reading for pleasure when there’s no pleasure left

BUT FIRST – I feel like I’ve officially graduated into big girl pants. I got a new web host, my own domain name… not sure what else there is? There’s a lot of fancy things that I have absolutely no clue about, but they’re available if I choose to use them. If I can figure them out. But I’m here now, readingisthenewblack.com. I wanted to nail ‘er down, put a ring on it, tie myself to a hitchin’ post. Frankly, I never been good with idiomatic expressions. If you know any in the same vein as these, send them my way!

I mentioned before that I started grad school. AGAIN. And how it’s left me with almost zero time for reading for pleasure. I’d forgotten what it’s like to try to read for the fun of it after having spent all my brain cells on “Evidence-Based Practices for Educating Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders” or “Applied Behavioral Analysis for Teachers” or “Teaching Behavior: Managing Classrooms Through Effective Instruction.” (I read all three over the past two months. This was the opposite of reading for pleasure.)

It’s depressing. I have no attention span left. I’d rather zone out in front of my pocket rectangle than even glance in the direction of a book of my choosing. I feel really excited about what I’m learning; it’s so relevant to what I do and it’s allowing me to see myself and my work in a totally new light. I guess I’m just having growing pains. I spend all my cognitive capacity on school and have just enough left to potato. Because of school I haven’t had much of a summer. Between teaching and learning when work starts, I don’t think I’ll see the pages of something I want to read for a very long time. Dare I download audiobooks? Am I a snob? Yes, to both, I think.