October 2026

At the end of last month's post I said that maybe I should 'lie down or something'. I regret to inform you that I have not managed that. October has been a lot, but less in the fun 'Emma is doing weird stuff' way that September was, and more in the 'Emma is absolutely slammed with work and melting down' way. 

Turns out managing two cohorts of students (the incoming and outgoing groups on our 15 month masters course), other teaching commitments, freelance workload, and preparing for not one but two weird events at the end of the month has all been a bit much. 

Still, I power through and eagerly await... well, realistically, Christmas break is when I will actually get to lie down, so that, I guess.
 

 And I had the exact realization that this was going to be a heavy month on... the 1st

As is often the way when I am either a) a bit stressed, or b) have been travelling, my guts got kinda bad for a while. I had a weird day where I barely ate anything because I was too busy and not feeling good (very rare! Emma lives for dinner!) and then woke up at 2am STARVING, but the only thing I could stomach was a bowl of white rice (and lo, it was good). Then accidentally ended up eating white rice meals for most of the following week, which is probably not advisable, but did see me right (my guts have actually been great for the rest of the month, thankfully)

 
Bought some jeans on Vinted which were super cute but way too big on the waist and way too long. Liked them enough (and got them cheap enough) that I could afford to spend £25 at a local tailor to get them *chef's kiss* perfect, and I am delighted. I am now very excited by the idea of buying stuff cheap on Vinted then tailoring it to a perfect fit. (Also rare departure from all black wardrobe for Emma) 

Another thing I find when my brain is tired is that earworms become stickier and more frequent. 

This day started with the realisation that there are distinct similarities between the Vengaboys 'We like to party' intro and Steve Reich's 'Different Trains' (part 2)... Just me?! I think it'd be a fun DJ set transition anyway...

Then of course there's this cursed banger (warning, may cause PTSD for those particularly well acquainted with HMRC)

Talking of cursed bangers, 26 days on and I still haven't freed myself from this one (yes, I know it's AI — as I said to a friend at the time, maybe the greatest threat we actually face from the machine is our brains melting as they become capable of ever more all consuming songs that are ultimately devoid of content but so perfectly engineered we all lose ourselves to them)

(For anyone who needs more, this extended version goes further and was actually made by a human) 

And finally, me and my partner have been really enjoying the Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex series, with this frankly baffling and kind of cringe closing credits song which has firmly embedded itself in my brain against my will (not helped by my partner insisting on singing along to it every single time we watch an episode).

Talking of Vinted, I got this great... jumpsuit? Onesie? Overalls? Anyway everyone at work liked it

Justin asked me yesterday 'Does this make you feel alive or does this make you want to die', so for anyone worried it is definitely the former (but I do wish my hands were slightly less full right now)
 

SOMEONE in my block persists in flushing wet wipes, but luckily I am the sewer whisperer (i.e. it's literally always me who spots there's a problem before anyone else and calls Thames Water, who every time say 'wow this was just about to get really bad') 

It's not the super power I would have chosen, I'll be honest

 
We live in a ground floor flat with front and back gardens. The back garden is safely enclosed with high fences, so when the weather's fine, we leave the back door open and KJ can happily potter around out there, which is nice for her and us. However, what I'd forgotten was that the previous day I'd left the back gate unlatched so the Thames Water engineers could gain access to unclog the sewer. Because it swings shut, there was no visual cue for me to remember to close it. However, it does sometimes blow open in the wind, and this must have been what happened when KJ was bimbling around out back.

So I'm just sat by my front window eating lunch when suddenly I look up THERE SHE IS!!

She'd obviously exited the back gate, and then — upon finding it had swung shut behind her — had bumbled along down the 50 metres or so of back alley, through the communal car park, and back all the way along the front street to the front of our property.

Obviously I dived up and immediately opened the front door, and she sauntered back in happy as larry, while I had a total meltdown about all the catastrophic things that COULD have happened because of my idiocy. What if she'd met a cat or a fox! (She'd definitely have chased). What if she'd met another dog! What if she'd met a human who had approached her in the wrong way?! (She can be reactive) 

Anyway, I was filled with renewed affection for her just being extremely chill and mature about it all, and making her way safely back to our front door, then politely waiting to be let in. Then shortly after further wracked with guilt after realising that due to a miscommunication, no one had given her breakfast that day. A confusing day for a good girl (for which we apologised profusely with goodies)

Weird side quest — got invited to write a review of "Mapping Britain's Railways" for Eye Magazine (not published yet). This was mostly because a friend who works there was like 'who do I know who is a designer who also loves trains', and YES hi that's me!!

