Intelligent and Sophisticated Person

I love reading, and when I was in college, I remember complaining that I never had enough free time to read books. Thanks to the Peace Corps, that problem has been rectified completely. I have so much free time now; I read every single day! I’ve even paired up with Ashlyn, another Peace Corps Volunteer, to turn reading into a competition (as all things are with this girl). Whoever reads the most books by our Close of Service (COS) will win. So far, we’re pretty neck-in-neck, and it could go either way. In the past nine months, I’ve read 39 books. Because reading has become such a pervasive part of my life here in Samoa, I thought it was only fitting to write a blog post about it.

The Peace Corps office has a whole hallway full of books, so I usually comb through the shelves every time I’m in town. After a few months though, it gets a little stagnant to go through the same books, but I have pretty useful strategies to find more books. Most resorts have a take-a-book, leave-a-book type shelf that they will usually let me use if I ask nicely. I also use an app called Overdrive to download ebooks from my library in Colorado onto my phone. I’m really lucky to be so connected and have access to the entire library! It uses a fair chunk of data, but it is definitely worth it to me!

When you read so often, it’s hard not to find quotes that resonate with you. So bear with me, while I share the most profound passages that have spoken to me the most.

1.     “I’d reached the point where if a character in one of the novels I was reading happened to be eating, I had to skip over the scene because it simply hurt too much to read about what I wanted and couldn’t have.”          -Cheryl Strayed, Wild

In this book, the author is going on a long hike and goes several weeks at a time eating mostly granola and jerky. This happens to me all the time as I read books. I miss GOOD food. I have dreams about chipotle burritos and margaritas. My friends torment me with pictures of Buffalo wings and cheesy sandwiches. I used to ask them to do this, but then I asked them to stop. It felt too much like food porn. When I read books (or watch movies) where people are eating food I wish I could have, I have to skip it. The most ironic part was when the author spent an entire page discussing her 3-course spaghetti dinner later in the chapter. I nearly wept with envy.

2.      There were many, many fine reasons not to go, but attempting to climb Everest is an intrinsically irrational act- a triumph of desire over sensibility.” – Jon Krakauer Into Thin Air

I know it is incredibly self righteous to compare what I’m doing to climbing the tallest mountain in the world, but just stay with me, ok? When you join the Peace Corps, you get asked a million times, in a million different ways, by a million different people, why you wanted to do it. And I don’t think I’ve ever given a satisfying answer. Bottom line is that it is a mind-boggling decision to most people, and they expect some form of profound wisdom when you answer this question. The answer, Um, Because I’m a teacher and I wanted to see the world and I can be a teacher anywhere, and to um, serve, and stuff, is not a satisfying answer. So from now on, I’m going to quote this line, verbatim, and hopefully, people find this answer more worthy.

3.      “Many [Peace Corps Volunteers] cannot be stopped from discussing what goes on in their GI tracts- the GI tract of a [PCV] over age twenty-three is true melodrama reminiscent of the Old Testament: sudden mass exodus long arduous journeys, flood, futility, agony, question God’s wisdom, and lactose intolerance.” –Sarah Silverman Bedwetter: Tales of Courage, Redemption and Pee

OK. I changed the word from “Jews” to “Peace Corps Volunteers” but this one is still pretty self explanatory.

So there it is. My most common way of spending free time has churned out this collection of brilliance. Rest assured, my Peace Corps service is making me an all around more intelligent and sophisticated person.