Leaving the books at home

When I was 20 I started seeing an ex boyfriend again for the third time. I was convinced once and for all we were going to make it work because to me he was this wonderful perfect boy and we were made for each other. One day I returned home and my house mates announced a gift wrapped packaged had arrived while I was in my lesson. I very excited opened it and discovered this guy had sent me a Kindle. 

Kindles were brand new at the time and cost about £119, and I had mentioned in passing that I would like one as I had to carry a lot of books around, what with doing an English course. And suddenly a week later I had been sent one, and I was shocked and touched by this gesture. That evening I downloaded some books onto it and in my next seminar when I whipped out my flash new toy the whole class wanted to have a look and my lecturer asked what I thought of it and I sang its praises how the books were so cheap and in some cases even free, and it was so light and the battery life seemed endless. 

A couple of months later unsurprisingly, the somewhat rocky and pretty unhealthy on off relationship with this boy came to an explosive end, though we were not officially together picture of him in bed with someone else while he was at his ex girlfriends wedding, and him not wishing me Happy Birthday on my 21st birthday which all happens to be Valentines day finally did it for me. We had a heated phone call and after I sent him a strongly worded text telling him to never contact me again culminating in my throwing my phone across the room. We haven't had any contact since, and neither has the Kindle and me.

Once I cut off ties with this guy I wanted to rid myself of everything that reminded me of him. I threw out stuff he had given, re arranged my room so it wouldn't remind me of him, I dyed my hair so I didn't look like the same girl who liked this guy, and because I couldn't bring myself to throw out a perfectly good working Kindle it went into the bottom of the wardrobe where it stayed until this September where it finally made its way into the bin. 

My feelings toward e-Books also changed. A Kindle was not practical for a Uni student, I couldn't highlight important parts of the text. You couldn't quickly flip to a page to refresh your memory on what had happened, You couldn't read it in bight lights and they Uni didn't have a format that allowed you to properly reference digital books. I honestly didn't like them, I only liked them because the boy I fancied had bought me one, and I didn't use another e-book format again. 

Until the latest iPhone update where they introduced a new app rather un-inspiringly named iBook. When ever my Phone updates I have a little tinker around with the new apps, and they never touch them again ( has any one every used the Pass Book app?). So I clicked on it and it is basically the same as the Newstand on the iPhone which allows you to down load Magazines but this one it for books. I saw they had a few books which you could download for free and I browsed through thinking they would all be rubbish books because why would an author of a good book allow their work to be given away for free and I came across a book I really like Starter For Ten by David Nicholls. Which made we think the other free books might not be that bad after all.

I decided to download two books, both genres that I normally wouldn't go for one was a crime book The Woods  by Harlan Coben  which is actually pretty good and would recommend you get if you have an iPhone, and the other was a Chick-Lit book called The One you Really Want by Jill Mansell which really isn't that great. I started reading The Woods  first and it is a genuinely interesting book about a man whose sister was killed when they were at a summer camp together as teenagers and her body was never found. The story had lots of twists and turns and suspense it was a good read. 

I found reading it on the iBook meant I was reading at times I wouldn't normally read. The Advert breaks on TV, while waiting for my Boyfriend to meet me in town, and on the bus to work which is only a ten minuet journey. Because the book is right there in my pocket and the pages are only the size of the screen I can whip it out read a few paragraphs and pop it away again. I also really liked that the screen alters is brightness depending on the room your in, If the room is well lit it will display traditional black text on white, but if you are reading in bed in low lighting it will display white text on black which is easier on the eye which reading off a screen. 

Also at the bottom of the page it tell you how many pages you have to go before the end of the chapter, which is handy because if you are reading on the go rather then trying to rush to the end of the chapter you can instead plan to stop at the next paragraph break because you know you just wont make it to the chapter end. 

How there are still thing I dislike. I will never get use to not being able to quickly flip back a few pages to re read a line with out loosing my place. And the other day while reading I accidentally flipped to the end of the book and it was very hard to find my place again. Also I just don't think I could ever bring myself to pay for a book on this app. Because in the back of my mind I will always be thinking "for a couple extra pound you could have a physical book" 

So as far as my relationship with e-books, I feel we can work it out, we will never be where we were but I feel we can be friends. As for that guy ... well that ship has well and truly sailed.