Anyway I mostly only had good things to say about it, so if you know someone who's a designer who also loves trains, this would make a pretty good christmas gift.

 One those months, regrettably.

Co-organised and ran another super fun collaborative workshop with our MA (Design for Data Visualisation) and MA User Experience Design students. Making the students do data vis and build 'apps' using only craft supplies in three hours is always extremely amusing (and like, they make good stuff!! Stuff they would never have otherwise considered!!)

 

I normally think I'm pretty savvy to this stuff but I CLICKED THE BAD LINK (and had a stern phonecall from IT, and felt thoroughly shamed by my own stupidity). (Though I am actually choosing to blame it on being tired and distracted rather than stupid because that's easier to come to terms with)

Every day in the shower when I am looking at my mock-terazzo tiles, I see these guys and many others
 

"Yeah let's just schedule all the meetings on the same day, that'll be a good idea"

(It was actually very satisfying to have so many fun/interesting conversations but I did feel quite fried by the end of it. Luckily the last meeting of the day was with my line manager Keir who is always there to tell me I'm DOING GOOD)

 "I'm... doing... good..." [Melts]

I was feeling so exhausted at the end of that week that I cancelled all my weekend plans and aimed to (mostly) not work and try to de-stress. Unfortunately destiny had other plans, and KJ spent the whole day screaming with pain every time she tried to lie down, and generally acting extremely weird, so we had to take her to the emergency vet. We were worried it was something acute like another pancreatitis flare up (she didn't have any visible gastro symptoms but her tummy might have been sore), but it turned out to just be a really bad arthritis day :(
 

Anyway, the vet gave her an injection of 'the good drugs' (opioids) and she spent most of the rest of the next day lying in the wet grass staring into the middle distance, but obviously feeling much better. Seems like she's going to have to go onto longer term permanent pain relief/anti-inflammatories, sadly. 

Our outgoing cohort of students are rapidly approaching their final show, and as they're masters students I think it's especially important to give them some amount of agency over the show branding/show space etc. So I kind of said to them 'look, do what you want within reason'. Unfortunately our ideas of 'within reason' were quite different...

Are dogs allowed at uni?!?! idk but am not a grass

Took an afternoon out of the madness to go check out the small Vera Molnar show at the V&A with one of our cool alumni (it's only small but very very good for anyone with an interest in digital/algorithmic art, pen plotters). I really liked it!

My old friend and former housemate (way back in like, 2013/14ish?!) Rachel was in London so we went for drinks and eats! She is somehow one of my most enthusiastic readers of this blog, so HI Rachel, it was lovely to hang out, I'm sorry this drawing is not better, but also you're always telling me not to be so self deprecating about my drawings, haha

Weather got baaad (I miss long hot summer)

Because it's good to do things which are not work, I also went to see the Gabriel Orozco show at the White Cube, and REALLY liked it. Felt like a weirdly good compliment to the Vera Molnar stuff, despite them working in very different times/contexts. I recommend (both shows are free too!)

In other attempts at not working, trying to play my silly video games and enjoy my silly fandoms (is anyone else DEVASTATED by the news that Archive of Our Own is going to be down for like, 4 weeks?!?!)

I am trying to finish Yakuza Kiwami slowly over the next few weeks in readiness for hopefully diving deep into the new Zelda game at Christmas — like I cannot overstate how excited I am to simply lie on my sofa and do little else

Because right now MY BRAIN IS TOO FULL!!!

