I’m alive! This may come as a shock to many of you. Especially to Brian, who awoke me from my blogging slumber this week with a comment that landed in my inbox with a giant thud, as if to say, “Wake up!” Despite my assurances that I would write more regularly when my dissertation was finally bound and submitted, I have been hopelessly lacklustre.

What has happened since I last graced this page with my presence? Well, Lori went back to Mississippi, and I moved out of my apartment in Exeter and back in with my parents in Hampshire. Gulp. It’s never a very promising step, moving-back-in-with-parents. I have wonderful parents, but one’s life never seems to be moving in a forward and promising direction as you arrange your three bookcases-worth of books on the one old Ikea bookshelf that is filled with Winnie-the-Pooh and Narnia books you remember from childhood. (Not, of course, that there is anything wrong with Winnie-the-Pooh or The Chronicles of Narnia. I stand firmly by their brilliance.) I even found The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and when I opened its tiny scuffed cover a piece of paper fell out. Written in almost illegible script were the dates of my DTP and Measles shots almost 20 years ago. I suppose it seemed a natural place to keep important records. I slotted then back inside, somewhere near the part where the hungry caterpillar starts to feel a little too full.

So my life fit snugly inside a white Mercedes van, and then again in the cleared-out garage beside Dad’s 1961 Mini Cooper (and assorted boxes full of mini parts gleaned from ebay, awaiting the grand refurbishment). I gave my old room a huge cleanout, filling five black trash bags with garbage and three white trash bags with miscellaneous items destined for Oxfam or the British Heart Foundation.

I was brutal, throwing away school books and notes, working my way down to just one box full of special things I couldn’t bear to part with. There were times I had to ground myself in a reality that was far removed from sentimentality. I had to question myself again and again: Am I ever really going to need the folder that got me through my Science GSCEs? Or the psychology notes I memorized while pacing the back garden, regurgitating in a hot exam hall for an A-Level? All but three boxes of books are double-stacked on my one shelf, and I have a pile of videos and DVDs that reach almost to the doorframe stacked on the floor beside my wardrobe. The wardrobe was, of course, the most drastic clean-out job. As attached as I may have been to the black sweater I got for my fifteenth birthday, the huge hole under the arm never was going to get fixed; even if it had, I wouldn’t have worn it. I was brutal. And I still can’t fit everything in my room.

My project upon returning home was Destination Elsewhere. I needed a project. Leaving Exeter was heart-wrenching, especially with the giant void produced by not knowing what happens next. So Lori and I set ourselves a task, and I was determined to complete it before I submitted my application for an internship with Southern Progress Corporation this week. Success. (http://www.destinationelsewhere.com/). We have a sleek, professional, redesigned magazine (at least I like to boastfully think so). It was fun, up to a point. I become rather obsessed with projects like this, spending hours sitting in one position, painstakingly cutting out images from backgrounds and creating logos or banners. There are probably a whole host of broken links in the midst of all that brilliance, but I have taken a break and am hopeful that my family and friends will alert me of any mistakes. I still haven’t quite figured out the blog (yes, Destination Elsewhere now has a blog). I’ve never used CSS scripting before, so creating the blog was a huge challenge (lots of trial and error and not a little bit of muttering under my breath and glaring angrily at the screen). I still can’t get the banner at the top to line up correctly. Any advice from a CSS expert would be most appreciated.

Nevertheless, I am rather pleased with myself. Having never read a book or taken a class on web design, everything has been a discovery. It’s a fascinating process, and something I have learnt so much more about over the last couple of years. Creating a web site can be all-consuming: there is that elusive perfect look you are just desperate to achieve, and yet the mental picture is always slightly removed from the pixels on the screen. But every now and then, sometimes when you least expect it, something will work, and there is a moment of shear giddy glee at having figured it out, at creating something on this vast flat landscape that looks good.

And yes, I have applied for an internship. Southern Progress Corporation, a division of Time Inc., is a publishing house based in Birmingham, Alabama, featuring both book and magazine publishing divisions. They are well known for their magazines, including Southern Living, Health, Sunset, Cooking Light, Coastal Living, and Southern Accents. The company offers an internship program in a variety of capacities, although my interest is editorial. I wish I sounded more confident about my interest. I really would like to get this, but part of me has no clue what I really want. I bought a book today called What Should I Do With My Life? I suppose the title hit home a little too hard for me to pass up.

My parents suggested that I apply to Yale. It sounds like a ridiculous idea to me, but then part of me says, Why not? The GRE may kill me, and I’m really not keen on the idea of taking it, but I could give it a shot. I’d have to apply in January for admission to a PhD programme next Fall. That gives me time to keep thinking. Is that what I really want to do, though? Should I commit myself to another five years – at least – of intense study, only to live my life through the pages and words of dead writers? It sounds cynical, I know, but I tend to behave quite cynically when looking forward like this. The world is seeming so vast and untameable right now. Dad asked me what I really want to do. A little voice in my head was screaming, “Write, Write.” A deeper voice told me to be sensible.

Reading an excerpt of What Should I Do With My Life?, I began to feel a little comforted. Most people go through this dilemma. And then I read on. Most stories seem to go like this: “I graduated from college. I went straight into this boring job or that dead-end job. I hated it. I worked there for three years. I got a promotion. I still hated it. I worked there for another three years. Then I decided to do what I really wanted to do.”

And there lies the problem. I don’t want to have to go through those six years. Despite the hardships and the hideousness these people experience in their six years of dullness and lifelessness, they do walk away with experience. They have something to work with. I have an MA in English. I can write a kick-butt essay. I can deconstruct a novel. Yay for me.

So you see why I haven’t been blogging? I’m on a bit of a downer right now. Every now and then I try to perk up a bit. I think how lucky I am to have this time with my family, and how extraordinarily blessed I am not to have a huge pile of student debt. I remind myself that this is a perfect time to be job hunting while working on Destination Elsewhere, really getting it up to scratch. I think I could even be writing, submitting articles to various places, making use of my time. I have a couple of possibilities lined up for web design work, my mother for starters. I have this time to think, to plan, to muse over the future. In a month I will receive my MA result and hopefully hear back from Southern Progress. In the meantime I should stay positive. I should apply for as many jobs in the States as I can find. I should look into journalism as well as publishing; it could be more creative, more up my alley. I could explore my options.

So I shall attempt to stay positive and to find things to blog about that don’t sound quite so full of whining and whingyness. I will try, at least.