Rella

Xx

1838 Days of London

I always look forward to September because no matter what September always brings a change for me. It almost like September is my new year, to start fresh and redirect my life or push it forward to the next stage. 

When I was younger the school year always started in September, so I was either starting a new School or at least starting a new school year. I would get to put on my new uniform and pack up my new stationary and get ready to face what ever challenges I might come come up against. 

One of my most monumental Septembers was in 2009, the year I left my place of birth and moved to London. I grew up in Surrey, I got my education there, all my friends lived there and  my family home, the only home I had ever known. I had lived in the same house for 16 years, and earlier in the year I had to move out as my Mum moved to Scotland and I was in the middle of my final year of college, I decided to stay behind and moved in with an Aunt I really didn't know all too well. 

And it was my support group of all the people in Surrey that got me through. I didn't have my physical home any more, but the familiar streets were home, my friends were home, the trees that line every Surrey road was home. 

My wonderful friends who helped me out so much when my mum moved away

When I got my college A-level results I was sat in a cow shed logged onto a computer in  a makeshift internet cafe with my best friend, and I suddenly realised I would be moving away to London. Away from everything I had always known into something I had always wanted. I had achieved the most amazing thing I had ever done, I had got into university. I got myself through my GCSE's without too much support, I had dropped out of my first round of college and on my second attempt doing A-level my mum had up rooted the family, and yet I still managed to maintain my college work and it had lead to that moment, at 8 am in cowshed in Somerset. 

One of the hardest parts of moving was not having my parents to help prepare me to move. I had a friend who I had grown up with, he had lived across the road from me and our mum were best friends, and he had his mum too him out to buy things like plates and kitchen ware and new bedding, and I tagged along,, not really knowing what to do or where to start. My very best friend, who had been with my in the cow shed, did her best to include me in her uni prep but I started to realise how on my own I was. 

Don't get my wrong both my parents are amazingly supportive, but distance limits the actions they carry out. I feel in that one month of preparing to move to uni on my own, working out this maze of unknown territory of kitchen pan sets and storage solutions I became incredibly independent and have remained so ever since. 

I moved to London on September the 17th 2009. I packed everything of value into my Dad's car and he too me to Greenwich, he dropped me off, and he couldn't hang around long, he was only allowed to park for half and hour I think, and suddenly I was alone in this city,in a single room with my possessions in boxes for the second time in a year, with my friends dotted up and down the country and my family spread out as well, and I had not idea what the future had in store, in one year my life had totally changed, everything I knew was different now.

 

My lovely uni house mates in our first year

Turns out a lot of amazing things and opportunities. The past five years have been amazing. I have met some amazing people, and done some pretty impressive stuff and even got a degree and fell in love along the way, and still every September my life would take a new turn.

September 2010 

I moved in with friends into the worlds worst house in Lewisham, and got my first ever London based job

September 2011 

I moved into a shared flat with one of my old House mates and met my boyfriend 

September 2012 

My boyfriend moved in with me, and I went to my first ever wedding that just so happened to be my Best friends, and to to celebrate my year anniversary with my boyfriend, which was also marked my longest relationship ever

September 2013

 I quit my job in the start of the month and by the end I started a new one, and I started a College course

And here I am in September again, and I am facing the biggest change since my move to London. That is my moved out of London, today September 16th 2014 I submitted the final bits of paperwork for a flat in Kent. I have let everyone at work know I am leaving, told my Landlord in London I won't be signing a new lease and started getting things ready to leave. 

It is an end of an era, a great era, in five years a little patch of the world I knew nothing about became a new home, red buses line the streets instead of trees and some of the friends I held so close and drifted away and new ones have filled their gap, and the streets I call home have different names now. On the 29th of September I will walk out of this little flat in London and into a whole new Chapter of my life. It's scary  and its exciting, the sea will be on my door stop instead of the tube, and family once again within touching distance. 

I am excited, this next chapter 

Rella

Xx

I open at the close

Yesterday I had the utter joy of meeting up with two of my house mates from university, I hadn't hung out with both of them together in three years, and for two years I barely saw either of them so it was very exciting to meet up with them in Greenwich where we went to uni and spend a few hours pretending we were students again. 

