The Journey has ended

Well, finally, it's over. After about14 monthss, Roland and his Ka-Tet have reached the end of their journey. And as I predicted, I miss them already. Sitting here at work all I can think about once more is the seeming endless toil they (and I) had to go through to reach the end. All seven books had me captured by the end of the first paragraph, if not even the first sentence. I won't go into much, as I seem to have done that quite a lot recently, but I just wanted to urge you one more time to go out and read The Dark Tower series if you have not already. They are quite easy to read, even though the last few are just HUGE and would work better as doorstops than books, (not the best thing to read in bed, for fear of knocking myself out if I drop it!), and full of excitement. I have to say they do go a little strange here and there, with a typical Steven King twist every now and then. There is one part where the characters actually meet Steven King, and talk about him writing the story, that totally spun me out, and I kept having to tell myself that it was all fiction, and not real. But a part of me wanted to think that maybe that had happened...Roland had met Steven King and told him that he must go on writing. It grounded the fiction a little, and made it almost real.

Basically, as you can probably tell, I just loved the whole thing, and one day, I'll get around to buying the whole series, and re-reading them, because as readers will know, "Ka is a circle" and keeps rotating until the end of time.

Now I guess I have to start on that great pile of books I have by my bed...

A love never spoken of

Arm in arm they walked down the long dark road. This would be their last night together forever. He was leaving her to go back home, and although he said they’d stay in touch, she knew differently. During their brief but incredible time together she had come to know him well enough that she realised as soon as he got home, he’d probably never think of her again. From her point of view however, she would think of him so often, that he would hardly vacate her mind.

They had met one night, by complete chance. He just happened to come over and talk to her, and she just happened to talk back. It didn’t happen much to either of them…they just clicked. From that night onwards, they had been inseparable, spending all day, everyday with each other. Getting to know each other so they could read one another like an open book. Finishing sentences that had hardly begun, answering questions that hadn’t quite been asked, and just by looking into each other’s eyes, they could read exactly what was going through their mind. This type of connection was so rare that neither of them wanted to give it up. However, he had to go back home. It was the end of the summer, and their affair had to end. He had taken her out for a romantic meal and then a walk along a moonlit beach before heading back to their special spot underneath the weeping willow tree. The road before them was dark and winding, "Just like my future" she thought. Not knowing what was going to happen to her without him in her life was the worst part about it. They wound their way through the small wood until they reached that spot where they had spent so much of their time together. As they sat down, he presented her with a beautiful silver necklace; it was comprised of tiny silver roses linked together with the most intricate of chain. She immediately knew the reason behind this particular choice, because she had told him months ago, when they first met that she had never been given a bunch of roses. This was infinitely better that a bunch of flowers, as she would have to watch them wither and die, whereas this would stay with her forever. He put it around her neck and smiled as he looked at her, this would be the picture he carried with him in his mind, for she was wrong about him. He would think about her, maybe not as much as she thought of him, but he would look back at the summer and remember the most wonderful summer of his life. He had met the one person around whom he could be himself; he didn’t have to hide any longer, as she knew him inside out.

They spent the night looking at the stars as they followed their silent trail across the heavens, and when the morning light began to break they headed back for the last time. When everything was packed up and he was ready to go, he looked her in the eye and told her for the first and last time that he loved her, truly madly deeply loved her as he would love no other. As his car pulled out, she stood in the road and cried as if her heart had imploded in her chest. Then she felt for the roses around her neck and knew that, even if he never did think of her again, she had become a different, better person because of him, and would remain so from that summer onwards. She only wished she could have thanked him for making her this way, but she never found the words to say it.

They never saw each other again, or even spoke. It was too painful for either of them at that time. But who knows what the future has to bring…if it was truly meant to be then their paths will cross one more time and maybe even intertwine forever more.

The End of an Era?

I have been reading Stephen King’s The Dark Tower Series for over a year now, on and off. All the books have come from the library, and I’ve had to wait for them to come in, so in between I’ve been reading other books. But for the majority of that time, Roland and his Ka-Tet have been a major part of my life. However, I’m now about 2/3 of the way through the final book, and as much as I want to be finished, to see how he fares, I don’t want them to be gone from my life. It may sound really silly, but I get so into books that I often wonder what the characters are doing when I’m not reading it. I’ll sit at work and find myself thinking about Eddie and Susannah, wondering what they’re up to, and how they’re doing. Then I have to have a reality check and remind myself that they are in fact just characters. But for those who have read the series, you’ll know that the characters turn up in New England to pay Steven King a visit. It is very strange, and quite hard to explain to people, but it grounds the whole story, and makes me wonder if in fact Steven King did have a vision of the protagonist and his friend.

