A Beginning, A Confession.

In July this year, I graduated. My life (as I knew it), had come to an end. It was tragic. Now, I had to think about important things, such as, “What job am I going to have?”, “Will I even be able to get a job?” and “How will I pay the rent??” And so, with a sigh, I did what a lot of people in my predicament have done, and moved back in with my parents.

As many people who have been to university may know, after three years, you do accumulate enough stuff to fill not one, but two rooms, so this is the first molehill (cum mountain) that you encounter when faced with the prospect of returning home. My friend came to hang out one of the first days I was back, and ended up being conscripted into helping me sort, chuck and tidy through the piles of things that had been abandoned when I’d originally left home three years earlier. “Oh my god, you’re a hoarder!” she said with a cry of horror, sifting through a box of TY’s I didn’t even remember possessing. “Don’t you ever chuck anything out?” 

When we came to the (many) boxes of books that I had collected over the years of studying English Literature, I single-mindedly, perhaps stubbornly declared that we must find room for them on my shelves. Again my friend accused me of hoarding, to which I pointed out that my collection would one day be my personal library and I was not prepared to part with any of it. This leads me on to the reason why I have decided to write this blog. I love literature. Not just the classics, but pretty much anything decently written! I loved my degree just as much as I loved university life, and now that it has finished I am downright petrified that I will get rusty and have brain cells dribbling out of my ears due to lack of exercise. Do a crossword you say, go to a museum? Now that is just fine and dandy, but it’s not quite the brain-jogging I want (and although I love museums and galleries, who has the time to go to them on a regular basis, especially when you live in the vast depths of the countryside?) And so, I have decided that I would attempt a challenge. That for every single book I read, “post-graduation” and therefore, for pleasure, I would write a mini-essay / review of it and put it online. I know that hardly anyone is going to be interested in this, and that it is a heady form of narcissism that makes me want to have an audience, but I do feel that I will be more encouraged to keep this up if it is public. And who knows, if I do manage to sustain it, I might let some of my friends know, and then maybe, eventually, finally, somebody will read my ramblings.

Some things to share:

•            I sometimes don’t pluck my eyebrows for weeks. I just let them get messy. Dangerous!
•           I'm a hypocrite. I will say one thing, vehemently, and with passion, and then contradict myself the next time I open my mouth. I like to think this is more to do with being able to see both sides of a story, but...
•           At the age of 21, I am already out of the loop when it comes to slang. I was happy to learn that “PENG” is not in fact short for penguin.
•          I like watching cartoons and animated films. This does not decrease my love of books, or interest in cultural *cough* things. I feel that it is in no way out of the ordinary to watch an episode of The Simpsons, and immediately follow it with a documentary about Twentieth Century British Art.
•           I think I'm funny. In fact, I think I’m hilarious. I laugh at my own jokes... someone has to!