Reading While Exercising

    After reading this title you may be a little confused, and wonder how it is possible. But it is indeed possible, and one of the greatest "multitasking" situations you can put yourself into.

   Being an athlete isn't always easy.. you have to worry about staying in shape, impressing the coaches, performing well on and off the field and most importantly being someone who can contribute and be successful in every way possible. When it comes to being the best you can be, it not only means putting the work in during the practice or game but also on your own time, when the coach isn't there to watch your every move. This may be hard or easy for some, depending on the person you are and how dedicated you make yourself. Another factor that plays a part in this process is weather. It may be beautiful one day therefore you can take that long run, or play in that pick up basketball game down the street. Other days it may not be as nice out though and working out needs to be done with other solutions. Luckily for me I have an exercise bike down my basement and when those clouds don't look too promising or it decides to snow 8 inches, i can put on some sneakers and ride the bike as long as my legs and heart desire.

    Now you still may be wondering how does this still have anything to do with literature, language or any other aspect of English.. Well the truth is when i ride the exercise bike, i also read a book. When i first heard that my dad multitasks with a book and the bike, i thought he was crazy. Then i decided to try it myself and i couldn't be happier I did. When i read that book, my mind is in another world. I get so wrapped in to the characters lives and the setting that i forget what else I'm doing. My adrenaline is pumping and i continue to go through page by page of usually a sappy love story, but one that i wish i could make a reality. I am currently reading the Glass Castle, in which is a novel about a family who travels like gypsies around the United States trying to stay away from the federal agents and surpass the consequences of past due bills and unpaid taxes. They are barely making ends meet and with 4 kids and 2 adults,  constantly scrounging up any food or money they can find to survive. Although I am only one of many that is reading this book, and I'm sure many would think I'm crazy,  I still can't help but feel sympathy for the characters wishing i could do something about it.

       This shows that stories really do have an impact on people's lives, especially mine. Reading is one of my favorite things to do and now that I can do while also doing another thing I love, makes it even 10x greater. Every book I read, I get more and more into it and have to force myself to put it down, in which also allows my work out to go longer and my body to feel more in shape!  I hope everyone else in life can find something, or two that they enjoy as much as I do reading and exercising and do it as much as they desire. I mean who wouldn't want to be wrapped up in a romantic, family, whirlwind love story and burn some unnecessary calories while your at it?

To Be Or Not to Be

      To be or not to be…This is a line from the famous story “Hamlet” by the one and only Shakespeare. For most people this brings joy and most of all, their inner nerd comes out, but for me I couldn’t be more miserable. I think about that famous line and its literal meaning in which is to live or not to live and when Shakespeare comes to mind, I would choose not to live. I understand that Shakespeare was one of the greatest writers to ever walk this earth, and his writing is filled with scholarly motives and themes, but to me it couldn’t be more difficult or boring to read. We are in the 21^st century, I am not worried about men who wore skirts, and rode horses and had obnoxiously long hair, or about women who constantly wore dresses and crowns and married there uncles or brother in laws, like students would be during this point in time.

        This also brings about the aspect of poetry. Every one of Shakespeare's writings is in poetic form, and it just makes the story drag on. First you have to worry about the iambic pentameter and syllables and then come grammar, spelling, and best of all, big words that only higher level thinkers would be able to define. Yes, I am in AP English and I should be enlightened by this “brilliance” of writing, but I don’t find it anymore relevant than the fly buzzing around the room.

         What I like to read is the more modern books like the one we started recently called “The Stranger”. It is about a boy who has lost his mother and is kind of alone in the world. He has a very passive and somber tone about him, in which is also like many characters in Shakespeare work, including Hamlet himself, but the recent story of the boy Meursault is far more interesting and worthwhile. It is told in plain, modern English in a style that everyone could relate to. The author of the book Albert Camus establishes the novel with a narrator, who was made like a realistic every day person that says what is on his mind, and it is things that me and everyone else reading can understand and have comparable feelings with. No this book isn’t as “nerdy” as Shakespearean work but it is still has great scholarly merit and shouldn’t be taken for granted when it comes to reading in a higher level English class..” Other books like this including To Kill a Mockingbird and Angela’s Ashes (When reading these types of books I am more likely to think “to be” instead of “not to be), should be looked at more closely rather than historical poems of stories about times that haven’t been apart of society in hundreds of years.