Reading and Red Eye Shifts

It's late, and I'm starting to get tired.

I'm back at school, working my weekly overnight shift at the Switchboard.  Oddly enough, I don't mind working from 11pm-7am.  For starters, Sunday evenings are typically reserved as the day when the campus actually quiets down from the weekend's parties and gets serious about all that they didn't accomplish on Saturday.  Because of this, my nights are very quiet.  I have a solid eight hours to do whatever I want or need to do, as long as I stay at the desk and set door alarms hourly.  I'm free to use my laptop, watch TV or movies, work on homework, read...

Reading. *sigh* I cherish using this time to read: I am passionate about books.  Literature has shaped me in so many ways since as long as I can remember.  I believe that the unconscious current for my study of Bibliotherapy is the hope that I will be better able to pass the torch of self-discovery through books on to others.

Yet, since moving to college in 2009, I haven't had much time to read.  This is a problem.  I am most out of touch with myself when I don't read.  Literature grounds me into my identity, reinforces who and what I strive to be.  Without it, I sometimes find myself in limbo; the worst and most difficult parts of my life have also been times when I can't immerse myself in books.

Now, because I am studying Literature, I am assigned books to read– I'm not entirely starving for words.  However, there is a marked difference in books I read because I have to, and the books I read because I want to.  Sometimes a book I am assigned is something on my list of books to read, or an old favorite.  For example, a couple of weeks ago, my American Lit class read My Ántonia.  I adore Willa Cather, and was happy to have a chance to re-read one of my favorite novels.  Also, for my Honors seminar, we have to read The Brothers Karamazov.  I am likewise excited to read Dostoevsky's masterpiece in its entirety, as I have never had a chance to finish the book.

I've decided to compile a relatively short list of books that I would like to start (and finish!) before the end of the semester.  I tend to go way over the top when it comes to literature; I mean, I was on first name basis with all the librarians at the local library, which was practically my second home.  I am a textbook-case bibliophile.  I would often have 30 or 40 items checked out at a time, and I am also the only person I know of who has been reprimanded for having too many inter-library loans (I exceeded the 150 item limit my second semester at college).  Because of my over-zealous love for books, (and the fact that I need to keep up with my classes) I am hoping to keep myself in check with a realistic goal for the semester.

(The following descriptions are from various synopses I've picked up online... I didn't write them).

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

This book "recounts the journey that led Mortenson from a failed 1993 attempt to climb Pakistan's K2, the world's second highest mountain, to successfully establish schools in some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  By replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading, Mortenson combines his unique background with his intimate knowledge of the third-world to promote peace with books, not bombs, and successfully bring education and hope to remote communities in central Asia."

Little Princes by Conor Grennan

"In search of adventure, 29-year-old Conor Grennan traded his day job for a year-long trip around the globe, a journey that began with a three-month stint volunteering at the Little Princes Children’s Home, an orphanage in war-torn Nepal.  He was soon overcome by the herd of rambunctious, resilient children who would challenge and reward him in a way that he had never imagined. When Conor learned the unthinkable truth about their situation, he was stunned: The children were not orphans at all. Child traffickers were promising families in remote villages to protect their children from the civil war—for a huge fee—by taking them to safety. They would then abandon the children far from home, in the chaos of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

For Conor, what began as a footloose adventure becomes a commitment to reunite the children he had grown to love with their families, but this would be no small task. He would risk his life on a journey through the legendary mountains of Nepal, facing the dangers of a bloody civil war and a debilitating injury."