Warning: Long Post Ahead. Proceed With Caution.

This is actually a much longer post than I anticipated, so if you want to get to the crux of it, feel free to skip the first few paragraphs.

*squeals, dances, spins, hugs, cries, collapses into bed and promptly falls asleep*

Some time later...

Hey, guys!!

OK, so you know how I was at Hogwarts, and had to fight to the death in this thing they called the Hunger Games, and then I got stuck in this tiny little room where my head was filled with numbers, counting off the days and wondering if and when I was going to die and-

Wait.  What do you mean none of that stuff happened to me?  They totally did!  Maybe my school wasn't magical, and maybe my fight to the death had nothing to do with a corrupt society and everything about actually making it into uni, and, OK, while I was counting down the days and weeks in my tiny little bedrom it had nothing to do with me possibly being executed - but the possibility of death did exist!  I could have died from - from - exhaustion, or stress, or revisionitis...You know, stuff like that.  The principles still apply!

Oh, fine.  They're nothing alike.  Although I could draw some interesting parallels between exams at school and the way the Hunger Games work, if you were interested.  But I can see you're not.  You're wondering if school has actually made me completely insane and when I'm going to get to the point of this post.

Some of you may have seen my unofficial announcement on Twitter - more of a painfully loud yell, really - that I am now done with school.  Finally, after months of essay practice, and after-school lessons, and my parents looking at me in shock when I told them what time I would be/had been getting up in the morning to work or revise, my exams are over - and not just exams; I am actually done with school in its entirety now.  I do have uni, but school itself as it stands is over.  We had our leavers' event yesterday evening, which was really nice - food, speeches, lots of photos, although I don't think it's really sunk in for most of us yet.  The day of my last exam, a couple of hours after I got home, I found myself wondering if my exams were truly over.  And it's hard to really grasp that yesterday I saw some of my friends, some of my peers, for the last time, and the others very near to the last time.

What this does mean, of course, is that I can also finally come back to my blog.  I seriously want to thank all of you for your patience, for being understanding and supportive, just for being your amazing selves.  I can't wait to start putting more stuff up here and making my way around your posts and, by extension, commenting to the point where all you'll see when you open up your inbox is my name.  And I know how much you can't wait for that. *smiles brightly*  I do have one more favour to ask you, however, which is to just bear with me for another week so that I have a chance to start getting into my galleys and writing those reviews. Since it is the holidays I'll be trying to post, if not every day, certainly as near to that as I can make it.

Also, do you guys remember that letter I wrote to Juliette as a way of trying something new?  Well, the response I got from that really overwhelmed me, so I decided to make it a monthly feature.  Each month I will write a letter to a character, most probably from a book I love.  So that's something new to look forward to.  I hope.

Finally, yesterday was my blogoversary! *throws confetti* I am so sorry I didn't have anything amazing lined up for you guys; my impatience and excitement at creating a blog last year prevented rational thinking about timing, and the result is these few lines at the end of a horrendously long post.  I can't believe it's been a year already.  The time has gone by so fast and I've made some incredible friends.  Thank you to each and every one of my readers.

If you've actually made it all the way through this post, I ♥ you and send you hugs and chocolate chip cookies.  But I send them anyway, because I can't imagine you really chose to sit and read through all of my rambling, and I love you.