Cleaning up and Reading More

At the end of every academic year, I love to clean out my room. It’s a tradition that goes by ohhh about 10 years with me. I remember in the eighth grade trying to clean out my room the day BEFORE my last exam… hardly the best idea. Come to think of it, I was reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography the week before finals in ninth grade. I guess that explains why my mother was shrieking and begging me to study. Hmmm.

Anyway, as I was saying– cleaning. I like to clean things out at the end of the year. This year is an even bigger deal because I graduated college and oh my, I kept a lot of junk over the years that I thought would be useful at some point. And most of it wasn’t.

Even though all this material is housed in a relatively small space, i.e. one room, it has formed layers of junk. In all it took about seven hours to clean everything.  In the process, I’ve sorted through lots of books. Some I’m giving away. Others I’m putting on Ebay. I also found about 20 books that I’ve been meaning to read but never got around to reading. They sit in a big pile on my desk, where I hope their messy look will inspire me to pick one up and start reading.

Here’s some of what’s on the list:

Obama’s autobiography.

On Writing Well by William Zinner

Political Islam by Esposito

The Canon by Natalie Angier

Atlas of World History

Jefferson-Architect of America

Ignited Minds.

I hope that reading will help me take my paws off the laptop,for more hours in the day.