I need a big weekend to kick up the dust, big weekend, if you don't run, you rust.

Big weekend? Well, I lifted the titular lyric from the Tom Petty song of the same name, but anyway, I definitely had one.

The publishing company I currently work for had events on at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this weekend, and we had an absolute ball making our presence known. So far, we've had an awesome reaction to the book we put out last month (and - here's me in sales mode - methinks you ought to buy it from the website, pretty please). We were even allowed in the authors' yurt - as in the big tent they all sit in to prepare for their show. They even let us drink their wine and eat their apples. We had a lot of promoting to do too. The other stuff outwith the book festival involved wandering around Edinburgh city centre while my boss and our events person hunted down a 24 hour shop in order to procure cigarettes, and the following evening we had a pre-event tea at the nearest Wetherspoon's which involved ripping the piss out of their Edinburgh Festival menu (50p dearer than their Rest Of The Year menu, as our editor / resident comedian was quick to point out - it looked the same to me). I was on my feet so much I now have a huge blister on my right heel. But it was worth it, because I'm so proud of what we're doing and I feel privileged to have been involved. It's not quite over yet - we're part of the final night of the festival too next week. But I have a feeling that this may be a summer I look back on with some fondness. Still not sure if I'll consider 2010 to be the best of years, but it's so far had a lot of good things about it.

I'm also still looking for a new home. I do at least have the advantage of now having a friend in a similar situation to move in with, so I'm now looking for a whole flat as opposed to just a room with strangers. This does at least give me a little more freedom, which is never a bad thing. It's just that we've picked such a shit time of year to actually be looking for something - seems like all the students are snapping the nice flats up. Now that I'm no longer a student I'm starting to see how annoying that is. It can't take long, though. Surely?

Book List As It Stands Just Now

I'm officially back into reading books again :D

I've finally managed to get most of the books that I bought / borrowed within the last two years read. I didn't make much headway on these during uni because I tended to prioritise the stuff I was reading for classes, which ended up not really working for me because (a) some of the books I read for class were utter, utter shite, (b) I usually didn't get through the books I was reading for fun at a particularly fast pace, and (c) reading went from being a favourite hobby to a chore I carried out. There's nothing worse than when (c) happens. I was still bulk buying books though. As I mentioned before, I'm addicted to buying them from Fopp - they're always (well, usually) pretty cheap, or at least decent value for money for what you pay for them.

I'm not actually totally sure how many books I've got through at this point in time, or what order they're in off the top of my head. But amongst the ones I've read are:

'Mrs Dalloway' - Virginia Woolf
'Q&A' - Vikas Swarup
'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' - Stieg Larsson
'Dracula' - Bram Stoker
'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' - Louis De Bernieres
'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' - Jean Dominique Bauby
'Neverwhere' - Neil Gaiman
'The Road' - Cormac McCarthy
'The Vampire Lestat' and 'Queen of the Damned' - Anne Rice
A couple of the Isabel Dalhousie books by Alexander McCall Smith

I could go into more depth but I fear I'd bore you.

I bulk-bought a load more books from Fopp in dribs and drabs whenever I could afford them. This, as I've stated before, is why I'm thankful for those cheap classics Penguin sell on recycled paper. But they sell loads of other good books too. There are other places that sell good books - HMV, for instance. I've also got a basket load saved on Amazon, but not sure when I'll get those bought - have to conserve the few funds I do have, having been massively buggered about with my pay packet this month. But anyway...I've now made a dent in the 'new list' (so-called).

Currently reading: 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens.

Next two which I keep on my person to be read next: 'Poor Things' by Alasdair Gray and 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville

The rest:

'Dead Until Dark' - Charlaine Harris
'The Hound of the Baskervilles' - Arthur Conan Doyle
'No Country For Old Men' - Cormac McCarthy
'Vanity Fair' - William Makepeace Thackeray
'Smoke and Mirrors' - Neil Gaiman
'Pride and Prejudice' - Jane Austen
'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' - Haruki Murakami
'Madame Bovary' - Gustave Flaubert
'The Girl Who Played With Fire' - Stieg Larsson
'Les Miserables' - Victor Hugo
'Fahrenheit 451' - Ray Bradbury
'David Copperfield' - Charles Dickens
'Breakfast at Tiffany's' - Truman Capote
'Emma' - Jane Austen
'Ghostwritten' - David Mitchell
'The Canterbury Tales' - Geoffrey Chaucer
'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest' - Stieg Larsson
'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' - Arthur Conan Doyle
'Kafka on the Shore' - Haruki Murakami
'Grimm's Fairy Tales' - The Brothers Grimm (yes, this was among the Penguin Popular Classics I found in Fopp. No joke)
'Death of a Ladies' Man' - Alan Bissett
'Oliver Twist' - Charles Dickens
'Memoirs of a Geisha' - Arthur Golden
'The Great Gatsby' - F Scott Fitzgerald
'England, England' - Julian Barnes
'The Picture of Dorian Gray' - Oscar Wilde

Phew! That's the list so far...it'll have increased soon enough, mark my words.

Edit: two new additions - 'Transition' by Iain Banks and 'Northanger Abbey' by Jane Austen

Where Will I Go From Here?

This blog has been brought to you by a severe case of insomnia. I'm not even lying. I've actually not slept at the time of writing this. I'm working in an hour and a half too - that'll be even more fun.

Speaking of work...I'm still not too sure that job is even going to last beyond summer. If they offered to keep me on the roster beyond then I'd be delighted. But there's no guarantee of that. The other problem is one of a flat hunt. I'm not meant to be in this accommodation for an awful lot longer. I can't really take on something I can't afford, but I don't know what else to do.

I also still need to make some headway on Masters applications. It's highly unlikely I'll get in, being that I've been insanely slack on writing since leaving uni. But I'll see how those go. If I don't manage, there's always the option of the JET programme.

I've wanted to go back to Japan since going there first in 2005, but the hankering has intensified since graduation. I initially wasn't sure what I'd actually do when / if I went back, but I knew it wouldn't be an exchange programme, like it had been the first time. It would also be for longer than the previous eight days (which were during rainy season, boo!). Seriously, what I wouldn't give to sit on a tatami mat in a kimono, eating proper Japanese food...well, save fried prawns, a week of those makes you a little sick of them. Not to mention that pickle shaped like a dehydrated slug, eww. I imagine I'd go for six months - I can't quite imagine a whole year abroad, if I'm honest. But I think teaching English sounds good. I considered just drifting around, but that seems a bit aimless, and I've never been one to do things spontaneously.

There's a couple of things I'm not sure about, though.

For one thing...I need to actually sort out a new passport. Mine expired three years ago this month and I haven't a new one. The passport office is down here, but getting it renewed on the spot is pricey.

There's the matter of cost as well - I'd need to save up a hell of a lot of money.

Finally...so far I'm doing okay down here, out of getting my internship and all that. If I left Glasgow I might lose out on all that. I'd love the experience of the JET programme, but I don't intend to ever settle abroad (I think I'd appreciate it more for this reason), nor do I intend to make a career of teaching. I think, though, that being out of the country for a while would do me a lot of good. It might give me a little space to think, it could inspire me...that old chestnut. It's true, though.

So yeah, there we have it - if the CW Masters ends up being a no-goer, JET programme will get a look. Anyway...I have to be at work in about an hour and haven't had my breakfast yet.