Man it’s been like two minutes and I need to schedule another student teaching observation. I need the weeks to go even faster, honestly.

Today was all about Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee, and I was observed for the first time by my university supervisor. He literally could not have picked a heavier day for this entire unit.

This is so kind so I’m retweeting it because it’s gonna inflate my huge Latina skull!!!!

So I have been teaching a unit on Westward Expansion (ew) with a special focus of Indigenous points of view and deconstructing American policies through primary sources, and the kids are constantly like WHAT? THAT’S F’ED UP. Yes, my precious tadpoles, it is.

I need my British friends to stop pearl clutching about American leftist responses because 1, he was an evil man, and 2, the American legacy of violence in politics is a direct result of British colonization going back to 1607 Jamestown.

I actually think we really do need to draw a line in the sand here because if you feel so compelled to eulogise and mourn someone who was literally a white supremacist and fascist by all definitions of those words, maybe we should just consider you a white suprematicist and fascist too.

Today was difficult because I had to talk about part of my 9/11 experience, but the students seemed to genuinely realize why it is important to tell these stories and have a safe place to ask questions.

Today was a lesson I wrote on residential schools and it’s really good that the students understood immediately the gravity of the situation. They were enraged and had never heard of them! For homework, they are making a case for it being genocide (or not) ((but we all know it is genocide)).

Deadline next week! #CfP #medievalsky #archaeology

My #medieval boyfriend!!! Learn more about my mans here: bamburghresearchproject.wordpress.com/2019/07/12/s...

Watching my mentor teacher teach is just wonderful like her energy is so good??????!!!!!!

Calling all medieval archaeologists and medievalists who ~dabble: call for papers for @kzooicms.bsky.social! In-person: May 14-16, 2026 Deadline: September 15 on the ICMS portal #medievalsky

I know I keep this account mostly disconnected from my fandoms, but unfortunately I am in my Alien era thanks to #AlienEarth which means if I put my face close to yours I will be launching my little mouth directly into your skull.

The loss of SAPIENS is one that will be felt across disciplines and, in this time of anti-intellectualism and lack of compassion, it becomes even more crucial that anthropologists are engaging with the public regularly.

Absolutely chuffed I was mentioned by name as the highlight of someone’s visit to the castle on TripAdvisor (and thanks to the guide who told me while plugging my tour at the end of hers)!!!! My head is now massive and unable to fit through the medieval archways 🏰

We had the Young Archaeologists’ Club contest winners onsite today, and I was in the trench and thus now covered in dirt as God intended!!!!

The reason it took a while to get that blog post up is because I have been wading through illustrations of 10th century combs from both York and Scotland in my very limited free time, but we are v confident at this point! Please let this mean equally cool finds for the rest of the season! 🙏🏾

THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD PIECE OF COMB, FOLKS

ANOTHER BIT OF #MEDIEVAL WORKED BONE! This seems to be a fragment of a comb from the end of Middle or Late Saxon period, up to about 10th century. The hole is where another piece would be riveted to this, and the base of the teeth is visible across the top.

#Medieval bone plaque, fresh from the trench! bamburghresearchproject.wordpress.com/2025/07/02/f...

TW: link has images of human remains Excellent piece in today's @newyorker.com by @rachelmonroe.bsky.social re: Philadelphia's Mutter Museum. No coincidence it's in the same city that was home to Samuel George Morton & is home to the Penn Museum. #FindingCeremony www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

First day of the dig was great except that it was thunderbug/thrips day. It happens once a summer, with no warning. The students nearly mutinied. For more info on who terrorized us: bamburghresearchproject.wordpress.com/2022/07/17/t...

One bit of good news from the American hellscape: Zohran Mamdani!

AMERICA JUST???? What the FUCK????

I’ve collected all the teacher materials for next year to work on lesson plans over the summer as I just found out today I am teaching multiple sections of US History II!

