I’m taking a huge number of books out of the library because I need to work on my research during the break.
“Damn, how many courses did you fail this semester to need all these books over the break?” a library worker asks as he checks out my books.
I point to my ID card that says “Faculty.”
“This is what I get for never failing any courses,” I explain.
“I’ll never feel jealous of straight-A students again,” the library worker says as he eyes my pile of books with terror.
They don’t understand that a huge stack of books can be exciting to academics. I was just discussing with my fellow word-nerds how excited we all were to be able to go to the library and get a big stack of books to read over the break. What could be better. We were each getting an academic stack for work from the college library and a different stack from the public library “just for fun.” For our research projects, a big stack of books is daunting but *promising* and dares you to dig in and find the holes.. where you can say something new, something publishable, and teach yourself more. For our pleasure reading, the promise of hours and hours of reading things we enjoy, rather than papers by college students, is so refreshing… like we are trying to eradicate the damage done to our synapses over the course of a semester. Books are like literary “magic sponges” from Mr. Clean..
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😀
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I read one of my suitemate’s chemistry textbooks for fun. But she had to take it home to work on her honors thesis, so now I’m stuck without anything interesting to read.
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Our house has five or six huge book cases, because I have completed a PhD and my husband is an ex-librarian and book lover, who used to work at Stanford University. We have too many books and I can’t look a book in the face after finishing my thesis. I can’t seem to read them in the same way that I used to — I’m either too close or too far away to perceive their qualities as a whole. I get stuck into too close a reading, quibble over vocabulary, or make an issue out of minor points. I think these are signs I’m still a recovering doctor.
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“these are signs I’m still a recovering doctor”
The hardest part is giving up the T.A.R.D.I.S.
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This is a beautiful avatar. I’m now distracted from my work because I’m trying to remember all works of literature I have ever read that mention it. 🙂
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Ditto. I am hoping the feeling goes away in time. Its been 3 years for me. The feeling is still there a bit, but I do enjoy reading fiction again.
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My favorite part of the semester is turning in all the books I used for my seminar papers. It usually goes something like:
Me: *THUNK goes the book bag on the counter*
Library Work-Study: Holy mother of God.
Me: *slightly manic and under-caffeinated because I’m turning in the books before the ritual trip to the Library Starbucks* HI! WANT SOME BOOKS? *crazy grin*
LWS: Um. No.
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Sounds to me that this experience is a wonderful tribute to your youthful looks – so you should be quite pleased by his remark, which perhaps you are deep down!
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[…] And this one is about a very funny exchange at the library. […]
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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