Alec
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alecjira.bsky.social
Alec
@alecjira.bsky.social
70 followers 88 following 120 posts
I'm an MA Literary Studies student and amateur guitarist :)

Love transnational fiction, board games, and a good mug of tea
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alecjira.bsky.social
Security camera looking at sunrise, 2025, colourised
A security camera looking contemplatively off into the sunrise in the distance
October 29, 2025 at 4:55 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
I went to the District Six Museum yesterday, and what scares me is that white governments forcibly removing people of colour isn't anything new
Two apartheid-era signs indicating which areas were reserved for which races An exhibit of suitcases Poster about forced removals in District Six Map of Cape Town showing which areas where designated for whites only and which year those restrictions came to be enforced
October 17, 2025 at 11:27 AM
alecjira.bsky.social
These old Russian authors really pull no punches, huh
October 2, 2025 at 2:52 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
Pics from this evening's run
A well-trodden meadow with a mountain and a partly cloudy sky in the background A cat! Sitting on a fence, with some trees and a roof in the background A sunset A sunset, pt. 2
September 12, 2025 at 5:03 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
A door, with a sign saying "This door is alarmed!! No entry" on it Surprised pikachu
August 25, 2025 at 7:08 AM
alecjira.bsky.social
I painted a ceramic Hadestown triceratops yesterday :)
August 24, 2025 at 7:38 AM
alecjira.bsky.social
It's the four exclamation marks for me
A glass door seen from inside, with "Pull" on it inverted (for people entering) and "PUSH!!! PUSH", handwritten above it (for people exiting)
August 8, 2025 at 3:44 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
Slightly darker moon pic
August 6, 2025 at 6:28 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
Nyeeeoowww
The evening sky with leafless trees, and the full moon small and bright in the centre A photo of Table Mountain and Devil's Peak from the south with a vineyard in the foreground, and a selfie in the corner A screenshot from strava saying that I just set my personal record in the 5K :)
August 6, 2025 at 6:13 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
My local secondhand bookstore just sommer had a signed copy of Oryx and Crake.

Needless to say, I bought it immediately
The title page of a signed copy of Oryx and Crake, with full bookshelves and stacks of books in the background
August 2, 2025 at 6:24 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
Pics from today's evening run :)
A meadow with some trees silhouetted in the background, and the evening sky showing the faint orange of a sunset A selfie :) A beach trail with the night sky in the background A beach with the slope of a mountain to the right the sunset a stark red hugging the horizon. Very faintly, there's a crescent moon visible as a speck of light.
July 27, 2025 at 5:10 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
I've had this journal article draft about decolonial Fantasy in the back of my mind for so long. Actually getting thoughts down feels great after spending ages reading about Tolkien to support a paragraph revision.
A photo I took while seated at a café. On the table there's a book and a cuppacino. The book is my copy of J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom Shippey.
July 27, 2025 at 3:19 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
Wrote a short poem today :)
Of wandering eyes and smiling teeth, Other's ease of which has bothered me. For it's hard to know that this means that, When it's not said outright. My canoe has got a leak from which I bail rapids that tumble, scrape The hull and snap the oar While they glide on, up ahead. I jostle for control this way and That which they see amidst the clouds, I Must jigsaw from the river's bend, The current's foam and murk. I could lament my winglessness, The unreachable peaks and canopies, But the water's warm and welcoming, And the riversong beckons beyond
July 24, 2025 at 3:38 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
Charlie Puth: you've been running round, running round, running round throwing that turtle on my name

The turtle:
Surprised Pikachu meme
July 10, 2025 at 11:28 AM
alecjira.bsky.social
Alastair Reynolds' Redemption Ark.

Borrowed it from a friend. Hopefully I'll finish it and give it back to him before the week is out
The cover of Alastair Reynolds' 2002 sci-fi novel, Redemption Ark. The cover is black and dark blue, with a small spaceship in the foreground, and a planet in the background.
June 29, 2025 at 6:53 AM
alecjira.bsky.social
Aw Frankie looks a bit like my cat Artemis!
Pic shows a cat lounging on a countertop. He's sitting a bit like the Sphynx, and is grey and white. It almost looks like he has a milk moustache, the way his fur is patterned.
June 26, 2025 at 6:24 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
Don't forget to rinse your water, guys
Screenshot of an Internet article with a subheading: "Cooking Rice on the Stove". "1 3/4 cups of water, rinsed if desired" is one of the ingredients.
June 25, 2025 at 6:40 AM
alecjira.bsky.social
Having to become familiar with waiting sucks, and I'm sorry you two have to do that.

This reminds me of Emily Dickinson's "If you were coming in the fall"
If you were coming in the fall, I'd brush the summer by With half a smile and half a spurn, As housewives do a fly. If I could see you in a year, I'd wind the months in balls, And out them each in separate drawers, Until their time befalls. If only centuries delayed, I'd count them on my hand, Subtracting till my fingers dropped Into Van Dieman's Land. If certain, when this life was out, That yours and mine should be, I'd toss it yonder like a rind, And taste eternity. But now all ignorant of the length Of time's uncertain wing, It goads me, like the goblin bee, That will not state its sting.
June 24, 2025 at 5:41 AM
alecjira.bsky.social
I have not moved in over an hour.

Pls help. Am being held hostage
A selfie I took where I'm currently a bed for my cat Arty. Arty is grey with a white stomach and a milk moustache.
June 23, 2025 at 7:50 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
No thanks, I'm good
I'm making a warding-off-gesture at a door labelled "DEDICATED REFUSE AREA"
June 23, 2025 at 1:55 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
Taking a physical journal out of the library for the first time is such a surreal experience
Photo of me holding two books: "Modes of the Fantastic" and a literary journal (Forum for Modern Language Studies vol.44)
June 9, 2025 at 1:45 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
"You're fucking stupid", written in cursive.
April 24, 2025 at 7:09 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
Have you read Babel? If not, I'd highly recommend it
The cover of Babel by R.F. Kuang. Monochrome, with the title and author's name in gold. An ornate tower dominates the landscape with birds flocking around it.
February 6, 2025 at 7:36 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
Nature continues
To be beauty incarnate
In spite of it all
The sun shining through the canopy of snow-covered pine trees
February 4, 2025 at 1:02 PM
alecjira.bsky.social
My favourite Emily Dickinson poem:
A poem by Emily Dickinson: Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard ; And sore must be the storm That could awash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea ; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.
January 20, 2025 at 8:04 AM