I find that satirical cartoons such as the Simpsons and Family Guy have many humorous examples of intercontextuality. I have picked out a few of my favorite examples from Family guy:
• Pawtucket Pat Brewery episode “beer room song”- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxyny7ZzrHM
• Family guy’s banned joke about The Simpsons http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYtlCR0V4cM
• You cant touch Me(from the Petoria Episode)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDw9y2zFIF8
The first one is definitely one of my favorite examples of intercontextuality in family guy. It is a play on the scene from the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In this episode, Peter, the main character finds the final golden ticket for a tour of the Pawtucket Pat brewery in a beer bottle. He goes on a quest to find one by drinking tons of beer and on his final beer, when things aren’t looking to hot for him, he drinks his last beer and proceeds to puke up the final golden ticket. They also make fun of the scene where Willy Wonka comes out of the factory limping then dives and rolls and pops up perfectly fine. Well in family guy, Cheech Marin drives by and shoots Pawtucket pat, only to find that it was all a joke. The link that I provided is a parody to the song that Wonka sings in his candy room right when they enter the factory.
The next one makes fun of the Simpsons, which was retaliation for the Simpsons making fun of Family Guy. There have been many examples of the shows making fun of each other as an example of intercontextuality.
The Final link is a parody of MC Hammer’s “U cant touch this”. Its vey funny and well crafted. He also takes a direct shot at hammer in the rap.
In summary, Family Guy does a great job of incorporating and satirizing popular culture into their own show.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
I am eighty eight pages into this book and I have yet to be hooked. I don’t know what it is, but I just am not interested. His writing style is extremely detailed and I feel like I kind of get lost in the descriptions. If it were not for the author breaking up the novel into fairly short chapters, it would be very difficult to digest. I feel like his extremely detailed style is great for certain situations but I really don’t like how it continues throughout the book. I felt very involved in the in the novel at first because it seemed like he was bringing the audience into his life with description. Unfortunately it just continues on into the rest of the book.
The author of ‘Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name” did a great job keeping me hooked the entire time. She used the same technique of the very short chapters. Unfortunately I am not as interested in Blue Highways. I was really not into the subject matter in the first book but the writing style kept me hooked. With this novel, I am really interested in the subject manner and the idea of a solo road trip, but his style just bores me. With this novel, I tend to find myself having to reread things because I just lose myself in my own thoughts while reading and as a result, I don’t retain much. I just really am not hooked.
I am hoping that eventually I will find something that catches my interest but its not looking good. I am still trying to keep an open mind about where this book will go. I am hoping that eventually ill get interested in this book. Well see how it develops from here on out.
The author of ‘Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name” did a great job keeping me hooked the entire time. She used the same technique of the very short chapters. Unfortunately I am not as interested in Blue Highways. I was really not into the subject matter in the first book but the writing style kept me hooked. With this novel, I am really interested in the subject manner and the idea of a solo road trip, but his style just bores me. With this novel, I tend to find myself having to reread things because I just lose myself in my own thoughts while reading and as a result, I don’t retain much. I just really am not hooked.
I am hoping that eventually I will find something that catches my interest but its not looking good. I am still trying to keep an open mind about where this book will go. I am hoping that eventually ill get interested in this book. Well see how it develops from here on out.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Rough Draft
Matt Condron
English 112
Rough draft
Olivia and Clarissa: A Chip off the Old Block
Clarissa is unknowingly walking in her mother’s footsteps. Her actions mirror Olivia’s in many ways and it will ultimately make her life more difficult. Clarissa’s decision-making abilities are extremely twisted due to her mother’s actions. Her psyche is depressing and angering. Clarissa and her mother are perfect examples of the fight or flight response: they flee and never face their problems.
Olivia’s parenting seemed questionable from the start of the book. As Clarissa explains how her mother would not keep friends for more than a month or two, it was obvious that her relationship skills were not that of a normal woman’s. Everyone seemed to love Olivia, but she seemed to love no one but a cat. The parental detachment that I felt as a reader was simply pathetic. Clarissa was competing for her mother’s affection with a stray cat; and the cat won. I feel like this experience as a child led Clarissa to fail in her own relationships. Take for example her altercation with Pankaj. Did he really do anything wrong? I held on to a secret that was not his to tell. Other than that it seems that he was a loving and caring fiancée. It seems to me that her anger with him was not so much over the secret about her father, but more about the fact that when something goes wrong in her life, she blames someone and runs. Pankaj was just the most convenient scapegoat. I don’t think that it is her fault necessarily. From a young age, she watched her mother make friends and routinely dump them. Clarissa does not take much issue with fleeing from someone that loves her.
