A Day in the Life of a Reader

Okay, so I've recently started taking graduate classes. One of my classes is Native American Literature. We were assigned James Welch's Winter in the Blood as our first assignment.

Well, we had a quiz yesterday, partly on Winter in the Blood, and partly on last Thursday's lecture.

I'd wanted to get to class early so I could review my notes, the handouts, and the novel. I didn't get there as early as I'd wanted (45 minutes early), but I did get there early enough to review (about 25-30 minutes early).

I was the first one in the classroom. After getting my materials out of my book bag, I started flipping through the book, looking at the notes I'd jotted in the margins.

A few minutes later, another student came in, went to the opposite end of the room, and began reading his copy of Winter in the Blood.

And then my mind started wandering.

My copy of Winter in the Blood was already comfortably worn, like a favorite pair of slippers, even though I'd had the book only a few days.

It seemed like this other student just cracked open his copy. His looked new, just off the bookstore shelf. Mine had dog ears, notes in the margin, a yellow highlight or three, some sticky, colorful tabs to mark the place of something I'd thought was important.

All I could think was, We've got a quiz today and a paper due on Thursday. What the . . .?

I don't think I could study like that . . . anymore. Sure, in high school and college, I studied for English exams like that and still did well . . . but I'm pretty sure I couldn't do that anymore. Plus, I've been stressing out about this quiz, wanting to do well.

I stayed up WAY TOO late Monday night ('til 12:40 AM, to be exact). When my alarm went off at 5:45 AM on Tuesday, my body protested. As hard as I'd tried to get all my studying accomplished before bedtime Monday night, the evening's family obligations were a priority, and I was left to finish my studying at 9 PM Monday evening, after Livie had gone to bed. Of course, studying at that time (after a long hiatus of NOT having to study at night), was harder than I remembered. I'd actually accidentally dozed off for about an hour! Not helpful at all!

So after a few minutes of letting my mind wander, realizing I'd lost a few minutes of time, I glanced back at this other student. Looks like he was further along in the book than I had realized. However, his book still looked brand new, as though he'd just started reading it.

Ah, well. If it works for him, so be it.

Now for the tough part - waiting for our quiz grades.