"So, you're an English major, huh? You must love to read!"
Short answer, yeah I like to read. Long answer I have a real love/hate, mac and cheese type of a relationship with reading.
What is a mac and cheese relationship you ask? Well you see, mac and cheese is arguably my favorite food. I mean, guys... mac and cheese. It's wonderful. However, I should not eat mac and cheese all day every day because I also would really love to live to see 30. So, I have a real love/hate relationship with mac and cheese because every time I eat it I eat way too much and I have to make a deal with myself to not eat it again for a while for the sake of my health.
So how does mac and cheese connect to my relationship with reading? Well, as an English major, I am reading all the time. I read roughly a novel or two a week. Logistically, in each of my English classes we are assigned around ten novels a semester and I am usually in two or three English classes so I read so, so much. And I love it. I found a lot of my favorite books in class and I would so much rather read, think deeply, and simultaneously loose myself and gain myself in my own head than anything else, but reading that much is a lot.
Reading all of the time tires you out. It just requires so much focus. You can't listen to music and read. You can't talk to someone and read. Hell, I can't even sit in public and read if there are too many people walking around. On top of that, reading a couple hundred pages in a week, sometimes a day, is hard. Nobody just sits down and does that all in one session, you need to take mental breaks to go outside and breathe real air. Not this musty stuff floating around in the lounge. So while I love to read, it takes it all out of me and it is really hard to want to do something that not only tires you out, but takes so much time that you do it all day everyday.
With that being said, I do love to read. I wouldn't be, couldn't be, an English major if I didn't. Nobody is in this major because it's easy or the pay is good, we are all here bespectacled, coffee-soaked, and trapped in our own heads because we love it.
We not only love what we study, but the people we study with. Every English major sits down in a class of roughly twelve people who are just as tired but just as passionate and hungry for answers as they are. English is such a niche major, that we have a lot of similarities with the people in our classes. Not just anybody can do it, but we do. And we love every second of it.
