Hello from Katherine Sanchez

Why Hello Everyone! My name is Katherine. I am a transfer student from Temecula, Ca, which is near San Diego.  I have always been a Southern Californian girl until five days ago when I moved up here not knowing one person and honestly not knowing what to expect when I moved here. This place is definitely different from my hometown and I know it will take me a while to get used to. I have encountered my first one-way street and it scared the living shit out of me when I turned the wrong way on it! They don’t have those back in Temecula and honestly I’m happy they don’t because it’s just nerve wracking. I do have to say I am enjoying seeing so much green around here and being able to hear and see a train travel through this little quant town is pretty awesome. The most green I would see from my hometown is from the wineries where I was a frequent visitor living only ten minutes away from my ever wonderful endless supply and pick of the many different wineries we have to offer in a 10 mile radius. While I type I am on my third glass of wine and I’m hoping to finish this before I begin to not make sense and have really bad grammatical errors (oops too late!) oh well. You said try not to be drunk while writing it and I’m not quite there yet so it’s all good! So my story is short and I’m hoping to meet some new people to help with this transition and have some fun while I’m here! I started to really enjoy reading when I started high school. I would always have a new book in my bag and many of my friends never understood how much I enjoyed reading. Instead of participating in cheer practice I would be in the corner just reading away pissing everyone off because they wanted to get everything done so they could go home!  I write in my journal and create short stories when I am stressed. It’s a way to let off steam and its something that really helps me. I enjoy reading basically anything that captures my intention. I’m not picky and am willing to give anything a try. Have I read the Twilight Series and Fifty Shades of Grey? Yes. Will I ever read them again? No, once is fine. Like I said, I’m not picky when it comes to novels but if it’s written horribly and I can’t stop criticizing it then I just wont read it again like I do with my favorites.

After reading Szwed’s article a couple of quotes stuck out to me. The first one “ In the United States, for example, the reading of novels is in decline, while the reading of plays and poetry is at almost zero level. Instead, the amorphous area usually called non-fiction is on the ascendancy. I know when I was in high school it was required to read certain novels that many would not choose and luckily for everyone Spark notes was popular and made it possible to not even open the book and still pass the class. Interest in poetry was unheard of and the lack of interest in classic novels was unfortunately common in my high school. I have to agree, …”the stunning fact is that we do not fully know what literacy is. The assumption that it is simply a matter of the skills of reading and writing does not even begin to approach the fundamental problem. I sure anyone could argue their own ideas of literacy and that it can be described in a million different ways. I have to agree that reader’s motivation varies depending on what makes you motivated to continue to read. If I’m reading something that has no interest to me then it’s hard for me to finish the book and honestly I’ll skip around and try to find the main points of the story.