Slow down,

Calm down,

Do not hurry,

Trust the process,

Enjoy the ride,

Alexandra Stoddard

I read Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock and other myriad of things when I was a kid…what a Strange kid you may say, reading the books from a queen of murder! Well… I was a bit odd at that time… 2nd and 3rd grades are the worst … 4th and 5th and the rest of “schooling” are plain boredom .. you get the point right? I don’t really enjoy school period. I didn’t have much friends either, I was not really good at making friends in the elementary, in the junior high.. up to senior high. But I didn’t think about it much.. I was an odd kid, but I am pretty happy with my life and I like being alone and read a good book.

And I never feel there’s something special with liking to read a book. When you read, everything that happens is inside yourself, no one can see, apart from the startled laughter (while you read a funny thing) or the tears that rolling unceasingly from your eyes (when you read something sad or happy or unthinkable disappointment or a sweet earnest kindness). No one can see your horizon, no one can see your expanding knowledge, no one.. not even you can surely enough to say what happens while you’re reading a book. The closest thing you may say (perhaps even whispering to yourself) is.. This book has changed me.

And the change is (in my case) a very slow process… and I honestly think it will never stop. A book that I read 15 years ago, maybe told a very different story for me now. I grow, my perspective has switched, things that were felt like a marvelous Idea some time ago become a good idea with some updated version. I realize just how slow the process of growing ourselves up when I was taking my master’s degree 5 years ago. At that time, I felt I was too old to go to school, I may not be able to follow the learning requirements, and so on… I was 35 y.o at that time. But surprisingly, all my reading years neatly came back to me… My reading habit for decades helps me to find ideas for writing academic papers, I am so used to read in English, I rarely need a dictionary to be able to understand the academic paper written by scholars around the globe. I completed my master degree as a cum laude. I would have never known that my reading habit will help me 30 years ahead, but I’m glad I was that odd kid who loves to read a book by Agatha Christie..

Don’t rush the process, good things take time.

Cheers, Karin Sabrina