What happened? Well, university happened. It turns out when you slightly maybe procrastinate your dissertation research and it gets to August you panic and spend most of the time you’re awake thinking about it, or feeling guilty for not doing more on it. But now, as of yesterday’s hand-in, I am done. Officially done. I no longer need to think about it. In fact, it would be great if my brain would get this memo and stop thinking about all the stuff I didn’t have time/free words to put into it.
But… what now? Well, your guess is as good as mine. I made a concious decision to avoid thinking about anything past the dissertation until I had completed it. Maybe that’s narrow-minded but I probably needed it. But this month sees me take a couple of holidays to Menorca and Edinburgh with my parents and my friends respectively and I am looking forward to these so unbelievably much. But after that? Well, I suppose I’ll be frantically trying to persuade someone anyone that they should hire me. If they happen to have some vague connection to the arts or publishing sectors, or the job involves Content Writing, all the better. If not… well, at least I’ll be earning money so that I can try to be able to afford to do unpaid internships – if I even manage to con any publishing companies into letting me do work experience. There’s a vague plan there but convincing my parents that this plan is thought out and researched is actually providing difficult. I don’t know what else they expected of someone doing an English Literature Masters who has a distinct distaste for “grad schemes” in most forms. I understand that they think that doing an extra year at university and (hopefully) graduating with an MA should open doors but, from what I can see, you have to push those doors open yourself because having a BA is definitely not a huge advantage over competition any more – in fact, it’s the base-line. Is an MA any different? Well, we’ll find out in the months to come I’m sure!
Aside from this I’ll primarily be working on keeping up with blogging – I find I do enjoy writing on here and it might be self-indulgent at times (like this post) but it actually really helps to clarify thinking. On this vein I’ve also taken up journalling, nothing fancy or complicated, it’s mostly pen-on-paper stuff, but Whitney over at WhittyNovels’ video made me see the benefits. But, back to this blog, I have a stack of books just waiting to be read now that I’m done with university, so I anticipate a lot more reading in my future and, hopefully, me improving my written reviews. I really want to be better at that and with engaging with the book blogging community and I think I’ll have more time to do that now without feeling guilty about all the university reading I’m neglecting!
Right now I’m reading Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater, the third book in the Raven Quartet (Cycle?) and I thoroughly enjoy this series, I can’t begin to explain just how much but here’s my reviews for book one and book two. They’re such… peculiar books, but that’s their brilliance. Because if I said it included a magical forest in West Virginia, the ancient Welsh king Owain Glyndŵr, ley lines, a house of psychic women, an orange Camaro, and a fancy boy’s school called Aglionby, it’d sound like an odd mix of elements. It is, but it’s so engaging. I’d highly recommend the series. Someone made this book trailer which is stunning and completely captures the tone of the series so if you like it, you’ll definitely like the books. Also the audiobook of the first book, The Raven Boys, may or may not have been uploaded to YouTube, I’m just saying.
So, to sum up, I finished university (and I could say more on that but I worry I’ll become ridiculously emotional about leaving academia if I do), hopefully my dissertation will pass (fingers crossed everyone), I’m looking for a job (any job), holidays to look forward to, I’ll be making more regular posts here, I want to read all the books, you should go read The Raven Boys… I think that’s just about everything covered.
Anything else? Well, I feel out of the loop – talk to me, tell me what you’ve been doing this summer, what you’re looking forward to for the rest of the year, what you’re currently reading, anything!
The Terror of Knowing 