book

Recently, I started to read the Dune books after I watched the second film and found myself sort of falling in love with reading again. This feeling that you do not want to put a book down and cannot wait to read what is going to happen next. As it happened, this renewed reading streak happened right at the start of my holiday, which made any transit or waiting time a bit easier.

It started at the airport, where much waiting was happening. There is no better way to train your concentration then trying to read while there are tons of families keeping their kids happy, airport staff zooming in between with carts and coffee, anouncements on which flights are delayed and all types of chatter about the flight destination and the supposed weather there.

Then, taking a budget flight there was no in-flight entertainment, I read on with my forehead comfortable against the seat in front of me. It even makes you forget the whole agony about placing you arm somewhere if you have the middle seat. It also makes you less susceptible to noticing the flight attendants walking by with all their wares to sell, which is especially necessary when it is edible stuff they have.

Arriving at the destination I was lucky enough to take the train and could read to my heart’s content. Afterwards, there would be more car rides with limited reading time since I get carsick quite easily and we would be in the mountains as well. Also, the space in the train was quite cramped so it mostly, but not entirely prevented my limbs from flailing around too much.

The rest of the time, any waiting time was gladly filled with reading a few pages to the next chapter. After the holiday, I read on the train and also before sleeping, trying to make it part of my more common routine. Sometimes, I feel drained reading so much news or information at work, and delving into a book can really uplift, even if you basically do the same thing. Bonus point, if you do it on your phone, you can also feel slightly better about the reason being glued to your device.

In WeChat there is this nifty feature called ‘friend circle’, which is basically akin to a Facebook timeline. Since I am not in China anymore, I do not actively follow most of what is happening in the friend circle anymore. To motivate myself to check it out a bit more often, I will list some random things I saw while scrolling down. It is also a nice way to keep a bit of a pulse on what is happening in China, of course subjectively.

Olympics

I am very uninterested in watching most sports. I am very interested in doing some sports, but the Olympics that are currently happening, do not really interest me at all. However, I saw quite some posts in my friend circle about this Japanese gymnast. Apparently he made a grave error, but still got high points regardless. And people are now critiquing the judge, the gymnast and the Olympics as unfair, partial and shameless. To be honest, I really cannot understand all the fuss being made about these things. And it is very easy to just write on Twitter “THE JUDGES NEED TO GET THEIR EYES CHECKED” if you can do that from the comfort of your home, while probably sitting down. Things the sporters are not doing.

The most interesting things about sports, is the similar reactions you see by almost everyone. The comments, about the judge’s eyes, or the sporter being a failure, or the sarcasm that he got his points is uniform. Sports really unite. But in a most ugly way.

A book that one of my contacts bought, popped up that seemed interesting. The title is Seeking A Little Upward Mobility Amidst A Frenetic Life. In English, the title sounds like every other self-help book which is probably correct since the blurb says: “[This] is a spiritual book by a famous author. Listen to famous authors talk about how they read, how to keep their inner peace. How to learn to be silent, and how to cherish time. Life is too chaotic, but that doesn’t stop us from getting ahead.”

I have a sort of innate dislike of self-help books. On the other hand, I always try to motivate myself to read more. Especially in Chinese. I can read Chinese quite well, but it goes very slow. Kind of like French, where I can understand pretty much everything but prefer to look up at least 1 word per page just to make sure. And that transition to the dictionary does not go very smooth unfortunately. The story does not continue there. So a Chinese book always serves as a welcome reminder, that I would like to not spend a whopping 7 years on finishing another Chinese book, but that if I would still do should better start now.

Tag: book

When do you like to do your reading?