The Reading Life of Locker

Last year after school ended I made a list of all the books I was going to read over the summer. The list was a combination of "teacher books", nonfiction books about food, and classic fiction novels that friends always recommend but that I never actually get around to reading. The truth is, that if I were a student and my goal was to read all of these books, I would have failed miserably. Yes, I read some, but what I actually read differed substantially from this original list.

Okay, I'll admit it, I've had a problem with reading fiction over the past few years (except for the Harry Potter series, which I couldn't put down for a second). I think it's mostly because I've been so busy and so caught up in wanting to read as much as I can about teaching and students, not to mention keeping up with my favorite news stories. So I was proud of myself when I actually followed through with reading a novel called The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. This was totally my kind of book: very heady, philosophical, political, and also about love.

I slipped back into my old ways again after the summer. I spent most of this past year reading lots of educational research articles, political blogs (especially during the election season), and bits of pieces of teacher books and historical resources to help me plan lessons and units for humanities class. Even though I call this "my old ways", one thing I learned this year is to spend my time reading wisely. I used to feel like if I read a magazine or a resource book that I had to read the whole thing cover to cover. I felt, in some weird way, bad for the articles and authors that I would skip. But this year I managed to read a lot more text that mattered to me and what I was trying to do.

In addition to my lovely teacher journals I spent a lot of time reading online, and I'm not just talking about online newspapers, I'm talking about reading facebook updates, twitter updates, and other useless (but fun) things online. You should see me when I have to pick out a restaurant to go to on a Saturday night. I will visit several sites, comparing all sorts of reviews, until I can't even make a decision. The same is true for almost anything I want to buy... I think it took me two weeks to decide on a new cell phone because I wanted to make sure I ended up learning as much as possible about all my options. Throughout this process I've learned which people write facebook updates worth reading or reviews I can trust. Now, I can read smarter online.


This year was also marked by me starting to travel a lot more. As many of you know, I have a pretty intense fear of flying on airplanes. So, as my mega-trip to Buenos Aires in Argentina approached my anxiety increased. I bought two books written for people who have a fear of flying (I wanted all the help I could get) and gobbled them up like medicine. I took my favorite one on the plane with me and I still travel with it on planes now. I am happy to report that I have gotten MUCH better at flying. Since the trip to Buenos Aires I have flown to Florida and to San Francisco and I did fine both times. I can't give the books all the credit, but deciding to get them and reading them certainly played a big part in helping me.

Finally, I must give a shout out to all the travel books, maps, and local publications that guided me in my adventures in new places this year. The local papers in Washington DC the weekend of the Obama inauguration, the travel guides in Buenos Aires that helped us find the best places to go, the maps that helped me climb the steep hills in San Francisco. Next up... I am looking forward to picking out the best travel books to take with my on my dream trip across the country this summer...