When I was younger, my mom used to always read to my younger siblings and me before bedtime. It was something that we all looked forward to because I think that stories really tend to spark the imagination of little kids and the pictures are always really colorful and entertaining. As a little kid, I loved the books that had those textures to feel as you read like “Feel how soft the puppy’s fur is” and “Feel the roughness of the kitten’s tongue.” Then you’d get to feel furry stuff and sandpaper. Anyways, as I got older and my terrible procrastination completely evident by the fourth grade, reading became more of a chore than a pleasure. During the summer months when my sibs and I were out of school, my mom made us read for a half an hour to an hour before we could do anything fun, so in my mind, forcing me to read made reading seem like a “negative” experience. In school, no books could really hold my attention and I’d just put reading off until it was too much to handle. And that’s how it’s been ever since.
Sparknotes and I became good friends and I was able to get away with its summaries all through high school. With the exception of A Clockwork Orange, I never read an assigned book all the way through in high school, or a leisure book for that matter. I would start a book, then not keep up with the readings, and eventually feel too far behind to keep up. Classic books were mostly boring to me and I felt like because they were all before my time I couldn’t really connect to the characters very well. I don’t know what it was about A Clockwork Orange that intrigued me but thought that it was a really cool book. My book didn’t come with that slang dictionary in the back, so I had to figure out this new language myself and I did. It was fun to realize what our minds are capable of picking up and understanding. I still remember that “slooshying” means “listening.”
Even though I’m not so keen on books, I do enjoy reading magazines. I feel like magazines always find a way to be addicting to readers because they are so specific in their audience. Cosmo tends to hook me quickly and I’ll get lost in reading its articles for hours on end. I usually curl up on my bed to read it and pretty much anything. My room is quiet and I can better focus with less distractions. I can get so easily distracted when I’m reading because I most likely would rather be doing something else. So when I’m reading important stuff for school like BMZ or books for English class, I need to have a quiet and boring environment so that reading seems to be the most entertaining thing to do at the time. I prefer reading alone because I get distracted by people and will trail from reading the book and start talking about the weekend or the weather. However, I do enjoy group studying in a group to some degree because usually everyone else is pretty focused on studying and that helps me to focus also.
Since starting college my approach to reading has changed only somewhat. I buckle down more to read because it’s more crucial to read all your class materials in college so you don’t fail and end up a bum on the streets. There’s a lot less class time so you kind of have to read if you want to understand anything. Finding motivation has also been a change for me. Now that I have an idea of what I want to do with my life, it makes reading more worthwhile because in the end, it will help you achieve your career goals. Maybe sometime soon I’ll look into finding some novels to read for fun. I hear that the Marley and Me books are pretty good and it’s about a dog so I’d probably like that. I guess it seems that I never really gave reading a chance. I never tried hard enough to find texts that interested me or to have a positive outlook on the books that didn’t interest me in high school. Hopefully this semester I can try to revamp my attitude on books and reading so that reading can be an activity that I look forward to instead of dread.
PS. Here's a couple pics of one of my fosters, Marfield.
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