Cut it a little close, but I have indeed submitted a session proposal focused on #archaeology for @kzooicms.bsky.social 2026! #medievalsky

I finally have enough of a lull in work to propose a session at next year’s kzoo so that’s the final goal of this evening before everything resets tomorrow and I have another 16382847 assignments to do

While I love the Phoenicians, I assume the new painfully-attempting-to-be-quirky Wes Anderson film is not going to be about the intricacies of the Tyrian purple murex trade 🐌

I wrote about discovering my grandmother’s hair in Harvard’s Peabody Museum in The Trouble of Color. It still haunts me. I salute Tamara Lanier who persisted in her quest to win control of her ancestor’s images from the same museum — and prevailed! www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/h...

So my tech in education course asked us to do a 10min podcast episode of an interview. Unfortunately, the ease with which Canva made the editing has made me feel what only confident dudebros usually feel…I want to start a podcast. 😅

This weekend I will be drafting *at least one* #archaeology proposal for a session for NEXT YEAR’s @kzooicms.bsky.social because homegirl wants them in by JUNE 1st. #medievalsky (BABYGIRL I JUST GOT HOME THO.)

I owe so many people from Kzoo emails, but I have 13 assignments due by Saturday night, so I promise I didn’t forget about all the collabs and writing opps!

Very last paper, we got to hear from Rosalind Love who COMPLETELY opened my eyes to evidence of spoken Latin during the medieval period found in texts such as Ælfric’s Colloquy and Hugeberc’s Life of Williband. GAMECHANGER. Blew me away. Still chewing on it.

Final session featured a William and Mary professor who is brilliant and definitely has an impeccable vibe for the English and medieval studies cohorts. She looked at shifting details in life of Swithun miracles, effortlessly moving between OE and Latin.

Penultimate session featured Lindy Brady whose multilingualism book has been on my phone since it was published so that was cool!!! She was looking at how interpreters in the early medieval period learned their second languages by tracking explicit and implicit evidence of their presence!

Thanks to everyone who came out to “Archaeology in the Medieval Past,” as we ran out of seats! So happy to see that there is a lot of interest in the work we are doing on (in?) the ground! #ICMS2025

Come see me talk about the formerly-missing-but-now-found #medieval well of Bamburgh Castle! Sangren 4520 at 10am tomorrow. @kzooicms.bsky.social #ICMS2025 #medievalsky

The OE read-aloud workshop was good but I just wish there had been a phonetic cheat sheet projected because I don’t read Beowulf (or OE) aloud very often. We got multiple turns which was cool, and I did get to do the part when his sword fails him!

Great papers at Arthuriana session 2 but white men should be banned from Arthur and Tolkien audiences. Just blanket ban on them in public life actually. Worst comment not a question I have ever witnessed, 3 from the same demon!

Anyway I am literally the only person sitting on the grass outside on this gorgeous day but that’s what you’re supposed to do on college campuses

Also in passing from the book fair, I ran into an undergrad in a ribbon skirt! So I went over and chatted with her and wished her the best in her studies. We are here!!!!! We are doing great things!!!!!!!!

First Arthuriana panel was good! Especially the last paper about Celtic roots which I find more compelling than the later medieval ME and continental stuff!

Second Tolkien panel had awesome seiðr of Lúthien paper and then another with like every woman ever mentioned.

At a Tolkien panel, first “more of a comment than a question” of the conference! 🙄

First session was all about the natural world in medieval thought! First paper? Fossils in early med England…AKA the thing I scream about when we find crinoids/St. Cuthbert’s beads! Plentiful on Lindisfarne, but we get at least one a season from old T3 enviro samples! @brparchaeology.bsky.social

There were no snacks and I didn’t know anyone there, so I am at Bilbo’s for Night #1 of my 4-night extravaganza of Bilbo’s visits!

Made it to Kalamazoo, just gonna go pick up my badge mostly make-up free and in my comfy driving clothes and unhinge my jaw at the welcome reception so everybody knows what I am about!

@imc-leeds.bsky.social bestie, I love you dearly but I’m always digging up at Bamburgh Castle during the conference!

I actually don’t think Remmick was the devil because he talked about how the people who colonized his brought the words (the “Our Father”) so I assumed he was a pagan before Patrick (Romano-British) came to Ireland.

Just finished the bittersweet task of figuring out which sessions for ICMS I am going to attend. Mercifully, a bunch of conflicting ones are being recorded!