Running Behind

No more school, no more books, no more teachers, dirty looks!

Well, way more books, actually, because now that I've turned in my evaluation books and even my reference book for a whopping $31 (less than 1/3 of what I paid for them, and I shake my fist menacingly at my former coworkers in the textbook industry. Though to be honest, they really needed to produce a new edition of that reference book--the technology in 2001 is now obsolete, and the book is full of remarks that read like "this whole internet thing is really starting to look like it might take off," including a conviction that video chat would be the online communication wave of the future for things like electronic reference services. Which, I have to say, is wrong, as evinced by David Foster Wallace's not-so-distant future in Infinite Jest, where everybody gets a video phone before realizing that most people multitask on the phone, and no one really wants to stare at you while you plan what time you're going to meet for coffee, so everyone gets a picture of themselves and hangs it in front of the videophone camera, and it becomes more like a phone conversation with an avatar. I think DFW was right about videophone, even if the book was incredibly long and impossible to read in parts. But I think I might have digressed.)

So now that I'm rid of my textbooks, I can--nay, must--turn my attention to the more pleasing literary world. I have a month off before my summer class starts, and when it does, it's a young adult literature class, so that should be fun. The pre-class homework consists of reading two books--one from the 40s, when they didn't even have YA books, and one that's very modern and About Sex. I also have to watch Juno and Superbad. Can you already tell what an onerous class this will be? (And they'll make me read manga. I can't stand manga! Everyone's always shouting at everyone else! Shout shout shout! With big squeezed shut eyes!)

So in addition to my pre-reading, I have a bunch of stuff to get through before class starts and I can't read anything but assignments. I checked out a Jodi Picoult book, Keeping Faith, but now I'll have to return it unread, because if I read two Jodi Picoult books within two months of each other, my brain will explode. This is what happened when I read Plain Truth and The Pact in quick succession--I realized how similar they were and my brain exploded. Not pretty.

I've got a jumble of other stuff lined up--some shots in the dark from the library, including some Ursula LeGuin short stories, Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier (which I've still never read!) and my first Patricia McKillip book, Alphabet of Thorn. Plus I'm still reading Star Spangled Manners, which will take a while, and Children of God, which is the sequel to The Sparrow.

It's sad that I can't bring this level of ambition to any other aspect of my life. If only reading paid better than $15 per book at the agency. Ah, well, for God and country, onward!