something about old habits
Because I have spend the past two and a half years working on a degree in English, my friends and family back home assume I do a lot of reading. I guess that’s true, but for some reason I’ve fallen into the habit of only reading books that directly pertain to one of my classes. I think a lot of us are like this.
Yesterday, I made a slight exception: I read an entire novel in one sitting. I don’t think I’ve done that in years.
I must confess that it was somewhat work related. I work at the University Writing Center here and some of us are in touch with a former coworker, whose own students are participating in a sort of long-distance book club in which we will presumably exchange letters about books of the students’ choosing.
I have two–students and books–and yesterday I read Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney. Although it was something I normally might not pick up, I liked it. The book is ostensibly about capricious youth and drug use, but it ends up on touching on a number of things I didn’t expect (the details of which I’ll spare here–at least for the moment). After all, it’s the former that I’m assuming drew X student to the novel, but the latter that I actually am interested in talking about at this point at my life. Most importantly, I want to know what the experience of reading that book is like for someone who is 16 or 17 and definitely ready to get out of high school. And I’ll save what my experience was like to read this as a 26 year old for him.
I only bring this up because I am trying to get in the habit of writing here, and because I am tired I am not planning on pushing it too hard. I just want to write down that it was nice to start and finish something–especially something that won’t “count” and something I won’t write a paper on.
Tonight, I’ll start a book for me, and I’ll explain later.