Of Reading and a few rants

     Most of the time when I talk to people about reading, they tell me they don't read much, if at all. Most of the people in that particular category are teenagers or younger children, but there are a few adults in there as well. It's not very often I find someone my age that I can talk to that actually enjoys reading for the fun of it, and not because of school or because there's a book that is the base for a movie (Hunger Games, anyone?) Of course, I haven't actually talked to that many people on the web and this is mostly based off of real life interactions, but still. I find it pretty disappointing that there are so many people that don't like to read.
     Before you yell at me and tell me that there are people who like reading out there, I know there are. I'm just focusing right now on the people who don't like reading.
     I've met people saying that they don't like reading books because it's not their type of books. Sometimes I wonder to myself when I'm done talking to them if they're aware that there's a wide range of categories to choose from. Others I've heard complain that they don't like reading because it takes them forever to read a book, and it gives them a headache when they try (My younger brother is included in this particular category, though at least he does read some books when we actually get some new ones that are his type and he hasn't read yet) I tend to dislike these people a little bit, which is rather unfair of me actually. The reasoning behind this is that I learned to read at a young age and was reading chapter books in first grade. Reading comes so naturally to me, sometimes I fail to understand how others can't read like I can, which is to say fast and headache-free when it's a book I enjoy. I suppose I can say I get more frustrated by those people than I really dislike them, but they're pretty similar when it comes to me. But in all honesty, everyone has something they excel at, and I'm sure that there are others who lose their patience in me when I fail to understand something as fast as they could, so I suppose it's fair.
     Have I gone off-topic? Maybe. But there are a lot of different excuses I've heard for why people don't read, and I guess I just get frustrated by them. But it's really rewarding for me when I finally see someone that doesn't like reading at all or not much reading a book (and possibly getting into trouble for whatever reason, depending on where they are and if they're supposed to be doing something at that moment)

     Of course, you get a lot of people, like me, who like reading. Some people read books critically, noticing every flaw and pointing them out in a review. Some people just read for the fun of it. I don't really know much about the reviewers/critics, so I can't really say much about them. I know that they tend to reveal all the flaws I miss on my first run through the book, but often I see them giving negative feedback on almost everything the review. But considering I've only read multiple reviews on two or three books and of those only read from two or three people's reviews on other books, that's not saying much. So...my information on critics is pretty sketchy, and if you want to know more about them you'd probably find more info out of actually reading the reviews :)
     I, personally, can read a book and ignore every flaw there is in the story the first time I read it through, though the bigger ones like a lack of writing experience of a bad storyline overall sticks out like a sore tuhmb for me. Most of the time it's only the second or third time I'm reading the book that I notice from the smaller flaws, or when I'm reading reviews by other people. I suppose it's because I read so fast to get the actual story in my  head that I forget to concentrate on all the small details (don't get me wrong, as I do remember most of the details, just not every last one the first time through) And because I read fast, I tend to read multiple books at a time (not open all at once, but like having four or five books that I read throughout the day depending on a number of things) That also helps me forget of the smaller details in a story, since I'm actively trying to remember a few stories at once. And because I have a cool imagination (by my own definition, not sure what others would say of it) I often "rewrite" the stories in my head. Add a few things and take others away, make the story either more "happy" or "sad" by my definitions, though most of the time they end up being more sad than they were written out to be...
     I should probably mention now that I'm not particularly a fan of happy endings anymore. I say anymore because I used to be one when I was a small kid, even up to about two years ago, but now I just don't find the same appeal I did back then. I suppose too many things have ended up being disappointing in my life for me to really believe in happy endings anymore. And that's also the reason I don't want much television anymore (apart from half-watching baby shows meant for my younger siblings, I rarely watch tv) But that's another story :)
     I'm not really sure when I first realized I was tired of happy endings. All I know is that I got tired of them. Though it might be because I'm a fantasy lover, and I was finding the supernatural books hard to read from the not-so-happy parts that I started losing interest in happy endings. I started expanding my views of books to include the ones I hadn't wanted to read before (I had skipped over the Hunger Games series specifically because I didn't like the fact that people died in them, and quite a few other series of books that had people getting pretty injured somewhere...) I found that I enjoyed those books more than I was enjoying the books I were used to reading, no matter how strange that sounds. And, as an added bonus, I've even found a few series where the plot itself doesn't follow romance, but rather has minimal romance in it that doesn't really bother me at all. And I suppose that the romance being part of most of the main plots of the books I read were another reason to deter me from that path, since I find it annoying whenever people in the books find themselves in love for the very first time with someone, and they end up living happily ever after. Real life doesn't work out like that as often as the books make it out to be, and it gets annoying how many people in real life complain about their love life and how they're never going to find the perfect match for themselves, especially after they've only dated one single person.
     Yeah, definitely off-topic rant. But I don't personally care. My blog. I write what I want. But I think I'll save that particular rant for another post somewhere in the future, because there are a lot of things that will tie up with that rant. Though if you seriously want an example of love-struck teenagers (at least, I'm assuming they're teenagers, because I have no real idea and I don't really hear adults complain so much aobut love) moping around, follow this link and read from the pictures in the gallery. Not all of them are about love, but quite a few are: DeviantArtSecret And if you're planning on reading from them, keep in mind that there are thousands of secrets in the gallery, so it might take you a while to read through them all. And if you have some sort of secret you want to share but can't for whatever reason, you can read their journals on submitting a secret :)