I teach on a particular unit which involves putting students into groups from a variety of different courses. In previous years the groups have been randomly pre-assigned to ensure course mix, but I've always felt this really takes away from the students' agency, and leads to a lot of difficulties and unhappiness, so I wanted to try and come up with a system for allowing them to select their own groups this year (while still ensuring course mix). In some ways it worked really well — typically, only around 10 – 20% of students are happy with their groups, and the rest are mildly to seriously dissatisfied. This year, I'd say like 80 – 90% were genuinely happy/excited by who they ended up with. But I had around 3 students who are like, actively angry/tearful with me for who they've ended up paired with, and I'M NOT SURE THIS IS BETTER. Might just make it easy on myself next year and they can all have a medicore experience again!! All the colleagues I've spoken to have been like 'eh, you can't make all the people happy all the time', but I simply cannot shake the feeling of overwhelming guilt.

I'm running another version of The Data Emporium this weekend at Games Transformed festival, which has been a source of a great deal of my stress, but also it's very exciting and a super cool opportunity I really didn't want to miss! Anyway, as a new part of this I am using a thermal printing camera, and it is very fun (if this technology had existed when I was a child I would have been absolutely obsessed)

Saw this railway worker with the longest litter picker I've ever seen for collecting items off the track, and it pleased me

There are two parallel stairwells in the tower block at LCC (in a way that is quite weird and I have never encountered in another building). On this day they both had a distinct olfactory vibe, and tbh neither was what I'd have *liked* but one was definitely better than the other.

Today was the first day of the Data Emporium at Games Transformed!! It went well! Trains suck this weekend which means getting anywhere central from my neighbourhood is a bit arduous and everything is more tiring than it needs to be, but I powered through with a ton of help from one of my amazing students Ana.

Ana is going to be running the whole thing singlehanded tomorrow, because I have to be somewhere else?! And I guess I'll tell you all about that next month?!

Happy halloween for those of you who celebrate — I for one will be going to bed early.

September 2026

I've been teaching now since 2022 — not that long in the grand scheme of things, but definitely long enough for me to be quite firmly back into the rhythm of the academic year (I guess I also spent most of the first 21 years of my life in the rhythm of the academic year too, so that's kind of the majority of my existence). The feeling of fading summer and looming dread... Except these days the looming dread is less of the 'don't wanna go to school' variety, and more of the 'things are about to get wildly busy after a restful summer' variety. University term doesn't typically start until towards the end of September, so usually I have a little bit more of this month to get into the motivated mindset, but this September specifically has been a bit nuts — in a fun way though.

Both me and my partner are busy busy busy, and the hoovering is a chore which often causes us to bicker (mostly because they kind of need it doing at least every other day to stay sane, whereas I am more of a 5 – 7 day frequency person). Anyway, to save our 'marriage', we invested in this large beetle (robot hoover). 

On the one hand, she has kind of revolutionised my life (I think I have manually hoovered once since we got her, rather than every 2 or 3 days). But also, she is far from perfect, and she did cost a lot of money. 

I'm sorry I have gendered the hoover she. I sort of wanted to differentiate her from my boy Henry (now languishing in the cupboard under the stairs), but now realise I have maybe fallen into problematic stereotypes about gendered labour. Oh well.

KJ initially hated her, but has since settled into a state of weary/wary acceptance, will dodge round her if they meet in the corridor rather than running away etc. KJ produces the hair, robot hoover sucks it up. The perfect friendship. (That costs us a huge amount of money on both parts, just for fun I guess)

So my friend V wrote a blog about why she has started using LLMs to code. I have been to 3 (?!?!) events/conferences this month about AI* — in academia, tech and beyond. I have been bothering old friend, esteemed colleague and critical AI-wrangler Dr. Wesley Goatley repeatedly and perhaps annoyingly for his thoughts on the matter. I have been lurking in the peripheral vision of the creator of shadowplay and pondering a lot about the potential of AI image generation to create not 'finished outcomes', but strange, exploratory provocations for human artists to build upon. I have been sob-laughing at the now almost ubiquitous AI fast food signage that proliferates across every high street in the UK. I have been grappling with how to support my students, both those who want to use AI, those who want to avoid it forever, and those who are still unsure what it means for them. I have been grappling with fairly marking AI generated works. I have been grappling with how I feel about all of it! 

But the fact is, these tools are not going away, and if I am going to continue to have a professional career in these sectors (design and education!), I can't just ignore it — I need to consider if, when, and how I might need or want to use it — ideally in as ethical and informed a way as possible. 

