I am getting closer- I should be done with the reading in about 2, or 2 and a half weeks. I am finding that it is more and more difficult to stay motivated and I am not getting as much out of my reading as I did at the beginning- I've become a machine, just processing books trying to hit my goals each week and caring more about the number than the contents.
It's hard. I feel like I am doing violence to the books. I am gutting them not reading them. It makes me think about the day I publish a book and it's future in the hands of graduate students who will gut it too- do I strive to make it easily guttable? Sounds painful. Of course, that assumes that I WILL write a book and that someone, anyone, will read it or "read" it.
I do still think I am getting something out of this process, even if it makes me long for my undergraduate days when I could read a whole book, word for word, page by page, and care about the stories told, not just about the arguments made.
I do think this will help me teach- I have been able to identify which books I want to go back to- and maybe assign and read with my undergrads- I long for the day when I get to sit in a room and discuss the stories of history not just the arguments of historians (or to chat online with my students).
I am glad that at this point in the process I am still looking forward to being an educator and to share my love of history with students- I hope they appreciate and get as much from me as I have from my professors (well, most of them).
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