and Society module
Spoke to a class at New College Worcester
Spoke on panel on gender and disability for Department’s IWD celebration
Took lead on email template in EDI Belonging committee
Attended UKDHHH’s Connecting and Sharing Event
New places visited in 2024
Washington, DC
Baltimore (National Federation of the Blind archive!)
Worcester
Ladywell and Greenwich
Bournemouth
🎭 Shows of 2024 🎭
Hamilton
Unfriend (with Lee Mack)
Bright Club showcase at University of Manchester bicentenary festival
POTUS Among Us Improvised comedy show
Saint Motel 🎵🎺
Come From Away
New Adventures of Peter Pan (panto)
📚 Top 5 books of 2024 🏆
Of the 42 books I recorded completing in 2024, my favourites were :
Lessons in Chemistry
The Midnight Library
Housemaid series
The Castaways
The Forgetting
📺 My Top 5 TV shows of 2024 🏆
In no particular order this time…
Traitors (specifically season 2)
Desperate Housewives
Fresh Off the Boat
Veronica Mars
Baby Reindeer
🎬 My Top 5 movies of 2024 🏆
Inside Out 2
Wonka
Hidden Figures
Deadpool v Wolverine
Mean Girls
What’s new…?
Tears of the Kingdom. It is unlike any other video game I have played before and I think I am getting better at it!
Friendship alert! Hanging out with Shen
The Rest is Entertainment is now a regular part of my podcast diet
Chip, the Jellycat Seagull, has joined egg on bedtime cuddles duty
(Re)started weekly therapy & breakfast contains a banana now 🍌
Diagnosis: sad bones 🦴 😢
🧩 Entertainment 📺
📘 Read Persuasion Industries: The Making of Modern Britain, The Seven Year Slip, People Like Her, Darling Girls, Tattooist of Auschwitz, and Assume Nothing
📺 Watched Christmas specials of Outnumbered, Beyond Paradise, Death in Paradise, Great British Bake-off and Great British Sewing Bee
📺 Watched Louder Milk, Playing Nice, Vera, Law and Order: SVU
📺 Started watching A Confession, Parenthood, the new seasons of Virgin River and Traitors
🎬 Watched IF, Liar Liar, Wicked, Click and Collect and Bad Tidings
🎭 Pantomime at the Little Theatre- The New Adventures of Peter Pan
🧩 Great wall of china jigsaw - family collaboration
🎲 Family games - Race Accross the World, Monopoly, Five Second Rule, Bananagrams, and a Christmas-day family quiz
🎮 Super Mario Party with Shen, Samuel and Sharon; still plugging away at Zelda!
🎨 Made tiny little figures for DnD, finished my Pokemon sketchbook and started drawing with new Christmas goodies
PS. You may have noticed my sub-heading has changed to ‘Week’ instead of ‘Issue’. This feels a bit more honest as I expect to be stepping down from writing these newsletters every week. Forward schedule to be determined, but rest assured I’m not going anywhere
A lovely and comprehensive review of your year. It has been a fun and exciting year for you. Looking forward to hearing about your 2025.