Throughout the book, we see that Clarissa’s inter-monologue is impatient and usually frustrated with the people around her. She is full of self-pity. I believe that she also gets this from her mother. Olivia left multiple lives behind because they were torturing her. She was raising a daughter of rape and a mentally challenged son with a man that we are left to assume she did not love. It sounds horrible, but the whole situation was under her control. She had no control over the rape or how her son turned out, but she did not HAVE to run off and marry a man that she did not love. But she did. She ran from her situation in Lapland only to be put in another situation in New York. And when things began to wear on her in New York, she picked up and left just as she had left so many friends. This is a cowardly move that I believe was instilled in Clarissa. They cannot stand and face their problems. Both mother and daughter have mistaken cowardice and inconsideration with manifest destiny.
Clarissa and her mother both ignore others for their own happiness. I feel that throughout the whole book there is an undercurrent of selfishness. Clarissa only focuses on her own feelings. She seeks the attention of her father when she believes that he is Ereo, and then her mother when she finds out her mother may still be alive. She really refuses to consider any of the collateral damage that she creates by leaving pankaj, messing around with Kari, creating relationships with anna Kristine and henrik. She basically just wreaked havoc on all of Lapland without any remorse. And what does she do at the the end? She runs. Leaves the country to start a new life. Some may find this as empowering but I find it cowardly.
Olivia did many hurtful things in her life as a mother. As a result her daughter, Clarissa, followed in her footsteps by breaking hearts, leaving town, and disappearing into foreign countries. Clarissa became her mother even though it was the one thing she strove not to do. We can only hope that Clarissa becomes a better mother than Olivia was. Unfortunately this book has proven that the old saying rings true: The apple does not fall far from the tree.
English 112
Rough draft
Olivia and Clarissa: A Chip off the Old Block
Clarissa is unknowingly walking in her mother’s footsteps. Her actions mirror Olivia’s in many ways and it will ultimately make her life more difficult. Clarissa’s decision-making abilities are extremely twisted due to her mother’s actions. Her psyche is depressing and angering. Clarissa and her mother are perfect examples of the fight or flight response: they flee and never face their problems.
Olivia’s parenting seemed questionable from the start of the book. As Clarissa explains how her mother would not keep friends for more than a month or two, it was obvious that her relationship skills were not that of a normal woman’s. Everyone seemed to love Olivia, but she seemed to love no one but a cat. The parental detachment that I felt as a reader was simply pathetic. Clarissa was competing for her mother’s affection with a stray cat; and the cat won. I feel like this experience as a child led Clarissa to fail in her own relationships. Take for example her altercation with Pankaj. Did he really do anything wrong? I held on to a secret that was not his to tell. Other than that it seems that he was a loving and caring fiancée. It seems to me that her anger with him was not so much over the secret about her father, but more about the fact that when something goes wrong in her life, she blames someone and runs. Pankaj was just the most convenient scapegoat. I don’t think that it is her fault necessarily. From a young age, she watched her mother make friends and routinely dump them. Clarissa does not take much issue with fleeing from someone that loves her.
Throughout the book, we see that Clarissa’s inter-monologue is impatient and usually frustrated with the people around her. She is full of self-pity. I believe that she also gets this from her mother. Olivia left multiple lives behind because they were torturing her. She was raising a daughter of rape and a mentally challenged son with a man that we are left to assume she did not love. It sounds horrible, but the whole situation was under her control. She had no control over the rape or how her son turned out, but she did not HAVE to run off and marry a man that she did not love. But she did. She ran from her situation in Lapland only to be put in another situation in New York. And when things began to wear on her in New York, she picked up and left just as she had left so many friends. This is a cowardly move that I believe was instilled in Clarissa. They cannot stand and face their problems. Both mother and daughter have mistaken cowardice and inconsideration with manifest destiny.
Clarissa and her mother both ignore others for their own happiness. I feel that throughout the whole book there is an undercurrent of selfishness. Clarissa only focuses on her own feelings. She seeks the attention of her father when she believes that he is Ereo, and then her mother when she finds out her mother may still be alive. She really refuses to consider any of the collateral damage that she creates by leaving pankaj, messing around with Kari, creating relationships with anna Kristine and henrik. She basically just wreaked havoc on all of Lapland without any remorse. And what does she do at the the end? She runs. Leaves the country to start a new life. Some may find this as empowering but I find it cowardly.
