2017 in Review

2017 was not my best year. I would go so far as to say that it was one of the worst years I've ever actually had. It took a turn for the better towards the end, but I was still very glad to see the back of it.

January - Sadly, on January 3rd, my dog passed away. He was 6 years old and had had respiratory issues for a while that he was on daily medication for. He went peacefully in his sleep, with his best friend, our other dog, at his side. This did not dull the grief, but now I am grateful that his death was peaceful and he was in his home. Also in January I lost the job I had worked at for two seasons, and was unemployed for unforeseeable future for the first time in two years.

February - February 11th marked the 10 year anniversary of my Grandad's death. This was a hard day, as it always is, but in 2017 I decided that it was okay to allow myself this one day a year to grief, and allow myself to feel sad. This is one of the biggest acts of self care I have ever done. February 25th was the first time I have ever felt immense pride for a partner. I watched my ex boyfriend and his band perform at a small festival, and for the first time was able to see how incredibly talented he is. The feeling of watching strangers compliment his achievements still warms my soul.

March - Throughout March I helped organise, and took part in, my graduate conference. This was a pretty stressful task, between creating my own presentation and speech, and helping organise and set up the conference, I barely found time to breathe. On the day, I had to navigate a barely familiar town, and then present my dissertation research for the rest of my course mates. This day was one of the worst for me, but reflecting on the train home I felt like I'd accomplished something huge. Sadly I failed the conference module of my degree (*facepalm*) but in hindsight I am still proud of myself.

April - On April 6th my relationship ended. It was sudden, and though the relationship was short, it threw me. Today me and my ex are best friends, and we talk every day. This is the first time I realised, and accepted, that sometimes people are better just as friends.

May - I got a new puppy! His name is Kane, and he is a giant boy. At the date of writing this I think he is 10 months old, and already he swamps our older dog. He has so much energy, which isn't always a good thing, but he also has so much (sometimes too much) love.

June/July - These months were quiet, for the most part. For the first time in my life I remained single for more than a few weeks, and focused on things other than a relationship. This is when the largest amount of research was done for my dissertation, so I spent most days in the library surrounds by articles and books, but still desperately searching for more. Around this time, a terrible thing happened, that while I'm not ready to speak about it I'm finally moving on from.

August - I met my new partner. We walked his dog and I appreciated the beauty of taking things slow for once.

September - I handed in my dissertation in September, and for the first time in my academic life the end was in sight. I was utterly terrified, like beyond belief. But my hand in day was one of the best I've ever had, for the first time in my life I felt like I had accomplished something big, and holding my finished dissertation was a little bit emotional, if I'm being honest.

October - Unbeknown to me on October 31st the ever ominous Board decided that I was indeed, a Master of the Arts. I have no idea who is on this board, but I imagine them all as being some kind of omniscient and benevolent beings who decide who is and isn't worthy of their degree. Luckily, they deemed me worthy.

November/December - Apart from the obvious festivities these months were also quiet. New Years Eve became a turning point for me, the first in years that I hadn't spent upset, and it's filled me with optimism. My partner and I made a lot of plans for the new year, and we're both excited about carrying them out and having lots of adventures.

I am happy.

2017 - An Open Letter.

I can't wait to see the back of you. Not because I hated you, or because you treat me badly, but because I'm just so ready to start something new. It's not you, it's me, I'm just hoping for something better next time, y'know? Something a little more exciting.

That said, isn't it always hard to say goodbye? I will miss you, truly I will, but I am so ready to move on.

When Life Doesn't Go To Plan

So as my last post made clear, I'm out of education now and planning for my future. That post was full of excitement, and I am excited still, it also failed to show the reality of where I'm at right now.

For the first time in 20 years I am out of education and it is terrifying. I know exactly what I want from life, I have a 10 year plan and everything. But I only know how to get there in theory not in practice. And, hand on heart, not being certain and secure in my certainty is a terrifying prospect.

I'm sure that everyone has these expectations about how their life is going to go. I know I did. And I'm not disenchanted or anything, but the reality does not live up to the expectations at all.

Expectation: Finish my BA, get a part time internship or job with a small publishing firm, and get my MA on top of that.
Reality: Finish my BA, lose the part time retail job I had, finish my MA, start a new part time retail job - Zero publishing experience.

In hindsight, I was definitely very naive about how easy everything would be, and that's made it a bit harder for me to handle my situation as it is now.

