All About The Reading

I had my first meeting with my dissertation supervisor on Tuesday, you will not believe how helpful he was. Helpful in the fact that he actually told me what to do. I’d picked my topic, but it was so bloody broad that I was on the verge of having an aneurysm just trying to narrow it down. I had flowcharts and spread sheets and pro/con lists and none of that was helping me. All he had to do was take one look at my topic and he already had it down to three simple areas. I think that’s all I need to get any work done, a helpful push in the right direction. What I love about my topic is that its something that I’m interested in, so the novels I have to read, I will probably actually like. Unlike the Jane Eyre fiasco last year. I hated that book so much, classic or not, it was so damn boring and tough to get through and to be honest I didn’t actually read all of it. I think I got to the second chapter when I felt like jamming pens in my eyes just to get out of reading it. I then trawled the internet for summaries. Which I know is technically cheating, but really, what student hasn’t pulled that trick. This year however I actually will enjoy doing my essay, I’ve already read one of the books on my list and I’m starting another one today.

The Jane Eyre thing reminds of me of back in middle school when we used to read books as a class. Our teacher was the worst. Under the guise of ‘giving everybody a chance’ she would give each student a paragraph or two to read aloud. This was okay if you had someone who could read well but you had the added bonus of those kids who couldn’t read for shit. Now I might sound mean saying this but well, it was true, we had some of the slowest readers in our class. They would sound out words like ‘place’ or ‘house’ e..v..e..r…s..o…s..l..o..o..w..l..y. Those of us who were very fast readers would read pages ahead and then just sit there, asleep with our eyes open. That type of class reading absolutely ruined several books for me. I actually shudder at the thought of some of those titles. What was worse was that she would give the slow kids more to read because they ‘needed the practice’. The school was all for learning development for those children with problems, but it was at the cost of those of us who were quite intelligent. They didn’t know quite how to achieve a decent balance. Leaving us to get on with it because we didn’t need the help. Well we did, that’s why so many of us were disruptive. If you finish your task way before the bell rings and you aren’t given anything else to do, well, you tend to get creative with passing the time. I can’t believe I’ve gotten started on complaining about my schooling, which in hindsight I’ve had so many problems with. At the time I didn’t really notice I wasn’t getting a fair deal, I just figured I had it easy. Well that’s come back to kick me in the ass now.


What I’m Listening To: The Godfather: the Very Best of James Brown