Summer Reading

With a mere three days left before school (how scary is that?), I can finally and decisively say that I have completely finished my summer homework. Granted, compared to my friends, I didn't have an unreasonable amount. The APs I'm taking don't require much summer work on the whole, but I still have to set a good deal of time apart for my other classes.

What I procrastinated most on was probably the reading for Language Arts 3 Honors. Compared to what I had last year, it really wasn't too much. However, I put it off as long as possible as I'd heard horror stories about the novel we had to read: The Grapes of Wrath. Each time I began the first sentence of the first page, I somehow managed to find an excuse to set it down for just one more day. And then another day. And another.

Finally, as August approached, I realized that I had to get it together and began the book. I read the first chapter with a heavily critical eye, managing to find every flaw -- every dull moment -- every possible thing that could be wrong with the novel. But as I read on, I found myself a little less critical and a little more interested, until the middle of the book where I actually found myself enjoying it. I suppose the moral of this is to approach things with an open mind; each year, I find myself dreading the required reading, and each year I find myself surprise to learn that it really wasn't all that bad. In fact, one of my favorite books of all time was one I read for Adv. Language Arts 2: These Is My Words. Hopefully next year, when I'll have even more books to read, I'll finally learn my lesson and get an early start on them -- despite any previous preconception I have of them.