*blink blink*

When I was younger, probably around 6th - 8th grade, my family moved back to England. We sold EVERYTHING and our house was up for sale. We stayed for all of 6 days in England before returning to the US, taking our house off the market. Neither me nor my siblings wanted to leave the United States - my little sister, for one, had no memory of England and had grown up in the states, while me and my older sister had made friends and had settled in - and apparently nor did my parents. I don't know what prompted the move in the first place and i've never thought to ask my parents about it. But when we returned, to our old house that we didn't sell, all our neighbors and friends were happy. Those who had bought goods from us wanted to return them, but my parents refused. That meant living with out a TV.

Most people would groan about that, and kids this days would probably die with out a TV. Honestly, I wasn't all that upset. I didn't watch TV very much, and my weekends were usually consumed with soccer practice and soccer games. (Yeah, I used to be pretty fit when I was younger). I've always been a loner, and I still am, so had very few friends, and can hardly recall a time when I hung out with friends from school. I did ride my bike to a friend from my soccer teams house, and I suppose that's who I spent most of my time with. Its been years since I last talked to him, and can't recall how or when our friendship ended.

Anyways, that left me with a lot of free time. I'd play with my legos, turning complete sets into monstrocities of lego. I'd wage mini wars between the 'Imperials' and the 'Bad guys', build large fortresses and cool vehicles and ships. As I grew older, that happened less and less, and I turned towards a greater mental challenge, something that could not only keep me preoccupied but feed my brain and magic me away from the real world for hours on end. I turned to reading.

In those three or four years we spent with out a TV, I think I read something close to 300 - 400 books. No joke. And not little 100 page books. I can recall a couple books that approached 800 - 1000 pages, with most being over 200 books. I read a few Historical books and mainly Fantasy and Sci-Fi books. "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" were some of the first ones I read - when I was 12. YEARS before they even considered turning them into the movies that made the books extremely popular again. The same with "The Golden Compass" and the books in that triology. I read countless other books too - some more mainstream then others. The Wheel of Time, Shardik. I don't remember names well, so I wouldn't be able to tell you how many different authors or series I read, but I can gurantee you that if i picked up one of those books again, i'd know immediately whether or not I read it and I'd be able to recall exactly what happens.

I'm not sure how I do it, but thats why I can never read a book more then once. Theres no challenge there, no suprises - I already know how its going to end, who is going to die, and everything else about the book.

Lately, I've had trouble finding books to read, or discovering that series I out-read have new books. I'm tempted to go back to them, but I know it won't be the same as reading the series the first time through. I try to be more selective now, picking books that are in a completed series. It doesn't always work out that way, but the amount of books I read each year has greatly diminished.

You might be wondering what brought this all about. Well, I feel like I just woke up from a nap after a little under 3 hours of reading, finising a two-book series. It was pleasant, not the best stuff i've read, but it feeds that part of me that is seldom feed these days. 300 pages in 3 hours isn't bad either, but i've had years of practice. And the book was engaging enough to draw me in like that. When I stopped reading, I felt like it would 1 or 2 AM in the morning, which usually happens when I get drawn in that much. But nope, it was only 9:30ish and I had eaten dinner around 6:15ish (PM, mind you) before picking up the book. So now I wonder where my night went. >:-)

No, now I wonder what that next thing to challenge my mind will be.