Olivia did many hurtful things in her life as a mother. As a result her daughter, Clarissa, followed in her footsteps by breaking hearts, leaving town, and disappearing into foreign countries. Clarissa became her mother even though it was the one thing she strove not to do. We can only hope that Clarissa becomes a better mother than Olivia was. Unfortunately this book has proven that the old saying rings true: The apple does not fall far from the tree.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name
The book:
After reading this book, I feel nothing but disappointment. The ending is incredibly anticlimactic. I was extremely curious throughout the entire book just to be left almost angry with Clarissa. She basically follows in her mother’s footsteps for the entirety of the book and at the end I expected her to realize the amount of pain and trauma she caused as well as endured. I felt a lot of sympathy for Pankaj and she just kind of left him out to dry. I was left feeling that she is just a bad person.
The end of the book makes it seem like Clarissa is a hero. She successfully avoids her past and disappears into Hong Kong and raises her child with another man. It just does not sit well with me. I feel that this was the cowardly thing to do. This is a real border for me as a reader. I am not sure why this is an issue, possibly because of my gender. I really sympathize with Pankaj. She just took off with his child. The author tries to cover that up with saying that the child could go back and visit her father when shes old enough, but is it really fair that he cannot have any say in his child’s upbringing. So far as we know, the child will probably end up just like her mother. She will never face her problems.
Clarissa finds her mother, and realizes how unhappy she actually is inside. What bothers me about this is that immediately after leaving her miserable mother’s side, she continues in her footsteps. Clarissa picks up, leaves the country, finds a husband, and raises her child with another man. It feels like the author is rewriting the same story from the mother’s perspective. I find it annoying that the book leaves Clarissa doing the exact same thing her mother did. The author attempts to show her actions in a better light, but I feel she is just continuing to make harmful decisions. I was left feeling that the main character is a selfish and cowardly person. She never faces her problems and I do not like that. This is another border for me. I simply do not understand how someone can be ok with simply running from her struggles in life.
Overall I am severely disappointed in this book. I thought that Clarissa would finally break the cycle that her mother put in motion. Instead she seems to simply be furthering it by leaving, and possibly passing it down to her child.
The paper:
I feel like I would like to analyze how her mother’s actions have shaped Clarissa’s decision-making ability. My paper would focus on the psychological side of this book. Clarissa has strongly been affected by her mother’s decisions and I would like to examine how that has reflected on Clarissa’s decision making over the course of her life. There are obvious correlations, but I want to look more at the last few pages of the book. The author tries to show Clarissa’s actions at the end of the novel, such as moving to Hong Kong and finding an Australian man, as positive, but I do not see it that way. I feel that she is simply continuing to make poor decisions that will eventually catch up to her. And when those things catch up to her there is really only one thing that she’ll do. Run.
After reading this book, I feel nothing but disappointment. The ending is incredibly anticlimactic. I was extremely curious throughout the entire book just to be left almost angry with Clarissa. She basically follows in her mother’s footsteps for the entirety of the book and at the end I expected her to realize the amount of pain and trauma she caused as well as endured. I felt a lot of sympathy for Pankaj and she just kind of left him out to dry. I was left feeling that she is just a bad person.
The end of the book makes it seem like Clarissa is a hero. She successfully avoids her past and disappears into Hong Kong and raises her child with another man. It just does not sit well with me. I feel that this was the cowardly thing to do. This is a real border for me as a reader. I am not sure why this is an issue, possibly because of my gender. I really sympathize with Pankaj. She just took off with his child. The author tries to cover that up with saying that the child could go back and visit her father when shes old enough, but is it really fair that he cannot have any say in his child’s upbringing. So far as we know, the child will probably end up just like her mother. She will never face her problems.
Clarissa finds her mother, and realizes how unhappy she actually is inside. What bothers me about this is that immediately after leaving her miserable mother’s side, she continues in her footsteps. Clarissa picks up, leaves the country, finds a husband, and raises her child with another man. It feels like the author is rewriting the same story from the mother’s perspective. I find it annoying that the book leaves Clarissa doing the exact same thing her mother did. The author attempts to show her actions in a better light, but I feel she is just continuing to make harmful decisions. I was left feeling that the main character is a selfish and cowardly person. She never faces her problems and I do not like that. This is another border for me. I simply do not understand how someone can be ok with simply running from her struggles in life.
