This past week, I did something absolutely crazy.

It was something practically unheard of on a college campus, the stuff of dreams and fairy tales and wistful aspirations around a flickering fire. It was brave, reckless, and required a lot of sacrifice. But I did it.

I read a book.

For fun.

WUT.

I know, it’s a highly questionable claim. A college kid reading a book for leisure? During the last two weeks of the quarter? Wherever on earth did you find the time, you scream, as your friends faint around you in disbelief and the world trembles. There is no way.

And what’s more, it was over 700 pages long.

OMG PLS NO WAY.

Indeed. The book in question was Patrick Rothfuss’s "The Name of the Wind," an absolutely amazing read that I wholeheartedly suggest. The journey began when an eager friend of mine bought it for me and I decided to just read a page the next night, to humor him more than anything else.

That single page turned into a couple every time I sat down at my desk, to bringing the book to meals and ignoring everyone whilst I read, and finally to silencing my screaming planner and sacrificing hours upon hours of should-be-homework time for the wonderful world inside my book.

I felt like a child ravaged with starvation, except the growling was coming from my head and I was stuffing my face with words, oh sweet, fictional, encompassing words. It was a riveting experience, emphasized by the fact that I’d been starved of a good read for almost a year. I returned to my characteristically nerdy middle school self, politely declining requests to party in favor of a couple more hours of reading. This past quarter has been tremendously stressful, and I can honestly say that reading that book was my favorite moment in the past three months.

But while life-changing, the very fact that reading a book for fun was so resoundingly nuts in my current context is quite saddening. I can’t tell you how many people asked me what class I was reading for, and how many consequential arched eyebrows or frowns of jealousy I got when I told them it was for leisure.

The thing is, in college, reading is a chore. It’s something you do with a well-practiced groan in your throat, your brain racked with more curses towards your over-demanding professor than a concentrated effort to understand the material. And that’s only half of it— time is a college kid’s most valuable currency, and especially for a freshman, it becomes essential to spend it on things inherent to the college experience, so reading for fun is resultantly left in the dust. Reading, as a general rule, also takes more brainpower, which is why those few sweet moments of relaxation are either taken up by naps or Netflix instead of a good book.

But I’d forgotten what reading does for me. It clears my head, allows me to lose myself in another world, and continuously expands my affinity for the English language. I can go on whole journeys within the borders of my bed, and my dreams develop into lively, more colorful experiences as my imagination is worked by the book. Reading also grounds me, alleviates my stress a little and allows me some peace of mind from the stresses of college life.

So, I think that there should be an initiative of some sort. Something that will allow college kids to read for pleasure again, because I know I’m not the only one who misses it as much as kids miss watching Drake and Josh. A good book can truly change things around, and I think that it’d be worthwhile to create some type of program within college campuses that allows for that little bit of extra time to read.

So if you’re reading this and itching with the desire to read, just do it. Go to the library, find a book you actually want to read, and read it. Just do it. Join me on this journey. This journey to read.