When I was little, I loved to read. I read all types of books, but my favorites as a child were mysteries. My mom would taken my brother and me to the library often, and we could choose from lots of new and interesting books. I even knew that the limit to the number of books we could check out from the public library was 99 (not that we ever reached that number). When I got home from school, I would read. If my brother was bothering me, I could always lose myself in a good book. In the summer, we would both participate in the summer reading challenge held by the library and get prizes for how many books or hours we read.
And then high school happened. And with high school came more school work and more extracurricular activities. I was taking harder classes and reading more for school. After school I would go to practice for whichever sport I was participating in that season: soccer, basketball, cross-country, or indoor track. And once a week I would go to youth group after a long day of school and sports practice. With all the time I was spending school and other things, I did not have much time left over for reading for pleasure. But when summer came around, I would be reading a lot again. My family has always taken books to the beach so that we can read and relax on the beach. One summer I recall averaging about a book a day, at least for the first half of the week.
And then college happened. College, with all of its free time. Free time? What?! No. I have not found there to be more free time in college. Rather, there is more time about which you are able to make your own decisions about what to do. And there are always more activities, both fun and required, than I have time for. So for me the question of free time generally goes something like this: "Hmm...okay, I have 3 hours of time before lab. Do I want to write that essay, start the math homework that always trips me up, or do laundry with this 'free' time?" (Don't get me wrong; college is great! But there is always something more that can be done.)
So when do I read? I read some during the school year, but more in the summer. I have fewer obligations during the summer than during the school year, but now that I'm in college there is some expectation that I should start doing something productive with my life. (And I suppose there was some level of that expectation when I was younger, too, but reading and running with the cross-country team every day was productive enough.)
During the school year, I can carve out a little time before I go to bed to read some. It is easy, though, for this time to feel like a waste. I could be studying or sleeping more in that time! But it is good to take a break every now and then. So I started the habit of reading before I went to sleep. I had a small reading light so I wouldn't bother my roommate. I would read until I was too tired, or it was late enough that I really should be asleep, which meant that I often only read a couple of pages before sleeping. This year I started reading a book in German so that I could feel like at least I was improving my language skills while relaxing. And the first Harry Potter book, "The Philosopher's Stone" or "Der Stein der Weisen", is still fun to read in another language, albeit more tiring.
Do you read for pleasure? How do you carve out time to do so?