Overall I am severely disappointed in this book. I thought that Clarissa would finally break the cycle that her mother put in motion. Instead she seems to simply be furthering it by leaving, and possibly passing it down to her child.
The paper:
I feel like I would like to analyze how her mother’s actions have shaped Clarissa’s decision-making ability. My paper would focus on the psychological side of this book. Clarissa has strongly been affected by her mother’s decisions and I would like to examine how that has reflected on Clarissa’s decision making over the course of her life. There are obvious correlations, but I want to look more at the last few pages of the book. The author tries to show Clarissa’s actions at the end of the novel, such as moving to Hong Kong and finding an Australian man, as positive, but I do not see it that way. I feel that she is simply continuing to make poor decisions that will eventually catch up to her. And when those things catch up to her there is really only one thing that she’ll do. Run.
The book:
After reading this book, I feel nothing but disappointment. The ending is incredibly anticlimactic. I was extremely curious throughout the entire book just to be left almost angry with Clarissa. She basically follows in her mother’s footsteps for the entirety of the book and at the end I expected her to realize the amount of pain and trauma she caused as well as endured. I felt a lot of sympathy for Pankaj and she just kind of left him out to dry. I was left feeling that she is just a bad person.
The end of the book makes it seem like Clarissa is a hero. She successfully avoids her past and disappears into Hong Kong and raises her child with another man. It just does not sit well with me. I feel that this was the cowardly thing to do. This is a real border for me as a reader. I am not sure why this is an issue, possibly because of my gender. I really sympathize with Pankaj. She just took off with his child. The author tries to cover that up with saying that the child could go back and visit her father when shes old enough, but is it really fair that he cannot have any say in his child’s upbringing. So far as we know, the child will probably end up just like her mother. She will never face her problems.
Clarissa finds her mother, and realizes how unhappy she actually is inside. What bothers me about this is that immediately after leaving her miserable mother’s side, she continues in her footsteps. Clarissa picks up, leaves the country, finds a husband, and raises her child with another man. It feels like the author is rewriting the same story from the mother’s perspective. I find it annoying that the book leaves Clarissa doing the exact same thing her mother did. The author attempts to show her actions in a better light, but I feel she is just continuing to make harmful decisions. I was left feeling that the main character is a selfish and cowardly person. She never faces her problems and I do not like that. This is another border for me. I simply do not understand how someone can be ok with simply running from her struggles in life.
Overall I am severely disappointed in this book. I thought that Clarissa would finally break the cycle that her mother put in motion. Instead she seems to simply be furthering it by leaving, and possibly passing it down to her child.
The paper:
I feel like I would like to analyze how her mother’s actions have shaped Clarissa’s decision-making ability. My paper would focus on the psychological side of this book. Clarissa has strongly been affected by her mother’s decisions and I would like to examine how that has reflected on Clarissa’s decision making over the course of her life. There are obvious correlations, but I want to look more at the last few pages of the book. The author tries to show Clarissa’s actions at the end of the novel, such as moving to Hong Kong and finding an Australian man, as positive, but I do not see it that way. I feel that she is simply continuing to make poor decisions that will eventually catch up to her. And when those things catch up to her there is really only one thing that she’ll do. Run.
After reading this book, I feel nothing but disappointment. The ending is incredibly anticlimactic. I was extremely curious throughout the entire book just to be left almost angry with Clarissa. She basically follows in her mother’s footsteps for the entirety of the book and at the end I expected her to realize the amount of pain and trauma she caused as well as endured. I felt a lot of sympathy for Pankaj and she just kind of left him out to dry. I was left feeling that she is just a bad person.
The end of the book makes it seem like Clarissa is a hero. She successfully avoids her past and disappears into Hong Kong and raises her child with another man. It just does not sit well with me. I feel that this was the cowardly thing to do. This is a real border for me as a reader. I am not sure why this is an issue, possibly because of my gender. I really sympathize with Pankaj. She just took off with his child. The author tries to cover that up with saying that the child could go back and visit her father when shes old enough, but is it really fair that he cannot have any say in his child’s upbringing. So far as we know, the child will probably end up just like her mother. She will never face her problems.
Clarissa finds her mother, and realizes how unhappy she actually is inside. What bothers me about this is that immediately after leaving her miserable mother’s side, she continues in her footsteps. Clarissa picks up, leaves the country, finds a husband, and raises her child with another man. It feels like the author is rewriting the same story from the mother’s perspective. I find it annoying that the book leaves Clarissa doing the exact same thing her mother did. The author attempts to show her actions in a better light, but I feel she is just continuing to make harmful decisions. I was left feeling that the main character is a selfish and cowardly person. She never faces her problems and I do not like that. This is another border for me. I simply do not understand how someone can be ok with simply running from her struggles in life.
