I had an interesting thought today, which I thought I'd share.
During my three-year History degree I always found the weeks leading up to the Easter holidays very stressful, as during out Easter break we always had essays to write at home, using a minimum of 15 books.
This is all fair enough as I was doing a History degree after all. However, problems arose due to the fact that my parents lived in Guernsey, and I had to somehow figure out a way of transporting the required material home on a plane from Bristol (whilst avoiding crazy airport excess luggage fees).
Usually I would phone my parents and request once again that they just stop faffing about on a silly Island, move back to England and come pick me up (plus all my books) in a car like normal (loving) parents.
This never went down too well, so I was always forced to run around photocopying material, scanning articles and checking online whether books I needed were held in Guernsey (they never were, just incase you were wondering) (Seriously, not even once).
I fear that writing this blog entry is stirring up old feelings of resentment towards the lovely Isle of Guernsey and it's widely inadequate library service, so I'll move swiftly onto the pubishing/book industry point I want to make...My life would have been so much easier with the Kindle.
I always used to laugh when my mother told me how, when she was at university, she used to queue up in the corridor (along with dozens of other girls) to use the one payphone in the building to call her parents once a week. I used to listen to this smugly holding my mobile phone.
I have a strong feeling that one day, if I have children, they will almost certainly laugh incredulously at my tales of having to lug real books home to complete essays, no doubt smugly holding devices of the future from which they can access every book ever published. I'm jealous already...!
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