you learn new things everyday

I learned several things about myself today:
1) I will actually give my phone the silent treatment (not using all day and purposefully leaving home without it) all day just because it did not wake me up at 6 am
2) I will actually wake up voluntarily at 6 am to continue reading a book.
3) I went to bed at 1 am trying to keep reading a book
4) I am perfectly ok with only sleeping a few hours..as long as i get to read book
5) i have to force myself to eat or do any other things while reading book
and lastly) I will do anything as long as I get to finish the book and know exactly what happens, because of course the moment i stop reading i JUST know things happen that aren't written in the book.

Ok, ok, before you send me off to the insane asylum in a straight jacket where i have to chew hole out of the white shoulder pads just so i can scratch myself...let me explain my love the written word.

I didn't always used to love reading. Actually, it took me a long time to learn how to read. I had a really big phonetics problems when i was younger and my parents never took me to a speech therapist. I don't think they were noticed, honestly, becasue i was advanced in everything else; especially math. By 1st grade I was multiplying up to 12. Pretty impressive, no? Anyways I would say i didn't learn how to read fluently until 3rd grade; I was 7 years old. Honestly, I think the only reason i really learned was because we had moved from Miami, FL to Nicaragua that year and I one of two Americans in my school. I had to perform well, because then what else would i have going for me?
I hated to read back then. I remember laying in my bed sweating because I had to read a whole chapter book. In the 5th grade we would have reading week. The class that read the most books as a whole would win a prize. My class really wanted to win. So, I would grab books and only read the summary and turn it in. After that I learned the power of summaries and how teachers assumed I read just because I spit back the back of the book summary almost verbatim. From then on you would never catch me reading a whole book. During that time my dad had started buying me books. I don't know why, but I think my parents are psychic because they did things like without knowing for sure if I truly liked it.

One of the books my dad bought me was at the beginning of 6th grade (he probably bought as soon as it came out in sept of 99)and it was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling. The cover of the book always intrigued me, but I could never bring myself to read a 435 page book. By the pictures you can tell how old it is and just how many times I read it.
Anyways, during Christmas break I decided to finally read it (1999) After that first encounter with reading a bookI became in love, enamored, fascinated with, entrapped, enchanted, captivated by, gaga over books. My dad was going to Miami right after xmas brak and I amde buy all the books he could find on the Harry Potter series. Of course he obliged and brought back only the two first books. He told me that the 4th wasn't going to come out until that summer (2000). I had to wait 6 WHOLE MONTHS until I could continue reading. During that long wait the books had become a huge hit for some odd reason and I was stuck. Every July after that I made sure either me, my dad or someone I knew was in Florida to buy me a harry potter book until the very last one in 2007.
Since the Harry Potter series my mom and dad started to buy my 3-4 books every summer and sometimes every Christmas. Since then I have bought myself at least two new books a year. Probably more, but I can't keep track of how many books I buy or download. It's like buying clothes.

As many books as I've read it's been a while since I felt connected with one. There's only been two books I've felt a connection with: the Harry Potter series and Twilight (I know, sorry). Both authors, although one is much greater of a writer than the other, know how to tell a story and know how to give birth to a great character. Right now, I felt a connection with another book and supposedly will be turned into a series; Fallen by Lauren Kate. Another supernatural book, but it was fantastic. It takes a pretty damn good writer to be able to make me feel just as disoriented and breathless as the heroine of the story. She was sure she knew things and so did I, but the books had as many twists as the Hulk Roller-coaster in Islands of Adventure. I finally finished the book today (after starting it yesterday) and can breathe a little more. I hadn't realized that it felt as if I had been holding my breath the whole time. It was recommended to me by someone and she also recommended me 3 other books. Of course, I will read them, but Fallen will be on mind for some weeks. I will probably read it over and over again just like I did with the Harry Potter series and Twilight (I've both series separately at least 6 times...each book). I fall so hard for certain books it's as if they turn into my lovers for a few days.
I think I have a feeling why I fall for books so hard and why I consider them my greatest companions, but that's something only the psychologist in me shoudl know. You know the deal...patient-doctor confidentiality.