Week 14— Reading

Personally, I am not too fond of reading. As I was growing up, I never really got into any books, which quite possibly attributes to my disinterest in reading now. However, there have been a select few books which I have really enjoyed, namely Twilight (of course), Fahrenheit 451, and The Great Gatsby. Though each of these books are completely and respectively unique, they all have a single similarity: plot strength. I think that each one of these maintains a strong plot, which inevitably draws me into the books and makes them page-turners in my eyes. They each withhold peculiar mysteries romances that keep me wanting more. As a result, I would say that I have the tendency to read romantic mysteries for pleasure.

Although I don't read too often, I strongly believe that reading stimulates your cognitive skills, and brain as a whole, more than most other forms of entertainment. I'm sure that many of your parents have told you time and time again that watching too much television will turn your brains to mush. I know mine have, at least. And I believe them, being that watching television is essentially staring at moving pictures for hours, and usually doing nothing else simultaneously. I really don't think that you can read TOO much. Reading for pleasure not only entertains and comforts you, but you only get better at reading if you read a lot. Back in high school, I had to read a lot of different novels for my AP english classes. We would typically have exercises that would coincide with our reading assignments, thus challenging our critical thinking skills. These exercises would literally make us think more carefully about the story's plot, characters, and literary devices. Though most of the high school novels I read were completely boring and uninteresting, two of them turned out to be my favorite books (The Great Gatsby and Fahrenheit 451). Because I developed such an affinity for these books, I did much better on their corresponding quizzes and tests than on those for any other book. Because I found myself reading for pleasure, I was able to get significantly more out of the books. They helped challenge my reading skills, as well as prepare me for later books to come.

Over the years, I have found that the only way I can even begin to enjoy writing is if I pace myself and make sure that I have set aside enough time to write. For example, for my Bio 120 class, I was supposed to compile a paper about a young girl who got her dismembered hand grafted to her leg. Being that I am relatively inclined to anything medical and biology-related, I thought this paper would be fun to write. However, I ended up waiting to write it until the day before it was due—BAD idea, obviously. Instead of it being enjoyable to write, it ended up being excruciating and stressful. That would have been a pleasurable writing experience, if only I had begun it a few days earlier. When writing the Issue Paper for this class, I probably spent about three weeks writing and perfecting it. Since my topic was also biology-related, I enjoyed writing it for the most part. Basically, I guess you could say that I find pleasure with writing by picking a topic that generally interests me and allowing ample time to complete my writing.