Who am I as a Reader?

                Throughout my years in school, reading was not my strong suit. It was not like I hated reading but I just could not read for fun. When I saw friends with books in hand I found myself longing for that, been able to read because I wanted to and not because it was required of me, Which was back then the only way I would find myself reading. The other thing that made reading hard for me I think was impatience, I would myself enjoying a book of 300 hundred pages and after reading about 50 or so pages I would literally count how many more pages I had left. And that would be the end of my reading and the end of the book.

                However I the summer of 2009 something kind of change, when I started working at John Morrell and Co. for about a year at that point.  A guy who became a dear friend of mine, Melvin brought in a book, and was reading. I don’t remember the title, but my longing to read surfaced again. When we finally went for lunch break I think I ask him how he does it, for that book was about 500 pages. I went on to explain to him who I was as a reader. I was like a tutor, who when he is not under pressure would not move. If I did not have to read I wouldn’t read.

                My friend explains to me that as a beginner in reading I should start with something I like. He went on by giving me a list of genre such as fiction, non-fiction, autobiography etc… The next day I went to the Goodwill store on Kiwanis and I bought myself a book. Determined that I was going to read it and finish it. “THE KISS” by Danielle Steel, bought it for 50cents. I started reading the book on 06/08/2009, to my utmost surprise I couldn’t put the book down.  I came back late from my lunch break at work the next two days many times. I finished reading, “THE KISS” on 06/12/2009. That was the beginning of my love for books and also for reading.

                Since THE KISS, I have read more than 75 books. I had a book in my procession every week after that. I read everything and anything from the twilight sage to DREANS FROM MY FATHER, by Barack Obama to STILL ME, by Christopher Reeve. I learned a lot about the stem cell research from that book, Which Mr. Reeve “Superman” was a strong believer. Learning is also something that came a lot handy when I started to read. Simple thing like my vocabulary went to the next level.

                Now a day my reading preference went from fantasy to inspirational. Something I couldn’t say two years ago is that I love reading and I believe it is what encouraged me to come back to school. Now I consider myself an active reader, for I am constantly reading something. My understanding has change over the past year in ways I can’t begin explain; I have also grown a lot intellectually in the process.