I Hate Reading!

Ever since I was a kid, I would be intimidated by reading novels. That’s a lie. I never read a novel as a kid… but it sure seemed that way in proportion. I avoided it so much in high school that I found an alternative class to get the credits I needed just so I would never have to take Novels class. It takes me a really long time to read. A novel would’ve taken me forever to read, and the class was expected to read one per week.

It’s not that I can’t pronounce the words when reading allowed or have a problem with the English language. On the contrary, I’m quite brilliant in that area. I got straight A’s in English (ok, maybe an A- or two). The problem was imagining the meaning of the words. It’s not hard to read allowed, “Sally had on a pair of red shoes.” Usually in class when I was learning to read, I focused on pronouncing the words, saying it in a volume so that everyone could hear me and focused my overall performance of reading the words. Not only that, but everyone always focused on SPEED! I was trying to out-read all my classmates by reading out loud as fast as I could. I read so fast with my mouth that my mind wasn’t keeping up. “Letters, syllables, question mark sounding tones, ”i” before “e” except after “c” “th” aaaa eeeee iiii oooo uuuu” was the only thing on my mind. So I would have to go back and reread it later so that I could imagine Sally, standing there in a room, looking down at her feet and seeing red high heels on. Or maybe they were sneakers. What color hair did she have? Were they comfortable shoes? I’m hungry. Is it time for dinner yet? What time is it? Am I done reading yet? I hate reading. I’d rather be watching Full House.

I guess I’m too much of a dreamer and thinker.  Every time I read a sentence, I stop and stare off into space, this having reminded me of something else relating to the story or instantly relating it to my life. Then I think about what I’m going to do when I’m done reading or thinking about what I wish I could be doing instead. You might think I have problems focusing. But when I look at a page of text,

           

I get intimidated thinking “How long is this going to take me?!” I read slow the way it is! And the text is looking exactly the same. There’s no emotions or highlighting of the words except for the occasional italicized word.

Every morning since kindergarten I remember waking up in the morning and eating cold cereal with my family. I would spend that 20 minutes reading the back of a cereal box. I always liked the cereal boxes with the cartoons and activities on the back. 

  

I bet I could read 500 words on the back of 10 cereal boxes a lot faster than 500 words on 3 pages of paper. It was then I realized I liked reading when it was visually more fun. I mean, think about it: It’s reading! It’s 100% visual. Why does it have to be so boring? Why does it look the same? Even while I’m typing this in Word, I don’t want to go back and proofread it. Thank Microsoft for spell check and red squiggly underlines.

Million-dollar idea: Make a program that could animate your words as you speak them. I speak into the mic of my computer and right in front of my eyes, the words are digitally colored, in fonts, and are the right size of the tone, meaning, and volume of my spoken words. Thus, of course, putting me, a graphic designer, out of a job.
So I guess, that's why I like being a Graphic Designer. I get to encourage people to read. I make reading cool. I help make the words look more appealing and easy to read. It's so easy that they won't even realize they are reading! And with that I make sure I get the message across, because that's what it is all about: Communication.

That's all for now...