     I'm definitely getting off-topic, and since it's nearly 2 AM this time I think I'm going to end the post here. Even though I kind of doubt that anyone enjoyed reading this, I hope that you found it at least interesting in one way or another. Not sure if I'm ever going to continue the whole likes/dislikes reading thing again, but I can tell you for sure that this is not the last time you'll hear me complaining about love and happy endings, as they're one of my biggest gripes in life right now. Until next time, whenever that may be.

A few warnings of things to come...

     So, this is my blog. I have a strange mind, claimed by not only people that know me but myself included, and sometimes I feel like posting whatever it is that I'm thinking about somewhere. I never really do, but I'm trying to change that here. Hopefully with this blog I can get some of the thoughts out of my head so it doesn't take me so long to fall asleep at night (not kidding...though it might help that I like eating some candy before I go to bed :) ) Oh, and just so you know, I am terrible at making titles, so don't focus too much on them and rather just read the actual post :)

     The first thing that comes off the top of my head right now would be something along the lines of, "Oh my gosh! I'm actually sitting here and writing a blog post!" followed very closely by, "Is it seriously almost 1 AM? Well, that would explain why my head feels so funny." So, I'll be writing a few more things before I finally get off and go to sleep :)

     You'll very soon notice that I tend to type a lot. Especially if I need to sleep, because that's when it seems like most of my ideas and thoughts come. During the day, I'm more concentrated on doing schoolwork (though school doesn't start for about another week for me) doing chores (which is a lot more fun if I'm listening to music) or playing games (actually, I do this at night too. I just play more when everyone else is up and about) I tend to get ideas a lot then, but it's more when I'm sitting and everything around me is calm that the thoughts start spinning. Often I'm thinking of two or three things at the same time as well as listening to a song in my head, strange as it sounds.
     Also, in addition to having the tendency to typing a lot, I tend to babble on about things both relevant and irrelevant. You may have already noticed that by now, but if you haven't then you should know by now ;)

     I have no idea how often this blog will get updated, as I need to find time to do it. Granted, I do have a lot of time on my hands most of the time, but almost always I find that I can't do what I want during that time because I keep getting interrupted. And I really don't know what I'm going to post ahead of time, as I am going to be posting about whatever's on my mind when I'm writing.

     So yeah, I'm a pretty strange girl. If you don't agree with it now, I'd like to see you disagree later on when my ramblings get really weird. Maybe even with my next post :)

     Running out of things to say in this post that are actually going to help you...I guess I can say that if you're still interested after everything I typed (which is very very little by my standards, believe it or not) then you'll find this blog interesting. Possibly annoying too, but I can't say for sure. Oh, and if you've read every word on here, thank you :) Since I have a tendency to type a lot, I notice that a lot of people only focus on a single paragraph I write out of maybe five or six, and usually it's the shortest one. I don't know why, but it seems like a lot of people don't really like reading all that much. Er, I think I'm going to stop there and start writing a new blog post about that...just before this thing gets way too long...