A Childhood Passed Over

As I sit here on my computer, approaching August, I think back over the past two months.

It's been a good time here in Oberlin for the summer, though very unproductive with respect to the interviews I was supposed to be conducting for my research. Nevertheless, I discovered the public library here is wonderful and though the first couple of books I checked out were serious, who was I fooling, I didn't want to be reading anything that required thought, I wanted some fun books. Ok, maybe fun is the wrong word, more like, can't put it down cause you want to know what happens next and a really quick read. It turned out that this was going to be a fairly easy task.

As it happens, I feel like I missed out on a bunch of those books that you're suppossed to read as a young adult. This was possibly a combination of poor book choices in my lovely school and the fact that I was probably reading above my grade level for as long as I can remember. I mean, when you're younger all you wanna do is read the same things that your cool sibling and neighbor are reading right? And when they are 4 years older than you, sometimes you miss that necessary young adult time. We did the summer reading program at the library every year, and managed to read books about animals and fun fantasy stuff. So I decided it was time to play catch up.

It started out with me wanting to read all of the Madeline L'Engle time series. I had somehow managed to read A Swiftly Tilting Planet after I picked it up at a used book sale, thinking the cover art was pretty, but said book is actually the last in the four part series, and I wanted to read all four in order. I also decided it was about time that I actually read all seven books of The Chronicles of Narnia, instead of just The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Included in this fun I'm finishing a series that has managed to penetrate my family so much that sometimes people use analogies from the books. And then, in a last moment of fun browsing the young adult fiction section, I found The Giver and Number the Stars.

I've enjoyed every minute of it, staying up late and reading instead of reading on interview techniques (I'm sure my advisor would not appreciate this post if she found it) and passing out on my bed, in my day clothes, on top of the covers, with music playing in the background, only to discover at some odd hour of the morning that Saki has come and closed my computer and turned off the lights. What a great housemate! Sometimes I wonder what I'm going to do without her, but that's for another post.

Hopefully though, I'll be able to accomplish much in the last month and while I'm in Texas, again another post, in terms of catching up on my childhood reading and my research. But regardless, at least I have discovered all these wonderful books that I will only be able to rediscover again in the future.

Although, I think next on the list is a book about running (what? Liz reading a book about running when zie hates to run?) that comes highly recommended from my sibling. Apparently Born to Run was lifechanging on the order of The Omnivore's Dilemma so I thought I would give it a shot. Woot. Maybe I'll have a better feeling towards running when I'm through with it. Maybe.