I said light, not lightweight
It's February already. There goes my resolution to read a book a month :(
I suppose I won't beat myself up about it, since I haven't even had time to read my textbooks. In university, we measure time by weeks; we're supposed to have 14 weeks of class this semester. It finally dawned on me that we're already in week 7 -- half the semester's gone. I thought the saying was time flies, not time disappears!
The ideal time for reading, according to Irene Kiew (that would be moi), is first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I like waking up by degrees, and picking up a book suits me perfectly. By the time I've read 20 pages, my brain has gotten itself up from 0% to 20% capacity and I feel more ready to face the world.
Unfortunately, when at 0% capacity, my brain is not exactly in the condition to follow complex characters and unpredictable plots. I need to read something light and undemanding, especially since I start off squinting at the page with one half-open eye. I used to read romance novels (don't need much brainpower for those), but recently I purchased some back issues of the Popular Science and Discover magazines. I think they're the perfect early-morning reads. One article, and I'm ready to go.
Women's mags have never held much allure for me. They're always the same: fashion pieces that no one with any sense of taste would wear outside the house, or inside it for that matter; 5 most essential items of make-up a girl can't do without; how to tell if your boyfriend is cheating on you with your best friend; 10 ways to achieve a more spectacular orgasm; a quick quiz to determine whether you're obsessive-compulsive. Boring.
But science mags -- they're fascinating. I'm interested in how things work, why people do the things they do, what inspired inventors to come up with the gadgets they created. Trivia delights me, although I seldom remember any. I read it and think, "This is cool," but it doesn't stick in my brain, so I can't use that knowledge to impress anybody. Oh well... easy come, easy go.