In Pursuit of the Perfect Story Since I was a kid, I have always found regular, everyday life to be, boring. At the age of eight I was reading at a college level. I had no particular interest in any particular subject, yet I was reading books that no grade schooler would normally look at, let alone comprehend. Literary works ranging from alchemy, to zoology could be found piled floor to ceiling in my bedroom. But try though I might, I was still a listless, quite boy with no particular interest in anything. I had yet to find something truly extraordinary locked between their pages. So, for lack of anything better to do, I kept digging. I tore my way through most of the school library and any other work of academia I could get my hands on. However I always found myself losing interest soon after I began. “What are you even looking for in those books of yours?” I didn’t know how to answer my mother when she asked me that. Neither of my parents could understand the borderline unhealthy fascination of books their eight year old possessed. Nor could they understand why he was so different from them. My mother had religion, which try though she might, I didn’t truly share. My father had his work ethic and desire to understand the world around him, which I could respect, but find no motivation to emulate. My search for …show more content…
Something finally held my interest longer than the span of a few hundred pages. Even after I had savored the final line of that story, I continued to ponder its alternate world for days on end. I had spent so much time thinking that there was nothing of interest in my life, when one was obviously right in front of me. If reality was boring, I simply had to embrace fantasy and find the perfect
I have enjoyed learning new studies for most of my life, but the first time that I was so truly intrigued by something was in about fourth grade. I woke up one day and went to school. That day we were required to start doing a reading log (at this time, I completely hated reading). So, I had to pick a book, also at this time I was interested in my toy plastic army men, which probably influenced my choice in this book. So I ended up choosing a book titled Soldier Boys by Dean Hughes. Being my refractive self, I did not read that book probably for another two weeks until my teacher found out and asked why I have not been turning my reading logs in. I told her that “I didn’t want to read”. She called my parents right
I cannot recall the exact age I started reading, but I do know by second grade I was well on my way. Books interested me back then. I remember going to the public library and sitting on the bean bags and just reading. By, fifth grade I was breezing through books and getting all my stars for the Pizza Hut and scholastic challenge. The teachers made us do reports to make sure we were actually reading the books. However, I think even back then I was in a rush to get my stars that I skimmed through the books. Was this a decline to my leaning process? Maybe but I still had the joy of reading. The last book that really caught my attention was “Where the Red Fern Grows.” I remember having conversations about this book in class and the
One of my all time passions is reading. I credit my love of reading to my dad, who has spent a great portion of his life reading as well. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad reading Harry Potter to me and my siblings, though I was the only child listening. My love of reading has only grown since then. Through reading I have learned about countless worlds and thousands of stories. I have discovered myself in between the pages of many different books, and I have learned more about people and the world arund me. Of all the ways to spend time, reading may be my absolute
Literature has always been a close personal friend. I've always been surrounded and engrossed with books. One of the first books I ever read was Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I must've read that book a thousand times when I was little. When I was in preschool my friend and I comically read along to the book. I credit most of my ability to read early on to my elementary's school librarian. I remember vividly in kindergarten our librarian teacher holding a book in her hand showing off the pictures. I was completely enthralled, more so than probably other children in the class. As time went on and I passed from grade to grade, I started to read books from the school's library. Most books I read were about tornadoes. I've always been fascinated with how
There have been very few books that I have changed in relation to the amount I 've been forced to read and in the amount that exist / I 've enjoyed a few Greek tragedies like the story of promethius or atlas, world war z, do androids dream of electric sleep, many of Isaac Asimov 's books, many of Arthur C Clarke 's books as well, some H.P. Love craft works, 1984, starship troopers, anthem and the halo book series. Not that I don 't enjoy reading, I read everyday as a matter of fact but they tend to be news articles, opinion pieces, forums, academic journals in the sciences, Wikipedia entries and so on but not any books. I 've never really enjoyed the books that were specifically assigned to be read in school and books I did enjoy I read earlier like anthem or Fahrenheit 451. Reading at school always to me seemed like an act in futility since I didn 't enjoy it since the material wasn 't very interesting to me and that I already a more than generous amount on my own on the internet but that never counted and the material certainly wasn 't covered in the computer quizzes that also gave one special reading points in elementary school. However the first interesting books that I did read I was enthralled by. Not only because of the interesting stories but also because of the various philosophical implications. I particularly enjoyed the trope of an ancient precursor civilization that is used in many scifi today, something started by Arthur C Clarke. Even today the most
There was a time when I used to read Paulo Coelho books, write didactic Nepali poems and got excited about physics and chemistry in middle school. Trying lame things like Aristotle hairstyle, making criterion for the evolution of the soul, making unfunny puns in leisure, sitting in the library and reading every piece of news from three leading newspapers, it was a very
Ever since I can remember, I have had an insatiable curiosity about why and how the world works, to the point where it has made me something of an outcast in the small southern town where I have grown up. One of the earliest memories I can recall is in elementary school, when I would spend more time observing bugs at recess than playing with my classmates. Understandably, not many kids were interested in befriending Bug Girl, and it did not help that I was shy and awkward by nature. As a result, I spent most of my time buried in books. I would devour anything I could get my hands on - from fictional tales of adventure (the Magic Treehouse series was a favorite of mine) to my father’s thick encyclopedias. I spent hundreds of hours of my childhood hunched over, eyes glued to the pages, completely captivated. I would often spit out facts I learned to my surprised parents and teachers. Reading was my solace; it opened up hundreds of different worlds to me, so far beyond my own world of overworked parents and bullies at school.