I am rarely one to take a hard yes/no stance on anything in life, and AI has been a particularly challengingly polarising issue for me, in that most people I know seem to have an opinion, and many of those are held very strongly! I continue to remain tentative, and have thus far not found many applications where I have much motivation to use it, but perhaps my most intriguing dabbling this month was how it finally unlocked my ability to code/build visual technologies (something which I have always wanted to do, always spent a lot of time with people who ARE doing, and suddenly potentially... can do myself?)

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I have so much other stuff going on in my life right now that my headspace to push this much further is basically zero, but deep down on the to-do list is figuring out whether I can run a local model, so that I can experiment with somewhat fewer ethical and environmental qualms.

(*Side note 'AI' is just a catch all term for a wide range of different technologies. Companies sometimes call AI things which are not, in fact, any kind of AI. What even is AI? As Wes has previously framed it, 'AI' is essentially a brand name. And we're bundling a lot of different tools, scenarios, ethical questions and ideas into one very big complicated bucket.) 

But you know, also, remember to go outside and touch grass (or, meet a fox late at night)

Or take a walk near your nearest body of water

 Or... go train spotting? Trains are nature, right

 And then... oh wait... I said I'd go to SCOTLAND tomorrow?! Damn...

 

I went on a Lumo train for the first time! Lumo is an interesting concept to me, in that — as I understand it — most TOCs in the UK are region specific and focus on providing thorough service coverage of a particular area. Of course there are overlaps between these regions (for e.g. Southern and Thameslink trains serve my current neighbourhood), but there are few (correct me if I'm wrong?!) TOCs that a) service such a limited number of routes as Lumo, b) totally overlap with another provider's services, and c) are actually meaningfully attempting to distinguish the service they provide in some way? 

With the return to nationalised rail (good!) it will be interesting to see whether more private providers emerge alongside this (or indeed, can emerge, given how densely scheduled our networks are) to attempt to provide alternatives. Lumo's whole deal is that they're aiming to provide more affordable services between London and Scotland — presumably by running a lower density service and ensuring all trains are at capacity, plus putting hard limits on luggage like an airline. These changes are mostly subtle and didn't especially affect the journey, though I do like knowing there's a possibility I might not have to sit in a full carriage, and with Lumo you're basically always going to be on a totally packed train (BUT crucially, if it all works as planned, not with anyone standing). 

Anyway, I stayed with lovely pal Jess in Edinburgh (and had a tasty pizza dinner with her) before heading up to St Andrews the next day, where I had (somehow?!) been invited to host a guest lecture with some Human Computer Interaction students and staff at the School of Computer Science. (Basically a bunch of cool people saw my installation at EMF over the summer, and some of them were kind enough to invite me to come and do neat stuff, including lovely Thomas here at St Andrews!)

I had a very lovely time visiting St Andrews, it was extremely nice (as always) to see the sea (and from a bit of the UK coast I'd never been to before!) and while I had a bit of imposter syndrome about speaking at such a prestigious university, everyone was extremely welcoming, my talk went well, and I made some other interesting connections there, so all in all a very rewarding trip. (Also I saw a cute birds nest in a public toilet by the sea, bonus)

And then straight back down the country again (reading my poncy academic book about feminism and pedagogy while listening to rowdy dance music all the way)

 

Hey, did I mention: she's a good girl?

A lot of you ask me about KJ when I see you in person, and this is probably because I have previously bitched so much about what an asshole she is. And you know what, she still is an asshole! She still likes to snarl and lunge at other dogs every day! She still wants to fight every single motorbike! She still occasionally gets confused and barks at an old lady pushing a pram! She still shouts every time our neighbours leave the house! BUT, she's also on the good drugs which chill her out a bit, has absolutely zero separation anxiety, sleeps most of the day, is rapidly aging out of needing longer walks anyway, and lives 2 be cuddled by her trusted friends. She's doing her best and I'm glad she's around.

It was open house festival earlier this month and I had a nice day sitting in my Quaker Meeting House saying hi to visitors.