Overall I am severely disappointed in this book. I thought that Clarissa would finally break the cycle that her mother put in motion. Instead she seems to simply be furthering it by leaving, and possibly passing it down to her child.
The paper:
I feel like I would like to analyze how her mother’s actions have shaped Clarissa’s decision-making ability. My paper would focus on the psychological side of this book. Clarissa has strongly been affected by her mother’s decisions and I would like to examine how that has reflected on Clarissa’s decision making over the course of her life. There are obvious correlations, but I want to look more at the last few pages of the book. The author tries to show Clarissa’s actions at the end of the novel, such as moving to Hong Kong and finding an Australian man, as positive, but I do not see it that way. I feel that she is simply continuing to make poor decisions that will eventually catch up to her. And when those things catch up to her there is really only one thing that she’ll do. Run.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
I cannot put this book down. After reading the second part of the novel I can’t help but wonder where it is going.
I really enjoy how this book is out of chronological order. Most of my favorite, and many of the best movies are shot this way, and I feel this is the reason that I am really glued to the pages. Vida sets us up kind of in the middle of the action. But it’s the middle of the action at two separate points in time: with her fiancé and while on the train. I am really enjoying how she slowly fills in the back-story as the present time rolls on in every other chapter. She is leaving me trying to piece things together and always wondering what’s next.
The background about her mother leaving and how she coped with it is an essential element in her character. The ability to just pick up and leave is in her blood. Her mom did it. She did it looking for her mother. It just seemed too easy. It was one of those things that just didn’t really sit well with me. I could not do that. I guess that is a gap. I have never had anyone run out on me, and I have never done it to someone else. Therefore I cannot fathom what it would feel like or how I would cope. Another thing that is just kind of eating at me was the story of her mother kissing the drunk. The author just kind of slides that in there without any real explanation. It leaves me to wonder why exactly the mother was so unhappy and so compelled to leave.
Frankly I could not believe she found her father so quickly. I thought that the journey for her father would drag out much longer than it did. I felt that the author was going to take the book in a completely different direction. My guess would have been that she finds her father late in the book after failing in the first town she tries. Then she would finally track him down and gain some vital piece of information about her mother. This info would be basically useless to the father but would help Clarissa piece everything together and find out where her mother disappeared. And now that I know that isn’t really the case, I cannot help but wonder, where is this going?
I really enjoy how this book is out of chronological order. Most of my favorite, and many of the best movies are shot this way, and I feel this is the reason that I am really glued to the pages. Vida sets us up kind of in the middle of the action. But it’s the middle of the action at two separate points in time: with her fiancé and while on the train. I am really enjoying how she slowly fills in the back-story as the present time rolls on in every other chapter. She is leaving me trying to piece things together and always wondering what’s next.
The background about her mother leaving and how she coped with it is an essential element in her character. The ability to just pick up and leave is in her blood. Her mom did it. She did it looking for her mother. It just seemed too easy. It was one of those things that just didn’t really sit well with me. I could not do that. I guess that is a gap. I have never had anyone run out on me, and I have never done it to someone else. Therefore I cannot fathom what it would feel like or how I would cope. Another thing that is just kind of eating at me was the story of her mother kissing the drunk. The author just kind of slides that in there without any real explanation. It leaves me to wonder why exactly the mother was so unhappy and so compelled to leave.
Frankly I could not believe she found her father so quickly. I thought that the journey for her father would drag out much longer than it did. I felt that the author was going to take the book in a completely different direction. My guess would have been that she finds her father late in the book after failing in the first town she tries. Then she would finally track him down and gain some vital piece of information about her mother. This info would be basically useless to the father but would help Clarissa piece everything together and find out where her mother disappeared. And now that I know that isn’t really the case, I cannot help but wonder, where is this going?
Monday, January 26, 2009
I have always considered myself a “good reader”. I do well with comprehension, I read quickly and I have read a fair amount of books. But there is one small flaw in this equation: I do not read enough anymore.
In my younger years I was a reading fanatic. I remember my first “chapter book” as we used to call them. It was a series of GI Joe World War II stories. I remember my favorite of them all. GI Joe and the Storming of Iwa Jima. It came with a toy dogtag. I loved it. From there I started reading series such as The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids and Animorphs. After that came the Harry Potter series and a few Tom Clancy novels. Simply put, I loved to read.
