Hello, World!

In September of this year, I left Facebook. This was mostly for political reasons - I saw many friends and colleagues face undeserved professional consequences in the wake of the Charlie Kirk shooting, and feared the same happening to me - but I'd been wanting to leave social media for a while. I'm pretty sure Facebook is just outright evil at this point? From stoking genocide in Myanmar to its role in the PRISM Surveillance Program and Cambridge Analytica Scandal to the way Facebook treats its moderators and employees, not to mention the fact that when I log on all I see is ads, sponsored content, and AI generated slop anyway, I no longer wanted to be associated with anything in the Meta-verse.

So I left.

I thought temporarily.

But as we inch towards the end of 2025 I find myself enjoying my social media free life. I certainly have more time on my hands, my attention span is slowly returning, and I'm a little more hopeful about the state of the world now that I'm not seeing the dregs of society brag about their crimes against humanity on a daily basis.

But I miss what Facebook used to be. Circa, I don't know, 2010? Maybe? Or maybe the Facebook I remember never really existed? Was Facebook ever a place where I could log in for a few minutes each day to see what cool new things my friends were doing? Maybe not, but that's what I miss.

I want to see the cute photo you took of your dog. I want to see the yummy meal you had at that new restaurant down town. I want to read your complaints about traffic. I want to read your frustration about your students. I want to see the book or article you just published. I want to see when your podcast drops a new episode.

Unfortunately, I have to tread through too much psyche damaging content in order to do so.

This website won't solve that particular problem. But my hope is that in keeping all of you updated on what's going on in my life, both personally and professionally, you will all also feel inclined to reach out to me directly (or create your own newsletter/blog thing) to tell me about what's going on in your life, both personally and professionally. I want you to. I promise, I really do! You're not bothering me!

As my attention span slowly grows back to what it once was (hey mom, remember when I was a kid and I'd read an entire 500 page fantasy novel in one day?), I find myself more and more drawn to long-ish form written content; old school blogs and newsletters. I'm reading some great ones these days, and since I'm no longer spending hours per day on my dissertation, I figured why not write my own?

(Is this a good idea? Is anybody even reading this? Hello? Are you there?)

So, what am I up to these days?

Good question.

Primarily I'm finding my footing at my first big girl full-time academic job. After a harrowing job search in the spring (conducted while trying to put the finishing touches on my dissertation), I landed at a small community college in Eastern North Carolina. I'm primarily teaching Freshman Composition (or "Writing and Inquiry," as the course is titled here), and one Early British Literature survey course (shout out to Dr. Doll and Dr. Marti at UNO for somehow tricking me into getting that Early Brit Lit MA degree, despite writing my thesis on Iron Man). I like my students, I like my colleagues. I've found pockets of laughter and happiness here that I wasn't expecting, and I'm enjoying being back in the land of spanish moss and crab picking (now with beaches!).

I also spent way too much time formatting my dissertation into a pdf to be printed through Barnes & Noble Press. Turns out those fancy dissertation publishing folios are hundreds of dollars, but thanks to the many tutorials available online detailing how to print your favorite fanfic into a real life book, I was able to DIY it myself, complete with fancy cover art. It feels fitting that my weird little dissertation owes its material existence to teenagers who loved Manacled so much they wanted it in book form.

Now that I've finished that project, I'm working on making my Vampire Class into a zine. Ideally it'll be a digital format that also works as printed (I may sell them?). It was such a visual-heavy class, a zine format makes sense to me. Stay tuned for the (free!) digital download, coming to a screen near you over the Christmas holiday break.

Finishing my dissertation also means I'm free to work on my novel, an idea that came to me in a fever dream while I was sick with COVID in 2023. I immediately took notes, made an outline, jotted down ideas, and saved research (conducted on my phone between Nyquil naps), but told myself I couldn't actually start writing until I was officially a PhD. That time has finally come, and I'm slowly but surely typing out scenes. At the rate I'm going this will take five times as long as my dissertation, but that's okay. The only person I'm writing for these days is me, anyway.

Reading with no obligation or looming deadline is a strange experience but one I'm slowly getting back into the habit of. I thought I'd start with something light, so I'm working my way through Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which I've never read to completion. I'm beginning at the beginning with The Colour of Magic, and reading in mostly chronological order at the recommendation of my friend Kyle, who's read the entire Discworld series multiple times l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶o̶d̶d̶a̶m̶n̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶i̶a̶c̶. I find myself relating to Rincewind a lot more now that I'm on the other side of grad school than the last time I attempted to read his books. I, too, am exhausted and terrified and burdened with esoteric knowledge that I must somehow impart to a classroom full of Twoflowers.

But Colour of Magic ended up being a little too light. It's difficult to hold my attention. It's a great before bed read, but I didn't find myself reaching for it as often as I thought.

So I picked up Lindsay Weinberg's Smart University: Student Surveillance in the Digital Age. Like most professors, I've been spending an undue amount of time thinking about the rise of AI and it's effects on academia. John Warner's More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI had a lot of really great advice for college writing instructors dealing with AI, but I've been thinking a lot about data security and what it means in 2025 and Smart University is written with that in mind. It focuses largely on administration-backed initiatives that I currently have very little control over, but as higher ed faces more and more pushing to integrate AI education into our classrooms, it was still valuable to see how all this data is being used to actively and passively harm our students. Particularly our students who are already facing higher barriers to their education, like students of color and first generation students. Being at a small community college, a lot of the initiatives Weinberg writes about occurring at bigger universities weren't super relevant (AI scanners to determine the emotional responses of students in lecture halls to their instructors' delivery??? Dystopian!), but a lot of it is very relevant - particularly the bits about LMSes.

Am I confirming my own biases about AI in higher ed? Probably. Don't tell my students.

I have some other professional news coming shortly - including at least one, and probably two, publications. I'd also like to use this space to talk about comic-y and pop culture-y stuff in a less formal format than academic publishing, potentially as a testing ground for conference presentations or other publications. I've also been thinking a lot about my pedagogy lately, and of course the seemingly light-speed descent of the United States into fascism is an ever present concern.

As the world wide web descends ever onward into closed systems and walled gardens, I'm attempting to stay as free range and open source as possible. This blog is powered by Ghost, an open source software available for free (if you know how to run your own server). I'm removing as many algorithmic and AI suggested "newsfeeds" from my life as possible and instead curating my own web experience through old school RSS feeds and webpage bookmarks. I'm doing a lot of behind-the-scenes techy stuff to make my life as AI-, Ad-, and Algorithm-free as possible and taking back control of what content I consume. And so far, it's going great.

Now that I've managed to whittle my internet experience into what I want it to be, it's time for me to contribute. After all, the Web was created so that people from all over the world could communicate with each other and share information, and I don't want to lose that. This blog is my return to internet creation, so thanks for coming along with me on this journey.

Stay tuned (and subscribe) for more!