upon graduating…

It seems like only yesterday I was blogging about the 8 months I had left until the real world was upon me………………

8 months felt like 8 days!

I graduated from college last week with a BA in English Literature (and Sociology, but that’s boring). So I am now at that glamorous point in life where I’m walking wherever possible to save money on public transit, eating leftovers from my graduation party instead of buying groceries and pestering friends throughout the day on gchat because I am in bed watching wedding reality shows on Netflix (I tell the truth, even when it’s embarassing) and they are trying to be productive adults at work.

I guess you could call this a bit of a post-grad slump.

Don’t get me wrong, I have money for rent and food and more trips to local coffee/donut/kolache places than I should take, so I’m not just lazing about and ignoring my basic needs or a necessary job hunt. I worked very hard for 4 years and decided that I would take a couple of weeks to not be academic or particularly burdened with responsibility. To do something I’ve heard referred to as “relax” (am I spelling that right?). I’ll be preparing grad school applications and working 2 jobs this summer, but for now, I’m going to CHILL OUT AND WATCH NETFLIX AND READ WHATEVER I WANT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AGES!

That felt good to say out loud–er–type in boisterous capital letters.

As I sat here tonight, reading past entries about Big Sis reading Windy Poplars (the Anne book that doesn’t generally top anyone’s rankings) I was struck with a craving to pick it up and read about Anne’s time in Summerside. Although I still feel like a student (and will always be a student at heart, because I really am just that big of a dweeb), I’m embarking on that part of my life in which I relate to Windy Poplars, Anne’s post-grad slump!

She’s finished with school (I know the void that leaves behind), has a difficult time adjusting to life without the friends to whom she’s grown so close (I MISS YOU GUYS!) and waiting-sometimes impatiently-to marry oh-so-dreamy Gilbert Blythe (no comment…).  Even though Brooklyn is different that Summerside, and despite my significant lack of Gil, I think graduation is just as confusing and disorienting for Anne as it has been and will continue to be for me!

So I’m finishing this post and picking up Windy Poplars with excitement for the first time in a while. I don’t hate this book, obviously, but it’s never been what Rilla or House of Dreams or Island is for me.  Maybe I’m a perfect storm of melancholy, idealism, blind ambition and nerdiness right now and need to go through it with Anne at my side.

I’ll be checking in now and again to share how Anne’s and my post-grad years (weeks in my case) match up! Also, leave your best post-grad advice in the comments! I can use all the help I can get…

-little sis

*hangs head in shame*

You guys, I’m the worst!!! I have no excuse for my lackluster blogging over the past several months. However, if I did have excuses, they would be:

1) I’m graduating college in approximately 78 days.

2) I’m graduating from aforementioned college with a degree in English Literature, so all I do everyday is read read read and then write about it.  When I get free time, my first thought isn’t to read read read and then blog about it…

3) I live in NYC, so I’m constantly out at fancy restaurants, movie premiers, gallery openings and other chic shindigs! (my sweatpants and Lean Pockets are rolling over in their graves……)

4) Maybe the main reason I haven’t blogged is that I haven’t picked up Anne in MONTHS! I was going to finish Windy Poplars at Thanksgiving. Then at Christmas break. Then before school really got started. And now it’s midterms and I don’t remember what day it is half the time and did I mention I’M GRADUATING IN MAY and have other things on my mind. Perhaps if Anne’s pen tip had been a bit more obliging, I’d have more motivation to read………..

But like I said, I have no excuses. None whatsoever.

Anywho.

I return to the blog today, because I had the opportunity to be a Fanne-girl in class just last week.  It’s a seminar on Jane Austen (I know, right? College is the best…) and we were discussing the powerful emotional resonance of Austen’s work.  My professor was talking about why she personally loves Austen and how she goes to her works to relax and find comfort when she’s had a rough week.  She asked us which books were like that for us, and amid people’s responses of Harry Potter (which I can’t disagree with), I spoke up for our Anne girl! I talked about my love affair with Anne’s story and the way that I resonate with it differently every time I read the books; different characters, different events, different language and scenic descriptions.  I don’t read Anne as a 22 year old the same way I did as a 12 year old, so the story is familiar and comforting, but also different each time.  I still find myself surprised, excited, outraged, smitten, devastated and enchanted with every reading.  I may have gotten a bit excited in class, but I’m not ashamed! I like to let my Anne flag fly!

Which books do you come back to again and again? What makes them so special?

-lil sis

on Rilla…

After a multiple month hiatus, I finished Rilla of Ingleside by the light of the setting sun on my stoop.  Never mind the neighbors passing by wondering why that young girl is blubbering in public.  Never mind the tissue tumbleweeds sitting next to me.  Never mind that as I closed the book and looked at my own gate, Kenneth Ford was not standing there and I did not fall into my childhood speech habit.  Yes, never mind all of this……….

On paper this book is all wrong.  There are very few prominent characters from previous books that take a central, narrative role.  War is raging for the majority of the novel and the tone is fairly (often extremely) somber.  There is little reliance on neighborhood gossip or funny stories of childish mishaps that so characterize the other novels.  These all set Rilla apart from the other novels in the series.

So why is this one of my clear favorites?!

There is a beautiful balance of sorrow (WALTERRRRRR!!!) and hope in this novel and I would reckon that it is one of the most poignant insights we as readers have into L.M. Montgomery’s life experience.  When I read this novel I feel that she has poured her soul into Rilla’s story of growing up in a dark and uncertain time. There is palpable pain in the story and an aching that I feel on every page.  Maybe this is why it took me so long to read it this year-in the midst of a very difficult school semester (not to mention a colder, longer and harsher than normal winter) I wasn’t in an emotional place to willingly add more darkness.  Only when the sun comes out and the city comes alive and I wake up each morning to the breeze in my window can I willingly go there.

Maybe it’s so meaningful because I see myself in Rilla.  I didn’t raise a war baby or wear the same green hat for 4 years or send 3 brothers to the trenches.  But I can see myself in her emotional journey, in her quickly learned maturity and in the way that she finds herself to be stronger than she ever gave herself credit for.

Still waiting for Ken though..

-lil sis