Summer Reading

Do you remember in high school when you would get a list of books from your next English teacher detailing what your assignment was for the summer? I do. Most of the time the dreaded piece of paper was met with a groan. I would say to my friends, "We work hard all year, why do they have to give us homework for the summer?" Now that I'm out of high school and into college, a land barren of summer reading, I find that I miss that sheet of paper. I can imagine the incredulous looks that are crossing your faces. What? Misses summer reading? How can that be? But it's true. In the back of my notebook, there is an ever growing list of books I want to read, and I miss having someone tell me which ones I must read.

I was on the library website a few moments ago search for books that I've wanted to read. I was about to order three more when I realized I have two books on my night stand that are still unread. So I resisted the urge to click the "Request Home Delivery" button (thank heavens for the Orange County Library System which lets me check out books without having to actually go to the library). When I've whittled away at the pile of books, I'll order another one. I really can't wait.

Laura's List of Books to Read (in no particular order):

• The Great Raid on Cabanatuan - William B. Breuer
• Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
• The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson (I think I'm will sit on that one for a while, having been up to my eyeballs in the 19th Century literature for the last semester)
• Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson (see parenthetical note on previous)
• The Princess Bride - William Goldman
• 1984 - George Orwell
• Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
• A Bridge Too Far - Cornelius Ryan (already ordered from the library)
• Follow the River - James Alexander Thorn
• A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
• The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane
• Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
• Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
• The Little House Books (nine titles in all) - Laura Ingles Wilder (childhood favorites)
• Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (see parenthetical note for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
• Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
• Les Miserable - Victor Hugo (okay, this has been on my reading list for more than five years. . .I think I've finally decided to give in and read the abridged version, although I am generally against that)
• To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
• Running in the Family - Michael Ondaatjee
• The English Patient - Michael Ondaatjee
  

I'll probably keep adding to this list as the summer progresses.
If there are any books you think I should add to this list, let me know. . .I'm always looking for a good read.

The books I've read this summer:

• Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingles Wilder
• Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingles Wilder
• The DaVinci Code: A Quest for Answers - Josh McDowell
• Ghost Soldiers - Hampton Sides (a great read if you're interested in WWII and Philippine history)
• The Man Who Was Thursday - G.K. Chesterton
• Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason - Helen Fielding (an audiobook)
• The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (on audiobook, but I'm going to actually read it at some point in time)

Question: do you think it counts as reading a book if I listen to audio books at work?

Click.

I have this daily tradition, maybe more of a habit, of clicking. During the summers it's not daily, more like. . .whenever I'm bored and avoiding something I know I should do--clean my room, go to the john, sleep at a descent hour. It usually starts with me moaning, then rolling out of bed. At school the distance from bed to desk chair is generally less than a foot, so I find myself there, shuffling things around the desk so there is room for my mouse. Then it starts.

Click.

My computer wakes up and the screen goes on. There's a picture of autumn on the desktop background. I don't see autumn anymore, a real autumn that happens from September to November and is precipitated by warm summers and succeeded by snowy winters, so I put one on the background of my laptop all year round. I have one hundred eight square inches of autumn all year round to compensate for two and a half months of autumn all 'round me.

Click. Click.

Firefox opens. While my homepage loads I scan the instant messenger box to see if my friends are awake and admitting it. I change my away message from "sleeping" to "class" or perhaps "not here," or simply "not available." Microsoft Outlook opens and I see that I have a few emails. Usually they aren't important: some article from my dad, or a fellow theatre major informing me of free theatre this weekend. I go back to Firefox and scroll down on my homepage, this very page you're reading right now. I bit narcissistic, I know. I had it on MSN for a time, but realized that my life could be better spent doing something other than looking at the latest celebrity gossip. Besides, I live with a bunch of girls, I get enough of that anyway. So I changed it to my blog. I visit it every day anyway on the off chance that someone actually posted a comment. Usually they don't. Not a biggie.

Click. Click. Click.

There are three sites that I visit every day. For Better or For Worse strip fix. Pearls Before Swine on comics.com. Homestar Runner. Every day. There's usually something new. Well, maybe not on Homestar, but I still get a kick out of the guy in lederhosen saying "Ricola" when I scroll over the "e-mail" button.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

When I have time, I hit up the blogs of various friends. I visit a few of people I've never met, and probably never will. The first I read almost religiously. He's a missionary in Amsterdam and an amazing writer. A friend of a friend referenced him in her prayer letter several months back, and I found that I loved reading it. There are blogs of several friends, in some cases the only way I keep up with what's going on in their lives aside from a phone conversation once in a blue moon.

Click.

I close the browser.

Ouch

So, I've got this ginormous zit on the side of my nose, one of those ones that just kind of sits there and hurts. I just thought I'd share that. Oh, and it hurts...a lot.

I got to be an invigilator for the IB Math exams today for UHS. That was fun...sort of. I sat there and read a book for half of it, peering over the top of the page at the students as they sat and squirmed. I looked through the exam, then realized that I don't remember half of the stuff in there. Although I didn't actually take that exam. I was in the next math up, and we didn't even study Venn diagrams. Anyway. It was fun...sort of. I talked to my senior year English teacher/IB Coordinator for an hour after the exam, which was pretty cool. Caught up, reminisced, blah blah blah.

Anyway, I'ma go now, mkay.