L-R: Me, Hazel O’Keefe, Caz Moran, Ava Vidal, Rebecca Papworth, Jackie Hagan, Sameena Zehra, Kate Fox

I have been super quiet but progress is being made….

1. I have now written over half of my thesis – so I’m in the last year(ish) of write up. Shout out to all the other part-time students who had to deal with all the ‘so when will you actually be finished?’ questions over the Christmas break.

2. The Mixed Bill symposium went really well (image from the industry panel at the end of the day above). We even got a review (written by our keynote speaker) in the Journal of Comedy Studies  – here! Kate, Lisa and I are now in the process of trying to pull together 2018’s event. More information, dates and the call for papers coming soon to all angry feminists/comedy scholars/ awesome humans.

3. I’m in the final stages of getting my second article published. Positives and negatives: Reclaiming the female body and self-deprecation in stand-up comedy. Soon it will exist (probably end of Feb 2018)! And when it does it will exist here (forever apparently).

4. I decided at the start of this year I would also set sail on the journey of the PGCLTHE (the PGCE specifically for learning and teaching in higher education – natch). I love teaching and have done it for a long time now in various guises – children, adults, teacher training and most recently HE students – so it felt like a good time. I managed to get some of my existing experience validated too (the Recognition of Prior Learning route- whoop) so I have started mid-way through. The sessions have been really useful and it has been great to meet and talk with some of my colleagues – life as an Associate Lecturer often involves sprinting past people in corridors and 5min chats at a photocopier (it also involves being mistaken for an undergraduate student on a fairly regular basis too – most recently in a public setting by someone who actually interviewed me for one of my jobs, which I have now had for 3 years – much to the amusement of my students who were present).

5. Oh and we got CATS!! In August my team adopted Frida and Valerie (after Kahlo and Solanas respectively, obvs). They are the best.

Frida

Valerie