A new kind of reading

I miss the days when I had time to read. College has a knack of keeping me busy. It's a blessing, because more and more, I'm finding that I prefer to be so.

I'm not just busy with classes and assignment, but also with household, clubs, work, planning internships and getting just a little bit of breathing time in between.

But the busyness has changed the way I do a lot of things.

In the last few years, I've realized that reading has, frankly, become something that's no longer a part of my life.

There are a few reasons for the change. Firstly, of course, I'm busy. College doesn't (and shouldn't!) allow me time to lay back and doze. Except when I really need it. I've given up coffee, after all. Sigh.

Secondly, I'm finding ever-growing conflicts between what I want to read and where I am in my life. At nineteen, I sense that I'm a little too old for YA novels, but I still read them. They fill a hunger for wonder that I still have and still remember. They're universal in that way. At the same time, we need both old and new favorites.

More and more frequently, I find myself browsing the adult section of bookstores and coming away dissatisfied. I want something with substance, something that is wholesome and wonderful and well-written and enticing, but still part of the adult world. But often, I can't seem to find it.
Recently, however, reading has come into my life in a new way, and it's a way I never would have expected.

I am a lazy reader. I want to relax into a story, not work to understand it. Most brutal would be to ask me to read new stories - and yet, lately, newspapers are my reading material of choice.

Seems legitimate. I'm a journalism student! Through the semester, I've filed into the university Mac lab twice a week to learn to write news stories.

Reading the news is challenging. It doesn't allow my mind to sit back and go aaahhh at the end of a long day. Often, I struggle to understand. My eyes jump over passages when the lines blur. I have to be patient and go back, making sure I'm fully processing everything on the page.

The point is to draw my own conclusions, so I can't rest while I read.

It's a discipline to read real-life issues, and yet it's fulfilling.

To look at it from one angle, journalistic and creative writing seem two completely opposite ends of the spectrum. Journalism is pure information, stripped of poetic devices, of all the delicious language, and yet it's an art form. Moreover, it's an important one.

I'm reading about things I never would have wondered about or cared to know. Controversial vaccines. Chinese filial piety laws. I'm even dipping my shy toes into the political spectrum.

It's a discipline that's pulling me from my reader complacency. Right now, I'm growing as hungry for news as I once was - and, I hope, still am - for fiction.