Reading

I wish I could focus on reading.

Right now, I have two books in front of me. One is an autographed novel one of my college professors wrote years ago; The other is a non-fiction time-line of the Middle East. Both I have a sincere interest in reading, but both I cannot read.

Currently, my student is working independently on journal entries. It's a perfect time to read, so I turn to the massive book shelf behind me, and I pick out the a book on African American history. It's huge, and I know that even though I want to read it, I never will. So I look to the left of it and find that Middle East book. I think back to my Social Studies Method class, and how we were taught so much about the REAL Middle East. Not the fabricated propaganda Middle East, but the real, factual, Middle East.

Well, at the very beginning of that semester my house burned to the ground--so needless to say, learning about the Sunnis and Shiias was not my top priority. I made it through the class with decent and earned grades, but most of the lecture time I spent worrying about my family, thinking about the future, and wondering what would happen next.

I focused and as hard as I possibly could to avoid "sympathy grading," but I still missed a lot of good, unbiased information that I may never again have the chance to receive--unless I can focus on this dumb book.

I sit to read it,

1820 Britain concludes a General Treaty of Peace for suppressing piracy and slave... traffic....

Wait, what?

1820 Britain concludes a General Treaty of Peace...

Peace treaty. Ok. They were at war. What war? World War? No that was 1900's wasn't it? The Middle East wasn't part of that war anyway... Was it? Maybe it was World War II.... No that's even later in history... Oh well, it doesn't really matter. No, wait. It matters if I want to understand this stuff; I need to know when it happened in order to keep my history in order--I need to know why they were fighting too. Whatever. Just keep reading.

1820 Britain concludes a General Treaty of Peace for suppressing piracy and slave traffic witht he Arab tribes of the Persian Gulf. The signa...

Huh? Siga--sig...Siga-natory? Signatory? What does that mean? Oh wait. Student has a question for me.. How do you spell hault... H-a-u-l-t. Siginatory. .. .. Hault isn't right? Hault... h.a.u.l.t... uh.. Google it. Wait, my computer is rebooting from an install... Ok... Booting up. Oh, hey, the new IM client I installed works. Ew that icon is gross--didn't I change that? I thought I put my cat on there? Halt? Wait, what? There is no "U"? Seriously? That's disgusting. That's as bad as KERNEL being spelled colonel. Where the hell did that come from? Did the dictionary writer have a brain fart. KERNEL. /K/ER/NL/ not /K/OL/NL/ ...I don't think I spelled that "phonetically correct" Dr. Marshall would definitely give me a talkin' to. I hated that class. Note to self: don't learn spelling from a southerner; stick with accents of your own kind if you want to pass the reading methods class.

Ok, Definitely off track. What was I doing? Reading, right. Why can't I read? I know, let's google reading problems. Oh, this site looks promising. Ew, green. Who puts a green background on a webpage, really?

Oops, teacher meeting; time to move. Gotta get situated. Why do I bother even attempting to read? I don't know. I should write. Maybe I should bring a book with me to the next room. Naw, I won't read it. I know! I'll bring Dr. Lemke's book. But I don't really feel like reading. Maybe I'll listen to my iPod and write. "Say goodbye, these days are gone. And we can't keep holding on... lalala" I forgot the rest of the song, but that was very random. I love that song. I should look up the lyrics when I get to the next classroom.

Yeah, no reading today.