Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So... get on your way. -Dr Seuss

Hi.
I’m Becks, Becky, Bec, (occasionally Beccy never Bekki), Rebecca, Tecks, Tecky or just Towey. No two people ever seem to call me the same thing, so I’ll let you decide which name (or who) you like best. I’m 21. I like shortbread and shoes. I read a lot of books and have just recently completed my degree in English and Creative writing and from November 3rd can officially be classed as a graduate.

The word graduate is quite scary. 

It suggests I should be doing something successful.

Before I started university the word graduate used to make me think that by the time uni was over I would automatically be transformed into an amazingly well paid and glamorous business woman, that glob trots the world 1st class in my Louboutins. Or closer to my own dreams -that I would be able to spend my days writing best sellers from my hammock on an exotic beach somewhere (still wearing the Louboutins), while my yacht bobs patiently on the little waves waiting to adventure to our next novel writing spot. I quickly came to realise that this is not the case and that finishing university is more like turning the corner onto a new road and realising that you’ve got another hill to climb yet.

But what is life without it’s little challenges?

I graduated from uni with a 2:1 degree, chuffed doesn’t really cover it, considering I’m possibly the only English student in the world with the punctuation and syntax skills of a primary school kid. The relief when I saw them two little numbers  - I actually nearly cried. Nearly. But I do feel like I earned it. Whole days were dedicated to writing essays, redrafting essays, rewriting essays, redrafting essays again, restructuring essays and redrafting again. There were some days when I didn’t leave the house at all! And even though most weeks I got drunk and went out at least once - it was considerably less than the other years.

There is one other reason that I am so proud of myself and my housemates for our fabulous degree marks. As if writing essays isn’t brain numbing enough we lived in the only house on earth where it was possible to get brain freeze without eating ice cream. Yes the house was quaint in its own shabby little way and the kitchen was pretty and we had two whole showers. This was all overshadowed by the fact that it could be 100 degrees outside (I know we live in England but for exaggerations sake) and the house would still be Fucking Freezing.

No insulation, no double glazing, draughty and with central heating that barely worked, even when left on constantly; meant that we wrote essays dressed like the Mitchelin man, with fingers that where stiff and blue and always needed to pee from all the hot drinks we drank to keep warm, but holding it in because it was far too cold to take any layers off to make it possible to pee. And we never did use the second shower it was in a little outhouse room that was colder than anywhere else. But despite all this, despite coldness that might have broken others (although I did pretty much break down in tears every time I got in the shower because of the chill blains on my feet), we four girlies made it through with cracking degrees and still managed to have a laugh.

As an attempt at revenge on our landlord and lady - who where evil by the way!! We took it upon ourselves to scare of prospective new tenants by telling them the truth about the house. However a group of boys who will be moving into the house this October and apparently don’t feel the cold, didn’t listen. Seems they were just as bowled over by the kitchen and cute little fireplace (which doesn’t work either) as us girls were.
    So this is for you, you macho little idiots :)

Clothing Survival tips for 79 Whipcord Lane.

One normal everyday outfit that you would wear to class, the shops etc.
Two hoodies - (to wear over the everyday outfit).
One scarf
Two pairs of woolly socks
Slippers
One dressing gown.
One hot water bottle - (secured inside the dressing gown by the pull cord).

Extras-
One pair of gloves - (agreed these do make pressing the right keys whilst typing difficult but when your fingers are so stiff from cold that you cant bend them, life can’t really get much more difficult).
Woolly hat - (ear flaps optional but recommended).
Thermals are also recommended.

And if all else fails do the penguin and huddle!

Back to the real reason for this first post, why I decided to write a blog. You’ll probably find, if you want to read more of my blog that is, that I’ll probably wander off topic quite a lot as my brain works. Anyway there’s a few reasons why I decided to start this blog;

Firstly, there have been a lot of changes in my life over the past five or six years, but for some reason the end of uni feels more final. The end of an era as they say. More like the end of my (rather extended) teenage years - I think everyone who goes to uni feels as if their teenage years have been extended and living in the real world suspended for just a few years longer. I feel like these changes are a big part of who I am today and should be documented and discussed. No doubt there will be more changes to come - nothing in my life seems to stay the same for that long, except my cat, that would make my life far too easy.

Secondly, it is a way for me to keep on writing because as with all things it gets better with practise.

And lastly one of my dreams in life is to write a book. I’ve pondered for a long time, since I was about 6 and first decided that I wanted to write a book, what my book should be about. I’ve covered a lot of subjects since then, from childish ideas about dragons and how much I like chocolate cake (I actually wrote this book and gave it to my mum- no doubt I thought  I was being clever) to how much I hate my little brother (I don’t, but you know what your like when your young…). In my teenage years I toyed with some form of love story (admittedly based on what I thought my love life should be like and starring whatever boy I found pretty at the time). More recently I toyed with historical fiction and writing someone else’s life before settling on life itself. Life in all its different forms, nuances and quirks. So the purpose of this blog is to gather inspiration from my life and the people’s lives close to me, a sort of study on life, and see if this book could possibly work.

Peace x