So, I'm taking off the rose tinted glasses and looking at things realistically. Yes, some parts of my 10 year plan have been pushed back a few years, and I do feel a little bit like I'm wasting my education. But , this negativity is acting as a little shove in the right direction, and hopefully it'll all come right in the end.

Why Do I Read?

On the first day of my undergraduate degree I was sitting in a room full of nervous freshers when the lecturer asked us all "so, what makes you read?" and I swear, you could hear a pin drop. How had we made it that far and never been asked that? Why did we read? Because we like it? So many questions. 

It's been four years since then, I finished my undergraduate, I've finished my masters, and I still don't have one definitive answer. There are lots of reasons, there are lots of reasons for other people that don't even apply to me.

I read for entertainment. There's something different about reading that you don't get from TV or games (though the 'are games literature?' debate fascinates me), it's both relaxing and stimulating at the same time. Somehow, even when I'm lounging around, when I've read that day I feel like I've achieved something.

I read to escape. Growing up there weren't a lot of other children who lived nearby, so I didn't get to play out very much. Reading became a way for me to replace that. Admittedly, I did take this a bit far and replaced all my real friends with fictional ones, but I ask you, who wouldn't want that?

I read to learn. This doesn't apply to my degree funnily enough. I'm very partial to a non-fiction book in my spare time (currently I'm on The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore), and while they can be a slog, I find them so much more rewarding than novels.

I read for nostalgia. I love to reread books from my childhood. I'm in the middle of my annual Harry Potter reread right now. There's something very comforting about rereading well-loved books that have so many memories attached to them.

There are also more practical reasons for me to read, for example, this blog. If I didn't love to read I'd have nothing to review. This blog most likely would not exist because I wouldn't have even started it. That's the one thing that I'm sure every single book blogger has in common.

YA Issues: Girls.

As promised, I am rewriting an old post that I removed. Last year (or the year before?) I wrote a post about girl hate in YA, and my thoughts on it. I reread that post the other day day and found it so lacking. It was clear that I was trying to write something serious but I missed the mark.

The way girls are represented in YA is something that interests me so much. So much so that I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on it. 

A lot of writers are doing girls a disservice with the way they present their characters. Girls are written as one dimensional stereotypes, none of which are very flattering. It seems that in the wonderful world of YA, girls only get two choices of the type of girl they want to be. They can be the tomboy (or the hero, depending on which subgenre the book is) and spurn many aspects of femininity so that they're proclaimed "not like other girls." Or they can be the standard ditsy girly-girl, who often in YA is seen as some sort of antagonist, usually a bully or the "other woman" - the only thing standing in the way of the protagonist and their love interest.

Now, I'm in no way saying that these girls don't exist in the real world, they do. But they also have more to them than this, they can even be both of these things, and this is rarely if ever shown in YA. Usually writers will choose the tomboy to be their protagonist, which results in other girls being 'Othered'. Othering is a way that writers to show which groups of people better than others. It creates a divide based on simple traits. In this case, writers often promote the idea that girls who deny traditional gender roles are superior to girls who adhere to them. 

While they do this to encourage girls that it's okay to not be feminine (which is absolutely true, traditional femininity is not a requirement for being a girl) they reinforce the idea that femininity is weak and something to be ashamed of, which isn't true. Girls can be whoever they want, be they embracing gender roles, rejecting them, or a combination of both. All are worthy of respect, and all are worthy of being protagonists. A lesson many YA writers need to learn.

Of course not all writers are guilty of this, some even go against the grain and purposefully write realistic, well rounded female characters, even having them as the leads in their books. Some of my recommendations of writers to check out are:
Holly Bourne - Holly writes amazing, feminism centred stories that include a wide range of girls who are all different and realistic.
Cathy Cassidy - Cathy was a favourite of mine as a teenager, her characters are all quite flawed, but their character development is always positive.
Jacqueline Wilson - The classic. Jacqueline has been in the game for a long time, and she has always provided girls with realistic characters who aren't always perfect, but who always come out right in the end. 

To read more about this, check out these articles:
"In Defense of Other Girls in YA" by Sharanya Sharma.
"Teen Talk: It's Okay to be a Girly Girl" by Tasman Kekai
"Are Girls Free to be Girly in YA? Short Answer: Yes" by Gwen Katz