Recently, I've been re-reading How to Read Literature Like A Professor, a lovely book by Thomas C. Foster that contains one of my favorite quotes of all time- "Edgar Allen Poe: super-patriot?" Anyhow, the book itself, subtitled, A Lively And Entertaining Guide to Reading Between The Lines, is just that. It's a wildly entertaining piece of non-fiction that teaches you how to really dig into imagery and symbolism in literature, calling upon numerous works as examples. One of the appendices even has a curated reading lit from the author, which I think is just lovely. I've probably read the book three or four times by now, and I'm gearing up to annotate my poor little copy with my favorite highlighters and pens! Anyways, what I'm getting at is, this is a lovely little book that's on my must-read list for anybody, even if you're not pursuing literature in academia or as a career like I am (studying to be an English teacher yippee). So, I leave you, dear reader, with this: Go out and buy this book! It's great! It's phenomenal! And it's a joy to read, and making reading a joy!
Recently in my college career, I had an epiphany of sorts. I realized my big, fancy dream of going to law school, wasn't MY dream. It was my mother's dream. I realized, for the past semester and a half, I had been going to college, working toward law school and a law career, for my mother instead of for me. Sure, I absolutely adored the philosophy law program, and I'll definitely take more philosophy courses as electives- but majoring in philosophy just isn't what I want to do. And so, I changed my major- and that's FINE! Ever since I was a little kid and my mother started teaching, I wanted to be a teacher too. And every time I brought it up, she always discouraged me from it due to her own personal biases with the education system. And so, I dropped the thought. Though that desire to become an educator never went away. When I finally did get into to college, I desperately wanted my mother's approval.And so, I went into philosophy as a pre-law track. I told all my friends andfamily about how I wanted to become an attorney, and I convinced myself of that too. And just as quickly, I burnt myself out. I was miserable. And that's when I realized, I wasn't furthering my education for me, but for the approval of my mother. And that's when I looked into changing my major. Now, I'm an English major with a focus in secondary education- meaning I'll study both English language and literature as a subject, but I'll also study how to teach. I couldn't be happier with this decision I've made. Long story short, it's important to pursue things because YOU want to- not because you think it'll make a loved one proud.