Kathy Hamilton 
I haven’t done a personal post before because I wanted to keep the The Female Scriblerian strictly for book reviews, but since I haven’t been doing a lot of those recently I wanted to explain why.
So here goes:
This past year has been hard for me. It almost feels like I’ve spent most of it grieving because my time at university has come to and end. I’ve gone through all the emotions: angry, confused, frustrated, indifferent, and sad…I’ve definitely been sad! You see, I really miss it. When I was at university I felt like I’d found my natural habitat; everything about the experience challenged me to be the best that I could be and I can honestly say I had the time of my life. Since finishing my Masters last September, however, it’s like the rug has been pulled out from under my feet; I don’t know which way is up anymore. I’ve felt lost because I had to close the door on a part of my life that I really enjoyed without being totally sure what I wanted to do next. Honestly, I’d never given much thought about what I’d do after university. My main focus from the age of about 14 was quite simply to get to Uni, and I guess I kind of assumed that it would go on indefinitely.
The question is what do you do when you’ve accomplished the main life goal you’d set for yourself? I’m still asking myself that question 12 months later! Life outside the bubble of university is much harder than I was prepared for. My friend once came up with the analogy that Uni was like a safety net between being a teenager and an adult; you have some responsibility, but ultimately you don’t have to think too hard about important life choices. My main problem is that now I really need to start thinking about those life choices- like what I want to do as a career…and it’s really scary because I can’t ever seem to decide. Everything I want to do seems to require another qualification or so many years of work-experience just to get your foot in the door. Don’t get me wrong, I am really glad I did an English degree but sometimes, just sometimes mind you, I think it would have been easier to have done a more vocational degree. At least a pharmacy degree has a logical career progression, do you know what I mean?
Anyway, because I’ve been so at sea about what step I should take next I began to forget the reason I loved studying English in the first place and my reading habits have taken a real nose dive. I felt that there was no point reading certain books anymore, because I didn’t have to go to a class about them, or write an essay on them. The thing is, in the end, I’ve only been punishing myself- because I really love reading all kinds of literature. I’ve been guilty of looking at finishing University as an end rather than a beginning. It might sound totally clichéd to say it, but you really can’t move forward until you stop looking back, and I’ve been doing nothing but looking back this year!
So why am I writing this now? Partly because I want to explain why The Female Scriblerian has been so quiet recently, but also because I feel like I can’t be the only person whose felt like this after finishing uni, am I right? Maybe this blog isn’t the right place to write this, but give me a small break; I have piles of student debt waiting to be paid off, I can’t afford any other outlets! Besides, now I’ve written it all down and put it out into the world wide web it’s almost like a challenge to move on. I’m exited about doing new things, starting with a new book review coming soon!
I’ll just finish with this,
Goodbye University, you were great.
