New Reading List (CRL UPDATE!)

Perhaps what had made this Fall Semester so successful is the fact that I've learned to approach my professors with all sorts of questions - from the class material itself, to supplemental readings, and even discussing critical observations of the real world (these discussions were the favorites among myself and my professors). At the end of my semester, I've made it a point to talk to each of my professor to develop more academically focused reading list for me to have and to develop further as time passes on.

In some ways, there's an ulterior motive to this list: I hope that the readings will help me develop a focus in the field I'm studying (Sociology) for the sake of my final semester (research, internship, and thesis) and, if I'm daring enough, Grad School (wherever I may go since I've yet to really give this much thought). 

In the sake of fairness, these titles will also be a part of my (personally) infamous Comprehensive Reading List. These books, plus all the personal novels (and the like) that I want to read this year will skyrocket the number significantly. This will, in fact, force to reconsider my 75% goal that I always set for myself and perhaps consider a lower number (roughly 50-65%, if I'm fortunate enough). But the new and improved CRL won't be available for another few days (to add and even color code my reading list to account for the major changes soon to come).

In some ways, I do hope that you (the reader) will perhaps consider reading some of the books on my list and perhaps gain the same insights I've had from Flowers for Algernon (for example). Until next time, my fellow readers!

Reading and Falling Behind

Once again, I've edited my Comprehensive Reading List, CRL for short (as always), for what seems like the 10th time this year. My book count, over this year, has jumped exponentially from 51 or 52 (pretty much somewhere in the low 50's) to a new total of 68. As of now, I'm at approximately 63.63% of accomplishing my goal of this year. It's been such a hard trek in trying to read as much as possible. The cool (and annoying part) of this is that I'm more likely to go down on my progress than go up. This is so mostly because I add books than cross them off, but I'm doing my best to read two books for every one that's added. So, that's a good thing. =D

However, that's not where I'm falling behind actually. For one of my classes that is studying social changes on a macro level (this meaning across a lengthy period of time - in this case, human history), we have to read this textbook called Social Transformations: A General Theory of Historical Development (Expanded Edition) by Stephen K. Sanderson. Our professor warned us that this book will be a challenging read, since the book was written for Sociology grad students, not undergrad students. And reading this book is, well, pretty damn hard. In one of my earlier sociology classes, my professor pointed out that many books academic books are written with a specific lingo or lexicon that seems to shut out any other curious minds outside of that particular field (in other words, she argues that academic books should serve to enlighten everybody, including the everyday man, instead of a select few). 

Anyhow, reading this book makes running in water an easier task to perform. I was supposed to read chapter 1 by Saturday (yesterday), chapter 2 by tomorrow (Monday, which I haven't) and chapter 3 by (Wednesday, which probably won't happen) if I'm going to fully comprehend the lectures and classwork that I'm expected to complete effectively. Hence, I've fallen behind already.