My two house mates and their boyfriends

University was such a huge massive thing in my life, I started thinking about it at 15 as I was sitting exams in secondary school, and my three years in college was basically working towards the goal of getting into uni. I remember the night before I was due to get my A Level results which would either mean I got in or not, so clearly. I was volunteering at a Summer Camp in Somerset I was with my best friend who was also getting her results tomorrow, and I was laying in my tent unable to sleep as I jumped between feeling very very excited about going to uni and the utter dread if I didn't get is as I had absolutely no back up plan in place. In the end I told myself  "I can't change anything now,  and what ever happens I will just have to get on with it" and went to sleep ! 

At the time I didn't realise just how exciting university is while I was there, but looking back and talking with my friends about everything we got up to, you realise just how great it is and how many firsts we shared together. Moving out for the first time, cooking for the first time, going on a bus in London for the first time one of the girls had never ordered a Chinese before she moved to uni. 

That's the thing about uni house mates, yeah I had other friends who went to uni and I did make many friends at uni as well but your house mates experience everything with you, these girls saw me drunkenly stumble home, they saw me  the next day in a less then graceful state, they saw me cry over break ups, get exited about exam results, stress over essays and we have all cried with laughter together. We spent birthdays and Christmases together introduced each other to our family and friends from back home. So many experiences that you could only have because we all shared a flat.

Also it helped us all find our passion. When I first thought about going to uni I wanted to do History, for about 4 year it had it in my mind as that is what I wanted to do, I was very good at it, I really enjoyed the subject and I already knew what areas I wanted to focus on. But as college wore on there was a little flame growing that was getting brighter and brighter and by the time it came to filling out my University application there was no way I was going to pick any other subject apart from English. ( Though I must say I do still love History !)

And with my house mates I got to really dive into it. Me and one house mate, Alice, would spend hour talking in her room about Books and philosophers and essays and God, until the moon slipped away and the sun was peaking over roof tops. It was fantastic these new conversation I had never had before, all because we had be brought together by a desire to get a higher education and we all had our own specialised interests to bring to discussions. 

Going to university is like being an adult, with disposable income and freedom but no real big responsibilities expect to pass your degree, which isn't by any means easy, but when you have literally having nothing else to worry about does help. 

Meeting up with them was like re reading a much loved book, it took me right back there to that adventure we shared, forging our way together into adulthood. I could re read that book everyday and I would never get bored of it. 

Thank you girls for being such great character in the best chapters of my story so far !

Three of us at our University grounds

Rella Xx

Baby Steps

So over the weekend I had the privilege to watch my boyfriend graduate University. I met him during his Fresher week, he was just starting his first year, I was about to embark on my third and final year and now here we are both graduates, and I can hardly believe we have made it here already. That now, for the first time ever neither of us are students.

Here we are at his graduation!

However I am proud of both of us for following our dreams and getting a degree, I have found it has filled me with a lot of worry and fear now. As a graduate every-ones expectations are so much higher, a simple entry level job simply will not do, and you are expected to have this whole plan in place, and these wonderful jobs with fantastic salary's are meant to be flying at you left right and centre. But they're not. 

I know my family is very proud of me and my boyfriends family are equally chuffed with him, but all weekend the question on every bodies lips is "What next?" they want to know what jobs we have applied for, and when we are going to move into our own place, have we started driving yet ? or thought about where we might move to for work ? any interviews lined ? I know their heart is in the right place but, I don't know the answers ! I wish I knew, but I don't even know what job I want let alone how to go about getting it. 

When you're a child you have this image of your life, as if its a thread that will weave in and out of opportunities and goal, and more threads with join in and twist together as you get married and have children and, in the end your thread has made a beautiful tapestry of all you've done, but the reality isn't quite so smooth, your thread get tangled and knotted and you fray it as you work away at the mess and you carry it round in stomach everyday feeling it getting more knotted and tangled and its just not working out the way you wanted it to, and you feel like such a let down. 

I finished my degree and I still work in retail, and I don't like it at all, and family and friends will joke about me working there when I have a degree to my name, while others point out how they have a better job then me and they never went to uni, and it starts to hurt. 

And here I am watching my boyfriend take these baby steps into the world of work and I am worried for him, worried that he ends up trapped like I am, not knowing what path to take or in which direction, worried that the constant job applications will wear him down, worried that this time next year we are no further forward then we are now. 

You are always told to follow your dreams, to reach for the stars, but no one tells you what to do when you holding it in your hand and it's starting to burn.

Rella Xx