One of the themes I appreciate from All We Know of Love is travel as a wake-up call to self-absorbed teens. I remember a bit of a wake-up call in my life. I wouldn’t say I wasn’t well-traveled as a teen. I’d lived in Texas, Colorado and Alberta, Canada. I’d spent my summers across Canada and the U.S. My parents encouraged me to see things outside my world. I had all kinds of books about countries around the globe. I heard stories of my parents’ living in Hong Kong. I heard stories from my friends who lived in Iceland, Japan, and South America. And I was a kid who appreciated differences. When I traveled, I noticed the local architecture, tried the local food, tried (unsuccessfully) to introduce other regions’ fashions to my school at home. Still, during my 17th summer, I woke up.
I’d just stepped off the plane and into an airport in Scotland. And it hit me: Every day that I wake up and live my little American life alongside my American friends at my American school, this entire country is full of people waking up and living a life too. And they have never seen my school. And good grief, there are more than 100 more countries full of more people who’ve never seen my school. Who cares if I my hair looks crappy on the first day of my senior year?
How about you? Did travel ever wake you?
Saturday, September 18, 2010
New plan
I’m here, I’m here! And I have a reason why I’ve been AWOL.
You know how when you take something you love and make it into work, that thing you love becomes a chore? I discovered a few disturbing facts after starting this blog:
1. Devouring books started to feel stressful. Instead of purely enjoying it from cover to cover, I had to take notes and start thinking of how to approach and present a review of it. Not only was it not fun anymore, but it was also causing me to accumulate large stacks of overdue library books.
2. I don’t like reviewing books. I am not a literary author. Or any kind of author. What do I know? And if I actually finish a book, that means there’s something in there that I like and my personality is such that I want to focus on THAT and end every review with, “blah blah blah, but who cares? I still liked it.” If I really have a problem with a book, I just don’t bother reading it. I am a bad traditional book reviewer.
3. Those large stacks of overdue library books get expensive.
So, I’m trying something different. Brief reviews. Summary and a few informal thoughts. And a hope that I will still get faster at it. I can read a couple of books per day, but it seems to take me at least a week to post something about it. But I will keep persevering because I still like this idea. And I’m not one to throw in the towel. So keep tuning in.
You know how when you take something you love and make it into work, that thing you love becomes a chore? I discovered a few disturbing facts after starting this blog:
1. Devouring books started to feel stressful. Instead of purely enjoying it from cover to cover, I had to take notes and start thinking of how to approach and present a review of it. Not only was it not fun anymore, but it was also causing me to accumulate large stacks of overdue library books.
2. I don’t like reviewing books. I am not a literary author. Or any kind of author. What do I know? And if I actually finish a book, that means there’s something in there that I like and my personality is such that I want to focus on THAT and end every review with, “blah blah blah, but who cares? I still liked it.” If I really have a problem with a book, I just don’t bother reading it. I am a bad traditional book reviewer.
3. Those large stacks of overdue library books get expensive.
So, I’m trying something different. Brief reviews. Summary and a few informal thoughts. And a hope that I will still get faster at it. I can read a couple of books per day, but it seems to take me at least a week to post something about it. But I will keep persevering because I still like this idea. And I’m not one to throw in the towel. So keep tuning in.
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