Hello!

Where have I been? You may be wondering.

Probably not actually. Rather than indulge myself with thoughts of teary-eyed readers weeping at my lack of online presence, the happenings of my shall hereby be recorded in this post for cathartic purposes only.

Things what I did after I had to read a lot of books.

OR: Life after finishing my English Lit degree.

Pleat front trousers and polyester shirts. Practically incapable of doing nothing for long periods of time, and with the attention span of a goldfish, I came home from university, or rather washed up on the doorstep of my family home, penniless but content, and immediately found myself a full-time job at a department store in the school uniform section. Random, I know; nobody was more surprised than me. But life at untitled department store has been surprisingly fulfilling. Apart from the dreaded 9-5 hours and a lot of running up and down the stairs to the stock room, I have enjoyed my job so far and I have earned enough money thus far to afford important things, such as food and water. A triumph for all involved.

Graduation: that happened. And with the swish of some oversized robes and a clammy handshake I found myself officially departed from my university and ready to start learning at the University of Life, capital U, capital L. It was fun, there was free cake, my dad was the only dad not in a suit, what more is there to say?

Woops, I need to relearn German in three weeks. As you may or may not know, I will be travelling to Dresden in September to au pair for a family for six months. It is something I am obviously very excited about, but with little free time and the time I do have dedicated to important activities like watching Scandal and Resting, with a capital R, my grasp on the German language is slipping rapidly from fingers. Which is fine, you say. You’ll pick it up, they all say. Except my family kind of think I’m already fluent and my German language skills, whilst not categorically terrible, most certainly need to improve themselves miraculously within the next month to be able to survive for any prolonged length of time with a German family. That’s going to be fun.

And finally, the question on everybody’s lips: is Beth still reading, or has the sufferings of a strenuous English Lit degree destroyed her soul and scarred her literary heart forever? The answer, you’ll be glad to hear, is that I am reading, but slowly. Perhaps in hindsight picking up Hemingway’s heavy For Whom the Bell Tolls wasn’t the best idea for some light summer reading, but I’ve slowly been enjoying it and it’s definitely been in an interesting read for someone who usually stay clears of war literature of any kind. I’ve also started Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries which is really very good, but also quite a slow and heavy read.

Anyway, that’s more than enough for now. I feel somehow purged for writing this. My blog perhaps isn’t home to the most eloquent of ideas or intelligent of discussions but it’s a little piece of myself and that makes it very important to me. Stay tuned for more book reviews, snippets of my future life in Germany, and naturally some more witty comments from my world.

Guten Nacht.