2014 review

I wanted to write something about the year (I have writing itching in my fingers), so I have taken a list from a favourite blog of mine and edited/translated it.

Describe the year with three words.
Leeds, lit-studies and depression.

How did the studies (and job) go this year?
My studies were great. Both terms were fantastic, educating, uplifting, inspiring and absolutely wonderful. At the same time it has been incredibly difficult (at one point I even considered dropping out). The spring was mostly wonderful and my grades were fine--I got the UK grade 2:1, which is something like C/B I think. The autumn has been more anxiety-filled and exhausting, but I have gotten great grades, so far all A's on essays, and A in the only course I have finished so far.
The job has gone on. It has been both meditative and boring. Lately, mostly boring. I am in charge of social media which is at times fun but mostly anxiety-inducing and horrifying. I am thinking of quitting it.

The people in my life this year.
I have attempted to withdraw, which I have succeeded with I would say. I don't have to see people as much what with living alone. But friendships are more or less the same, although I am less close with one of my best friend. Gets along better with certain people at work. Met lovely people at Oxfam in Leeds. Did not really befriend anyone this year, except possibly someone at work.
Social life has, overall, been very difficult this year.

The best trip this year.
Naturally Leeds, but if I had to specify more (what with being there for six months...), it woul be the short trip to Haworth I did when I wandered on the moors, the longer trip to Cardiff, Bristol and Bath and maybe my first few days in London before I went to Leeds--with the flavour of freedom in my mouth.

Best memories or moments of the year.
The evening I went to the poetry reading at uni, in Leeds, where I had wine and fell in love with poetry and talked to and saw people I liked.
When I got use to being in Leeds and realised my freedom of being there. Those freeing walks and bus rides and coming home to my flat.
The Head and the Heart concert in Manchester.
Any one of the good seminars/meetings I have had with my two favourite teachers this year.
Travelling alone. Some of the other concerts. Coming home to my flat, even this one in Stockholm.

Worst memories or moments of the year.
I would rather not think of them, but some of them are: the first few days in Leeds, when I was leaving Leeds, the first week home in Sweden, this entire autumn. When I was too drunk at two points, but my mainly last New Year's Eve. Some of the concerts I went to this year, when the mass of people have me panic.

What was the best thing you bought?
Maybe my black skirt on sale in Leeds, or books such as Glass, Irony and God, The World's Wife, Division Street, and The Waves. Can't think of anything else in particular. I bought a lot of skirts and dressed in England that I love.

What was the best gift you received?
Virginia Woolf's and Sylvia Plath's diaries. An analogue camera I got from Lina. Gift certificate to get a tattoo (which I haven't used yet). *The gift of knowledge.*

What was the biggest musical discovery?
BY FAR Kent. They made my months in Leeds. God I adore them, especially the latter albums. They are my favourite Swedish musicians.
Here is a playlist with the music I listened to this year.

What was the biggest literary discovery?
TOO MANY. Whole genres! The English 18th century literature, Boswell, Maria Edgeworth, Ann Carson, Helen Mort, and the re-discovery of Virginiaa Woolf.

What did I watch?
Few movies--the only one I remember liking is The Hours. But on TV: Orange is the New Black, Downton Abbey, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks & recreation, Broad City, Historieäterna, Hannibal, Buffy (still stuck on the sixth season), Friday Night Dinner, Girls, Game of Thrones, Orphan Black, Pushing Daisies, and Veep.

This I should have done more of.
Always reading. Maybe talked to someone. Said yes. I did dare to do a lot, but I could have dared more. Believed in myself. Oh, and writing, definitely more writing. And more taking photos and blogging. Ugh. I will try to be better this year...

This I should have done less of.
Drinking wine... Doubted and hated and been ashamed of myself so much. I have been wrong to doubt myself so much this year. I should have done less of the things I did not want to do.

Biggest insight of 2014.
That I am unwell, maybe. That I realised I am actually depressed and anxious--that this is what depression and anxiety is.
And the insight, that Leeds is where I want to live, and English literature is what I want to work with, study and think about.

This I bring with me into 2015.
Very little. 2014 has not been good at all--and I don't believe 2015 will be any better. I will remember that I like running and that I can get good grades in literature courses. But a whole lot of memories from my home on this planet.

Howl's Moving Castle and Why It is the Greatest Ever

I need to write about Howl's Moving Castle, and why I love it so much.


By now I have read it maybe 5 times and it is the book I have read the most times (possibly tied with the first few Harry Potter books). Since I read it the first time, I have read it once a year and about the same time each year (like music, books follow a mood inspired by the seasons). The good bits are always Sophie and her cleaning, Howl and how funny he is, the confusing and complex storyline which I still can't seem to grasp, and the magic and its uses. How light and how funny it is. I rarely read and love light and funny books.

This time around what struck me especially were two things.

First the self-fulfilling-ness, independent, subjectively oriented curse and magic of Sophie, and secondly, how kind they all are to each other, without ever really aknowledging how kind they are.

The first is wonderful, naturally. Sophie is herself in control of her curse and she is the one who can release herself - not the great magician Howl or him as a romantic object or some change of heart by the Wicked Witch of the Waste. She wears her curse more or less freely and she can discard it by herself, when she is ready to be seen and to be brave. It is so wonderful. The way she hides behind her old skin until she realises she does not want to hide anymore.
I love Sophie and her heroic role.

The second is touching and funny and lovely. It is somehow so realistic, in a novel full of seven-league books and happy endings. Most of (the lovely part of) life is not, I suppose, about grand and ostentatious gestures, but about doing favours and seeing what someone else might need or just would like, and do that for them. Not expecting gratitude. Just doing it out of kindness and doing it because it will be accepted and maybe repaid. Even Howl, selfish, showy, admiration-craving Howl, does so many things for Sophie and Michael that it's sometimes breathtaking.

This is the thing about this magical book. The characters are so wonderful. I am genuinely in love with them all. They are far from perfect but all very sympathetic. Howl becoming greater because of his vanity and need for validation and cowardice. Sophie becoming relatable for her grumpiness and exasperation and inability to see herself. Michael being too naïve for his own good, but also romantic and economical. Calcifer being - what - a demon as well as a protector of hearts and secrets.

Even though I read it for the fifth time I still felt that post-book depression. What is it I want and miss from it? The romantic storyline? The unbelievable character Howl? The strength and warmth Sophie possesses? Or is it just the magic and the climax and the conclusion of it; that it's a story and would only life be a story!? Whatever it is, I look forward to reading it again in about a year.