My father left at the age of three leaving me in the capable hands of my mother. This is where my life began. I don’t reminisce my father, the only memory I have of both my parents was relationship of abuse. My mother worked effortlessly making life survivable. Growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut wasn’t easy. I was girdled by opulent people and didn’t have the same opportunities as my peers around me did. As grew up, my only escape from reality has always been reading. Books have shaped my life inexplicable. I’ve traveled and experienced life through a vast variety of characters. From reading The Giving Tree by Shel Sliverstien to How to Kill a Mocking Bird By Harper Lee and developing the knowledge to read classical literacy like Emily Bronte
Literature was boring to me but until my history professor Mr. Duran told me " if you want to expand your knowledge you have to read books, they are the key of success". Indeed, he was right, so I decided to purchase a kindle from Amazon. Hence, I began reading books from many literary lenses but there was one that brought my attention. It was a book from Justin Torres "We the animals". The book was about how the three brother lost their innocence. They were kids who didn't know what was evil or good. The book was a science
I would check out books simply because we were told to, not because I was actually going to read and enjoy them. My interest in reading died down completely. It wasn’t that reading was difficult for me, I was just lazy and didn’t want to read. My STAR Reading test scores also started to go down hill. I never got a bad score, but I stopped getting the advanced scores that I used to get before. In middle school, we started to really focus on writing papers, which before, I felt that writing was my strong suit in English class because I have always had teachers tell me that I excelled at writing. I felt that way until I failed a paper we were assigned to write in 7th grade. I don’t remember much about the paper because I’ve tried to push it out of my memory as best as I could, but what I do remember is, it was a persuasive essay and apparently I didn’t do an amazing job at persuading my teacher it was good enough. Since failing what I thought was an essay deserving of an A, I became discouraged and uniterested in
At this point in my life, reading would definitely not make a list of my favorite things to do, but this wasn’t always the case. Some of my youngest memories involve reading, and many of these memories are enjoyable. Every night before bed my mom would read to me, and I remember begging to read just one more before she tucked me in almost every night. This is when my love for reading sparked. Throughout grade school, I continued to read frequently and never found it to be a chore; however, once middle school hit I no longer included reading as a past time or found it pleasurable. Looking back now I realize this was when English class included more forced literature, and school consisted of reading extensive pages in textbooks. Reading
Reading was the new outlet for my imagination and the stories I read fascinated me. They weren’t too unlike the scripts of computer games or the own stories I came up with on my own, but books actually had the action and emotional aspects written out. And again, while my peers were reading things about growing up, things that had morals and would teach valuable lessons (I remember one book about a shoplifter who had to do community service at an animal shelter), I read real fiction: Jurassic Park, Dragonriders of Pern, Lord of the Rings… Stuff of fantasy and science-fiction that let my mind stray from reality. Stuff that kept my imagination alive while I was being forced to learn multiplication and the names of countries. Of course, my teachers encouraged me to keep reading, as long as I wasn’t doing the reading in the middle of their lectures. But it wasn’t because of their influence, however, that kept me interested in books. It was because I loved it. It put pictures into my head and made me think. So I kept reading. But even then I knew reading wasn’t enough… Yes, the stories were fascinating, but they weren’t what I wanted. Back then I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but as middle school came to a close, I found it.
My relationship with literature has changed dramatically over the course of my life. I found my love of reading early on, and somehow, I also lost my love of reading pretty early. Reading as a child was my escape, running away from my problems without actually going anywhere. I could get away from the world around me and be transported into these amazing and beautiful stories full of wonderful things. Then once reading became something I was forced to do it no longer felt wonderful. It felt like a chore that I really didn’t want to participate in. Losing that choice to read or not to read really is what my downfall was.
The beginning of my interest in reading goes way back, although I don’t have any defining “aha!” moment, where I all of a sudden enjoyed reading books. There were always books around when I was growing up, if I was at my grandparents house it was the books they kept from their youth; classics like Treasure Island or any Hemingway book, the hard covers permanently infused with dust; plenty of History books, particularly World War II history; and the children’s books I always received as presents when I visited. My mom also read a lot, but more modern books, like supernatural or light horror books, nothing too difficult (or scary). I spent a lot of time reading magazines, mostly Video Game (note: spent more time creating stories off the
As a child, my interests were more focused on reading than writing. In elementary school I fell in love with books. Initially I read simple children’s books, much like everybody else in my class, but it did not take long for my passion to drive me to read more difficult writings. Fiction books quickly became a replacement for any childhood toys. Instead of blocks or stuffed animals I would ask my parents for books. Since they were aimed at young readers, they tended to be short. I found myself going through them within days, and then soon several hours. Towards the end of elementary school I was reading series like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. I was captivated, and reading truly opened up a whole new world for me.