And then it really was time for those back 2 school feels

Feelings which were hilariously misplaced when, due to a slight miscommunication, basically none of our new students showed up for welcome week, and I needn't have done all that prep for them, sigh

So instead of my planned welcome week activities, I got an unexpected day off in which I hacked back brambles and went to a design festival event about train station way-finding signage (very on-brand)

 Lot of these guys around just now

 

Spent the day at one of the aforementioned AI conferences (AI, Communities and Co-ops — the Co-tech autumn gathering, which I attend as part of Cookiewolf). There was one really useful panel in which I scribbled down loads of words and phrases I needed to google later. Then I went to Vs and we played 'A Fake Artist in New York!) (This illustration was our collective rendition of 'bird')

The next night, me and my partner went down to Brighton for their friend Cecil Fenn's book launch, 'The Restorative Artist', at the very beautiful and suitably gothic St Mary's Church. (Cecil is great, and I absolutely wolfed down this book over the following few days, hard hard recommend, and not just because Cecil's our friend!)

Okay the more of these I post the more I am realizing I really did do a lot this month, maybe it's no wonder I feel slightly brain fried. I went to the Digital Design Weekend at the V&A! Feels like kinda an obligatory thing to check out, as I always see cool stuff I later go on to reference to my students, and it helps keep me abreast of cool stuff going on it creative tech circles. As always, lots of fun projects and interesting people! And I bumped into three different lovely colleagues making their way around.

Trouble is, when you do lots of cool stuff, you've then gotta catch up on TASKS (it's okay, I like task day)

After the previous week's false start, it was finally time for NEW STUDENTS!! And yes, they actually showed up this time. We have 25 this year (we only had 15 last year which was Not Good), so this is excellent news, though also many more names for me to have to try and remember. (As of Oct 1st writing this, I THINK I've got 8/25 down, which is not bad)

I hate horror movies! BUT — I loved the Backrooms. I spent my childhood drawing infinite imaginary floorplans, spent my teens photographing creepy abandoned buildings, and have always been fascinated by weird, liminal spaces. It was just the right level of scary for me, too. Very fun, very good. 

Hilariously, the next day I ended up roaming through some IRL backrooms — I signed an NDA so I cannot tell you why!! But it was extremely fun and weird and I will be able to tell you in like a month or two. Thanks as always to V for bringing me along for a weird ride.

You know what happens EVERY DAMN YEAR in September when Emma has too much fun? Throat gives out. I'm not actually sick (have so far managed to avoid the dreaded freshers flu this year), I just have this bad throat situation which has been going on since 2021-ish, and which I have been cycling through various different NHS waiting lists for since like 2022. I am finally with the ENT team but now waiting for more support. In the meantime, steam inhaler?! It's gooooood

(The diagnosis might be 'Emma talks too much' but I will never shut up. Sorry bod.) 

Had a weirdly intense moment where I stepped off the train on my way home from work (after a very nice first actual taught session with the new students) and the air just smelled SO GOOD but in a kind of inexplicable way. Just like... 'the nicest day'. Felt overcome with the joy of being alive! 

Then I got on another cross-country train to York, to see lovely Dav! (Lovely Justin was elsewhere, rude tbh)

Thus commenced my slightly mad tour of the north. Up to York to stay over at D+J's place Friday, then on Saturday into Leeds to table at Leeds Zine Fair! It was an extremely good time, loads of great buys and trades, obviously made a massive loss because that's how zines work :) (I did sell plenty!! I just bought more!!)

Then on Sunday some quality York time with my favs. Dav took me to the beautiful park where he works as a gardener, I saw some cool weird kinda-cucumbers and autumn leaves. And then we had great momos for lunch (Justin also got back from where he had been, which was lovely, but he doesn't get a mention here because Dav did all the hard hosting work like cooking me dinner and taking me out outings ;)

And then the next day I travelled on a ridiculously early train all the way over to Lancaster (annoyingly getting from York to Lancaster takes longer than getting from London to York despite it being like half the distance). 

I feel like these visual diaries maybe seem to present this like, high-energy vision of me just DOING ALL THE THINGS, so I feel like it's also worth noting: My IBS is worse than it has ever been, my bladder continues to be tiny, hopeless and annoying, and since coming off the pill, my periods are now long and painful once again. I suffer a great deal! I have to make meticulous plans to ensure I am comfortable! I do not draw about this very often, but it is often a challenge, and a great part of why I like, mostly, to travel alone. 

Anyway, with perfect timing, those three factors came together on this day to throw me into a whole world of misery. That, paired with the 5am start meant that I was at far below my best for my appearance at this conference.

