So, I’ve been constructing plans of self-improvement for over the summer. (I know…YOU can’t think of anything I could possibly improve upon, but after some hard brainstorming I’ve decided on a few areas) One of my major projects is that I’ve decided to read as many esteemed works of literature as I possibly can this summer, in order to advance my journey towards becoming a respectable and well-read English teacher. I’ve looked up a lot of “Books You Should Read Before You Die..” lists, and after seeing where they overlap I have created the following list of books that I HAVE TO have read by the end of the summer.
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allen Poe
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Persuasion, Jane Austen
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Lewis Stevenson
The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn, Mark Twain
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flauberts
1984, George Orwell
The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
My Antonia, Willa Cather
A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
I’m kind of ashamed that I haven’t read some of those books already. Liiiike….Huckleberry Finn? Hasn’t everyone read that? Idk where it slipped through the cracks. But anyway, at least I’m planning to read them. I figure if I average about two a week till the end of the summer then this is pretty attainable. I’ve read the first four since being home, and I’m halfway through Of Human Bondage, which, as the name indicates, is a doozy.
Anyway. You don’t care, presumably, but I figure if I post that up somewhere I’ll be more likely to stick with it. It’s like those New Years resolutions I graffitied in that turnpike underpass.
So.
.
I’ve been thinking some biggish thoughts lately. Like, I’ve been having quite the realization. And I’m not saying it will interest you, but I’m going to talk about it anyway.
I’ve been realizing that I’ve been like….CHILLIN. In my life. Like, participating in some major inaction.
I guess I’ve been kind of waiting for LIFE to HAPPEN to me. Like, I thought that somehow things were just going to start happening to me left and right, and all the sudden one morning I was going to wake up and be this grownup woman with all of her shit together, and with some handsome dude out the window strumming a serenade, and with ideas in her head and a purpose in her heart and like, a CHARACTER all ready and figured out and fabulous. And I’ve been realizing recently that….nothing just happens. It really doesn’t. Which I guess for some people is kind of common knowledge, but, I donno it’s like, NEWS to me. Because I’ve been expecting things to happen, I really have. And I’ve been expecting wonderful Grownup Me to literally just show up knocking at my door like “Oh hey, I think it’s time I stepped in for my shift.” And I’m sure YOU all probably knew this already but—-that isn’t going to happen! The person that I am right now is the same person who is going to be me as a grownup, and the same person who is going to pursue my dreams, and raise my children, and wet my bed at the nursing home.
So like, if I want that person to be somebody awesome, then I need to actively pursue that awesomeness, and I need to do it kind of now. If I want to be well-read and intelligent and full of sense and classic knowledge, then I better read some effing books. If I want to be beautiful, then I better determine how I plan to go about doing that, and go about it. If I want to meet wonderful people, then I better use my head and figure out that wonderful people don’t just tap you on the shoulder at the grocery store, and that maybe if I start doing some wonderful things then the people might naturally show up. If I want to be rich, then I better realize that the odds of a sexy Arabian oil sheik popping the question are like, not great, and that maybe I should actually save up some cash. If I want some great love story to befall me, then maybe I better turn into somebody worth loving.
.
Like I said, you probably knew all of this, and maybe you’ve already set off on your way to becoming who you want to be.
But DAMN. For me, this was all quite a massive awakening.
