Happy Birthday Bram Stoker! (plus vague life updates)

I'm not dead! 

Alright, I know that not nearly enough people read my blog to spawn actual internet death rumours, but 86 days is a pretty long time to not post ANYTHING.

So here's a bit of a follow on from my results day post:

I'm at university! I find this concept endlessly thrilling, so I'm just going to say it again. I am AT UNIVERSITY.

I am writing this in the library, where I'm meant to be researching a Robinson Crusoe essay. I keep getting distracted because it looks like Hogwarts. See what I mean?

Actual view from my desk right now

When I look out of my bedroom window I see this:

and also this:

Both those photos were taken at times when I almost certainly should have been asleep (i.e. 5am). I'm getting increasingly nocturnal and spend the nights roaming the corridors like something out of The Shining.

I'm loving the course (I'm studying English Lit - not exactly surprising), I'm loving the people, and I'm loving that the bartender in my favourite pub looks exactly like Kurt Cobain. 

Right. Now that you actually know things about my life again, DOWN TO BUSINESS.

As anyone who's seen the Google doodle will know, today is Bram Stoker's birthday!

Many happy returns to our favourite ginger Irishman!

This would be his 165th birthday if he hadn't died in 1912, making him still a couple of centuries younger than his famous vampire creation.

To celebrate, I suggest you all go away and read Dracula's Guest, a short story published two years after Stoker's death - it's said to be the original first chapter of Dracula that was cut by Stoker's publishers.

If you just can't go on without more Bram-related tidbits, check out these old posts:

• [ESSAY] 'In Bram Stoker's Dracula how is the theme of isolation explored through the characters?'
• [PICTURES] Whitby: a Dracula Photo Tour
• [LINKS] I trawl the internet so you don't have to!

Happy haunting!

P.S. If anyone happens to have $60,000 - $80,000 lying around and doesn't know what to buy me for Christmas, Bram Stoker's desk has been restored and is up for sale! Read more here.