The New Year has begun and I'm back in the swing...

Since my last post I have mostly been doing the same as the majority of the country...trudging through snow just to get to the corner shop, stuffing myself silly with Christmas food, spending time with the relies and relaxing. But with Christmas coming to an end (the 6th is only a couple of days away ao it'll be bye-bye to the decorations...) it's time to get back to reality and back into the swing of my uni work. With my dissertation due in just over two weeks I am currently frantically tapping away on my computer (which is sadly slowly dying so I'll be coughing up for a new battery in no time) with my nose poking it's way through all the relevant material I can find! My essay is generally about how things have changed and how things have stayed the same since the late 1970s/early 1980s and I'm finding it interesting to see just where we are the same/different. Currently, though I'm finding many parallels in all the areas I'm looking into - politics, music, fashion - what's becoming really apparent is that although there are similarities, the world we live in is so very different now that it almost doesn't matter. Everything has changed and so those things that on the surface look like they are the same are actually really not. So it's actually been interesting looking into this and I'm glad to be writing about something I can actually feel something for rather than something dull or boring but I'm also itching to get started on my final major project so I'm counting down the days til my dissertation can be handed so I can really emerse myself into my new project...the beginning of a project is always so exciting! Just to bring things slightly back to the arts I'm going to shortly post the final images from my last project up on here...hope you like! Before I go, I am wondering whether £25+ is too much to spend on buying a novel...I'm sure it isn't although as a student I feel a bit guilty about it. The purchase hasn't been made yet but I have a feeling it will soon. The book is called 'Tree Of Codes' and is by American author Jonathan Safran Foer. He is actually one of, if not, my favourite author - his first two fictional works 'Everything Is Illuminated' and 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' I just loved so much. His writing is humorous, often sad and, I always feel, very real sounding. They are also written in kind of layers. 'Everything Is Illuminated' is told from a number of different perspectives and 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' is presented in such a way that the book is about more than just the words in it. Which, I think I'm right in saying, could also be said of this new book...I haven't seen/read it but I believe it is actually made from another book (The Street Of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz) and Foer has actually cut words out of the pages to recreate a new book of his own. It sounds intriguing and I am just dying to own a copy. I am a great lover of novels in the traditional sense but I think it's great that there are people challenging the norms of nocel-writing. A challenging of a norm is always good in my book.