I really can’t wait to finish and for the past few nights I’ve been up until stupid o’clock in the morning, because I just can’t book the brick of a book down. But then what do I do when I’m finished? I have a whole pile of books to read, but they won’t be about Jake, Oy and the gang. I’ve read books before where I wonder about the characters when I’m not reading, but never to this extent. It’s never taken me a whole year to read a series pretty much non-stop. They are just the most amazing books. I was reading a passage last night about 2 of the characters (I won’t mention too much in case there are people reading them!) travelling through a very dark tunnel. There are lightbulbs overhead that turn on as you approach and dim as you walk away. King mentions the shapes that their shadows make on the floor, as they walk. This adds nothing to the story line, and as I read it I thought it quite a pointless sentence, but then the description added a great amount the whole atmosphere of the passage. I’m afraid of the dark…I’ll admit it, I’m 22 and afraid of the dark, and the way King describes this tunnel absolutely terrified me. It was almost as if they could touch the dark, and as for me, well I was right there with them, in the pitch dark, just running.

I guess that once I’m done I’ll just have to move on the next book that I have in my list, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I started to read it while waiting for The Dark Tower to come into the library, but I had to stop. So I’ll start that one again, and move from Out-World to Hogwarts. That’s the wonderful thing about books, the constant changing scenery.

A Homage to a Great One!

I forgot to mention before, last week I went to Alton Towers, a big theme park just up the road with my friends from home! It was an awesome day, full of adrenaline and giggles! We went on all the major rides and in a homage to Wil Wheaton, I had to "Throw the Goat" on every one! In all the photos there’s me \m/ -ing away! I don’t have any of the photos to show you, I’m afraid, because they’re always so expensive at places that like, but I just wanted to let you all know! So Wil, keep rocking!

Dreams will come true

I have to apologise for the lack of postings recently; I have been wicked busy at work recently, which is the only time I had for updating. However, hopefully now things will change! Thanks to my sister’s boyfriend, my laptop at home went from being pretty much dead, taking forever to load anything, with absolutely no hope of connecting to the internet to being almost like brand new. It’s faster, and he managed to reconfigure stuff so that I could install the Internet on it again! YEY! So now I will be able to blog from home as well as ‘illegally’ from work!

I can’t believe that it’s the 13th September already. This year is flying by, I’m sure I say that every year, but this year has just disappeared. Recently I have been thinking a lot about various anniversaries. The 4 years it has been since 9/11, which means that come September 17th, it’ll be 4 years since I first started University. We’re coming up on a year since I moved to Derby after graduation, and of course that 1 year it’s been since I finished University. I guess time just flies by when you’re having fun huh!?

Every now and then I have random reality checks…not only did I start university, I finished it! I’m now a graduate; I have letters after my name! My time at Uni was amazing, I loved every minute of it, especially now that I can look back on it, and not actually do it! I’m sure that were parts that I didn’t enjoy, like all the essays and presentations we had to do, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, is it not? Anyway, I digress, the thing is, its now been over a year since completing my studies, and just under a year since I decided to move back up to Derby in order to find a job that I really wanted to do. Now that I’m here, and have been for a while, I’m still not sure what that is. I’ve pretty much always known that I wanted to work in films (except for a brief period when I was younger when I declared that I was going to clean space shuttles for a living – somebody has to do it!!!) but as I have little to no experience, finding a job is proving very difficult. But I’m a firm believer in the though that if you want something enough, it’ll happen. I know that belief alone is not enough, and it takes a great deal of groundwork to get where you want to be. My mom is always telling me that I’m waiting for Steven Spielberg to come and knock on my door with a job for me. And it’s true I guess, I haven’t done a huge amount to get myself on the track of my perfect job, and I think it’s because I’m scared. What if I find somewhere to gain the experience I need, and find out that I’m not suited for the job, or more importantly incapable of doing the job? For years now, I’ve had my heart set on working on film sets ultimately to end up as a script supervisor, but taking that first step to make it happen is proving harder than I thought it would be. But I’ve come to the stage in my life right now, where I’m bored of working in the same job, that I only started as temp, to fill the time until I found what I really wanted to do. So I’m going to send out CV’s to as many places as I can, and I’m going to find my dream job!

Just on a side note I’d like to congratulate the England Cricket Team for regaining The Ashes yesterday! For those who don’t know, The Ashes Tournament takes place between Australia and England – notorious rivals when it comes to cricket. The Tournament winners get to keep a tiny urn containing the ashes of some stumps burnt after a game many years ago. I won’t bore you all with the details here, just in case you’re not cricket fans, but basically, we won The Ashes back after the Auzzies have had them for 16 years! This year’s team will be remembered for many years to come! GOOD JOB BOYS!!!!!