Other grasses

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Well, I didn’t really see this coming. You see, following a recent jaunt to the south west, I’ll be moving there. I’ll be upping sticks and moving from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire to an as yet unidentified part of Bristol in just over a month. Having lived in Yorkshire since 2001, when I moved to sunny Sheffield to study English, geographically (as much as anything else) this is quite a change for me.

My tenure of Sheffield’s pastures, of which I dwelled yonder Sharrow, Banner Cross, Crookes and more in between, ended for similar reasons as I realised I needed to get a job that wasn’t in retail. This eventually led to a move over the county border line in 2008, to Leeds for a full-time post in an academic library. After a few years, there was then another move from the urbane life of Sheepscar to the plains of Greenhead Park in Huddersfield for a different position in yet another institution.

So, all of this meandering through Yorkshire has, broadly speaking, largely occurred to facilitate work. “Work” dominates much of life in contemporary society in an incredibly multifaceted and subtle manner. We don’t seem to be able to tacitly identify what is and isn’t part of our labour as the intra-subjective dependencies cross lines and blur, but the technologies of self and their relationships with organisations are not something I want to raise at this point; I’m trying to keep it light. However, working within academic libraries as both an assistant and as a librarian, which is something that I have done for a while now, has given me some incredible experiences and insights into institutional and organisational structures, their purposes and efficacies.

The multiple and contradictory subjectivities that these dynamics have presented have caused a range of of tensions from my perspective, and ultimately, they have contributed to my seeking to a full-time position to do more of the sorts of things that I am ‘qualified’ to do and to be more actively involved with more projects (like the recent Radical Library Camp!)

And so it occurred. An interesting opportunity arose at the University of Bath, I applied, I was interviewed and was fortunate enough to be offered the post. With no hesitation, I accepted it, and now I’ll be moving to the south west in a few weeks. Exciting times indeed, although there are of course plenty of things that I will miss: Excellent colleagues at my current employer to whom I am eternally grateful for their inspiration, knowledge and support (and all the beers!), the broad range of weirdo yocal waifs-n-strays that I’ve met, watched, played with and annoyed with half-cut realisations of drones and zoundz, Radio Free Midwich, the cats of Yorkshire, the pals, the neighbours that have dealt with me, the beards of fine men, the bus trips to ikea, rhubarb, Henderson’s Relish, the social centres, TPE, the beers and an awful lot more.

Once the stresses of moving have been endured, hXe will continue as normal, but with a new home. A home where cider is the default beverage of choice and where I can’t navigate home an autopilot from wherever I happen to be. This is going to be troublesome, I expect.

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