Justifiably Scholastic

I look forward to this day.  I wait for it. I crave it.  It is the best day, by far, of the entire quarter. 

It is the day before the stress and workload begins to accumulate.  It is the day before all my classes begin.  It is the only day when I go to campus without being in a rush. No deadlines…yet.  Without having my mind spin endless circles around the readings I have done the previous night and that very morning…  Sorting out what I read where and what I though about it – and what those thoughts lead to and how, and in what ways, everything interconnects…. Today, rather, is the day I go to the bookstore.  GET TO GO, I should say. 

You see I, like so many of us, have a problem with books.  With everything else in my life, I am able to exert an impressive amount of restraint in my purchases.  Usually, the cost outweighs whatever benefit I see in the item.  No it is not the school sweatshirts and decals, hats, shoes, backpacks, trinkets – I easily pass them by without a second glance.  Not so with books.  Especially not so in a campus bookstore where I feel justified in buying everything that catches my fancy because it is, in at least some way, vaguely scholastic.  I want them all – and today is the day when I face the bookstore and know that I have nothing pressing to do – nothing calling me away.  What goes through my head as I face the bookstore?  I wonder how much my books will weigh (as it is a long walk back to the car), how many bags they will fill once I include the necessary notebooks and supplies (another, although to a slighter degree, love of mine), just how much I can carry back while at the same time looking reasonable (ie – like I have NOT entered into the strong-woman contest for book carrying…).

I have to say, I think it is the hunt that is the most appealing.  That hunt for the book I don’t know I will find, don’t know that I want, don’t know how much will impact my life.  How will I find it? Is it there?  Who wrote it? Why?  And assuming I find just such a rare item – when will I read it?  Right away or will I wait and eventually pick it up at just the right moment to GET what I need to out of it?

Justifiably scholastic.  So what if I am an English major – why can’t I add a book on practical engineering, applied mathematics, Italian, web technology, biological anthropology (already have and have read) .. to my collection. 

The wait for this quarter is ending.  The wait for the next will begin later this afternoon.