Once I reached about the 7th grade reading became a chore. I don’t think it was necessarily that I lost interest; it was just that feeling that if the school required a book report after I read it, I couldn’t enjoy it. For a few years, sans the Harry Potter’s every so often, my pleasure reading vanished.
High School took my view of reading and skewed it even more. After tediously studying literature in the historical context for four years, my aversion to “wasting my time reading” was stronger than ever. It was only over the summer that I ever really had a chance to enjoy reading. I read maybe one book a year that was not required. Which paled in comparison to how much I used to read.
Over my high school years I only really remember two books that I read for enjoyment. They were both highly entertaining but only moderately informational. I read Bill Murray’s book about Caddying. Entertaining as it was, I didn’t gain a whole lot of insight into the world of golf. Freakonomics became one of my favorite books though. I had yet to take actual economics class and I gained so many abstract ideas about how perceptions and stereotypes influence the economy. It kept my mind completely open while studying actual economics my senior year. That was when I realized how reading on my own could transfer into my academics and into everyday life.
I wish I could say that was the turning point in my life and I started to read like a madman, but I sadly cannot. I longed to read but I just never made time for it. I was a busy man. From 6 am to 1030 pm everyday I was occupied. High school was the busiest time of my life thus far. Reading naturally got pushed to the back of my mind. This summer I worked a lot as well. Therefore I only read sporadically, never really completing an entire book. But every time I pick up something that I am not required to read, I am reminded of how much I love it and wish that I could read more often.
I have found that I can sit at a desk and read critically and interpret what the deeper message is and so on. But I really would rather just simply sit in my bed and spend an hour or two enjoying the book. I feel that for the most part, in both high school and college, I have been reading critically and it’s basically just more of the workload. I know that reading as work is inescapable, but I would really just like to enjoy it from now on. I have read the first section of Blue Highways and I did find myself liking it. So maybe this is the start of a new era in my reading. Maybe I will look back on these novels with the fondness that I recall my childhood ones.
In my younger years I was a reading fanatic. I remember my first “chapter book” as we used to call them. It was a series of GI Joe World War II stories. I remember my favorite of them all. GI Joe and the Storming of Iwa Jima. It came with a toy dogtag. I loved it. From there I started reading series such as The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids and Animorphs. After that came the Harry Potter series and a few Tom Clancy novels. Simply put, I loved to read.
Once I reached about the 7th grade reading became a chore. I don’t think it was necessarily that I lost interest; it was just that feeling that if the school required a book report after I read it, I couldn’t enjoy it. For a few years, sans the Harry Potter’s every so often, my pleasure reading vanished.
High School took my view of reading and skewed it even more. After tediously studying literature in the historical context for four years, my aversion to “wasting my time reading” was stronger than ever. It was only over the summer that I ever really had a chance to enjoy reading. I read maybe one book a year that was not required. Which paled in comparison to how much I used to read.
Over my high school years I only really remember two books that I read for enjoyment. They were both highly entertaining but only moderately informational. I read Bill Murray’s book about Caddying. Entertaining as it was, I didn’t gain a whole lot of insight into the world of golf. Freakonomics became one of my favorite books though. I had yet to take actual economics class and I gained so many abstract ideas about how perceptions and stereotypes influence the economy. It kept my mind completely open while studying actual economics my senior year. That was when I realized how reading on my own could transfer into my academics and into everyday life.
I wish I could say that was the turning point in my life and I started to read like a madman, but I sadly cannot. I longed to read but I just never made time for it. I was a busy man. From 6 am to 1030 pm everyday I was occupied. High school was the busiest time of my life thus far. Reading naturally got pushed to the back of my mind. This summer I worked a lot as well. Therefore I only read sporadically, never really completing an entire book. But every time I pick up something that I am not required to read, I am reminded of how much I love it and wish that I could read more often.
I have found that I can sit at a desk and read critically and interpret what the deeper message is and so on. But I really would rather just simply sit in my bed and spend an hour or two enjoying the book. I feel that for the most part, in both high school and college, I have been reading critically and it’s basically just more of the workload. I know that reading as work is inescapable, but I would really just like to enjoy it from now on. I have read the first section of Blue Highways and I did find myself liking it. So maybe this is the start of a new era in my reading. Maybe I will look back on these novels with the fondness that I recall my childhood ones.
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