I was invited to speak at this event by Joe, another person I met at EMF. They were running the aforementioned Shadowplay installation, which I thought was super cool, and they seemed to like my weird thing as well. They're a design researcher at Lancaster Uni, and are doing a lot of work with AI (and otherwise). This was another big case of imposter syndrome for me, because what would *I* have to say at a conference about AI?! But I was excited to attend anyway, because a) I like a trip (especially one that someone else is paying for, b) I like Joe, and c) I am, as mentioned, trying to learn more about AI, and the ways that people at other universities are talking and thinking about it.

I'd only ever been to Lancaster once before, many years ago with my ex, Ava. We stayed with a friend of Ava's, Naomi, who I really liked back then, but we sort of fell out of touch after me and Ava split up and Twitter died a death (which was the main way we saw each other's lives). Anyway, enough time had passed that — while I had thought about reaching out to her — I figured she might not even remember who I was. But the universe has other plans, and I almost laughed out loud when — after taking my seat — I looked across the conference room to see she was also present.

During speed-networking, I sidled over and we laughed at the weird small world coincidence — and even more so when it turned out she's like, Joe-who-invited-me's closest colleague. Wild. 

Anyway, this was nice, because I'm always a bit worried at these events that I'm gonna be a weirdo on my own OR an annoying shadow of whoever the cool person who invited me is, but in this case I got to hang out with Naomi and Joe, and feel nicely social rather than like an awkward outsider.

Because of aforementioned body woe and exhaustion, the little mini-workshop I was running went, I think, just fine (my brain was not firing enough on all cylinders to be actively impressive) — but Joe seemed to like it well enough (which is what matters, given they invited me). I really enjoyed everyone else's contributions, and ended up meeting a few other interesting people as well, so all-in-all, a very worthwhile trip.

(The background of this one is naff conference centre carpet, which I love) 

 

The next day it was time to go home, but not without first going via Manchester — because my friends Kim and Sylvia were getting civil-partnershipped!! (I mean, could they have timed it any more conveniently?!)

I also got to meet some people IRL that I had only ever met online before, which was extremely cute. However, I was also feeling sufficiently bloated and miserable that I could not face after-party food and mingles, so I (probably somewhat abruptly, soz) excused myself for train back down to the warm and safe embrace of London, and my own bed and toilet once again. I enjoyed doing this drawing on the train back though, extremely strong wedding looks.

When I was in Lancaster, Joe mentioned that they were coming straight down for an event at the Barbican Conservatory, where they'd been asked to run their Shadowplay installation. Because I am just that kind of person, I was like 'ooh can I come?!' (I love any excuse to go to the Barbican)... They were like 'well it's kind of an invite only thing' and I immediately felt embarrassed for even asking. But then they were like 'I'll see if I can get you on the guestlist...'

It turned out that said event was being hosted by the Sustainable Fashion MA at the London College of Fashion (i.e. technically colleagues of mine, as the LCF is part of UAL), which I think helped with succesfully getting my name on the guestlist.

I freaked out a bit when I realised it was a fashion event, but hopefully managed to pull together enough of a 'look' to slide undetected between all the legitimate attendees. 

It was an utterly bizarre but also kind of wonderful night — hosted in the Barbican conservatory (one of the last events in there before they close to renovate for a few years), which is just the most beautiful space, and I'd never been there at night before, which was somehow even better. The whole thing had presumably been funded by some rich fashion company, so there were very fancy canapes and very nicely printed handouts. There were all sorts of interesting installations, projected films, activities and workshops hidden in amongst the tropical planting, while everyone mingled with their wine — all supposed to provoke reflection on sustainable futures for the fashion industries. 

I'd expected to just like, drop in, say hi, then drop right out again, but something about being in that stunning conservatory at night with all these artsy people, it was just kind of intoxicating and gorgeous and weird. Neither me nor Joe (nor his lovely creative technologist friend Chris, who was helping run their installation) had really known what the whole deal was going to be ahead of time, and I enjoyed sort of, sitting on the sidelines with them, watching it all unfold. Very fun, weird night. I should gatecrash fancy parties more often. 

But maybe not in October. Maybe in October I should like, lie down, or something?