I like books.
I always have a stack of books a mile
high that I want to read. Whenever possible, I like to go on outings to the
bookstore to check out some books about the subjects I’m interested in. On the
weekends, I love to curl up with a book of my choosing, and read until I can’t
read any more. But then there are textbooks, which fall into the category of
books that I have to read. Depending on what classes I’m
taking during the term, sometimes I don’t have very many textbooks, but more
often than not, at the beginning of each term, a new stack of books starts
piling up. And then I have two stacks of books; one with books I want to
read, and one with books that I have to read (textbooks).
When I sit down to read on the weekends,
I have a conflict over which stack of books to start reading. Because reading
textbooks on the weekend qualifies as “working ahead,” this conflict is
exaggerated, especially at the beginning of the term when I’m already working
ahead in other areas of my classes. On weekdays at the beginning of the term, I
accept that I don’t have much free time. However, the weekend is still a gray
area. I can spend my weekends getting ahead by reading textbooks, or I can work
on reading my stack of books that I want to read, and take a little bit of time
to myself to prepare for the next week.
But what should I be
reading on the weekends?
I don’t think that there’s
necessarily a right answer. I feel conflicted no matter what decision I make on
the weekends in terms of which books I read. If I read my textbooks, I feel
like I’m doing the right thing, but I still want to be reading
something different. But when I read what I want to read on the weekends, and I
haven’t finished my textbook reading, then I think that I really should be
reading my textbooks.
Even if I decide to read my
textbooks, though, and I feel that I’m doing the right thing, I still have a
problem. Because I’m constantly thinking about what I want to
be reading while I’m reading my textbooks, I’m unable to absorb the information
on the pages. The whole point of college and reading textbooks for college is
to learn. And in order to get a degree and take other classes that I know I’ll
be really interested in, I sometimes have to take classes I don’t necessarily
want to take and read textbooks that I don’t necessarily want to read. However,
just because I don’t want to read certain textbooks doesn’t mean I can’t make
the information interesting for myself.
Even if the point of college is to
learn, there are still pre-requisite classes that I might not want to take, and
core courses I thought I’d enjoy that aren’t up to par with my
expectations. But classes that don’t live up to my expectations can be
interesting too. In college, I’m meant to learn, and even if I don’t find a
class interesting, I can still learn the material. It might become interesting
to me later, or turn out to be closely related to something else that I
find really interesting. I never know how the material that
I’m learning will come in handy.
As much as I like recreational
reading, there’s something to be said for textbooks, even though sometimes the
idea that I have to read textbooks can get in the way of
enjoying them. If for some reason I don’t want to read a certain
textbook, and I want to read something else, I make an effort to find something
interesting about the textbook’s subject. In college, I have a chance to
explore different topics I wouldn’t have otherwise explored. And who knows, in
the end I might discover that I really enjoy a subject that I never thought I
would find interesting.
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