I used to hate reading...

So, once upon a time I was a kid... and when I was a kid I went to school. At school there was this dreaded thing that happened everyday... English class. When I was really young I actually looked forward to English class, I don't really remember why, but I thought it would be great to learn lots of new words... I had no interest in learning how to spell them, just how to use them! At any rate, with the inception of English class... masquerading as "Language Arts" in 4th grade I got my first taste of a class I would hate for the next eight years.

I think the main reason I didn't like English class was because I had no control over what I was reading. If I was reading a book for class I didn't really have time to read a book of my choosing on the side. So, reading for pleasure took a backseat to getting acceptable grades. I can't really remember many of the books I read for English class throughout middle and high school, until 12th grade that is. I do remember Number the Stars because I loved it, and The Scarlet Letter because I hated it! Aside from that I don't remember much. I'm sure its because I was being forced to read, and I hate being forced to do anything.

Well, as luck would have it, in 12th grade my school offered AP English... a class I was extremely under qualified for. (or should I say "A class for which I was extremely under qualified"... English is so confusing!) My three best friends, whose confidence with English far outshone mine, wanted to take the AP class. Fortunately, there was no entrance exam, though there probably should have been. But why would any student sign up for such a challenging class if they weren't up for it? Sigh, peer pressure, ain't it a bitch?

At any rate, I started to love reading again in that class. Even though I had no idea what an adverb was or a reference error, at least I could keep up. I even skipped half a day of classes once hiding out in the aud to finish reading a book... I think it was Tess of the Durbervilles, and I didn't even like that book, but I was really committed to that class. My teacher, Ms. Ellis, was down right inspiring. She told me she couldn't even give me a grade on my first written assignment because it was so hopelessly flawed! After rewriting it with her suggestions I still only got a C... I had to work hard in that class... that woman had standards, and she wasn't going to lower them, even for a wretch like me!

At any rate. If you have been checking my Book Reviews posting then you may have noticed that beginning in January I fell in love with reading again. I didn't read too much in college... too much "work" to do. But over the last year or so I have been warming up to books again, and I am now addicted once more. :)

Right now I'm reading Wuthering Heights, a 150 year old book and I didn't even know what it was about when I picked it up. It's around 300 pages long and I am a little past 50 pages. I have learned a ton of new words so far... I might post them! I'm sure most of them are useless, but I really do like learning words. It's a much more difficult book to read than those I have been reading this past year, but I still don't want to put it down. I don't think I could have read a book like this outside of an English class before. I never had the attention span for something like this.

Recently I have developed two new habits, that I seem to be sticking with. Back in September when I returned to Korea I started pasting my daily schedule of students into a notebook. This way I could keep a neat paper trail of all my work. What's more, this January I started reading like a fiend. I am not a habitual person by nature, so I've been astonished to watch myself develop these fixations. I'm not sure how long the reading one will last, but if the schedule one is any indication, I think I shall be reading like this for a while.

I have a long list of other things I would love to be this motivated to do on a daily basis... I wonder if I can learn to focus my new persistent behaviour on other tasks. Here are some new habits I would love to establish:
1. work on my grad project!
2. clean my home daily.
3. do laundry
4. study languages
5. write (in my journal, and creatively)

Those are 5 things I would love to do better at... of course I could make a much longer list, but I am focusing on the most necessary for the time being. Any input? Any advice on how to focus? I was going to make a sign to try and remind myself to do these things.... or concoct some kind of reward system... but I don't need to remind myself to paste my schedule into my notebook, and reading is its own reward... why can't I feel this way about those other tasks?