2012. And books.

While I firmly believe that 2012 is going to be a great year, it's gotten off to a somewhat rocky start. Or maybe an ambivalent start, in the sense of encompassing both one thing and its opposite.

On the one hand, I am SO CRAZY EXCITED for all the stuff I'm starting out with: my job at the zoo, which is fantastic, both the Master Gardening class and a geography class at PSU that I think is going to be great, and volunteering with my lovely friend in his 7th grade classroom. Not to mention all the other great things about life, like living in Portland, life-sharing with James, more bike clubs coming up in the spring, and on and on.

On the other hand, since James and I got back from Honduras, I've been sick not once but twice, which puts quite a damper on my general enjoyment of life. I hate being sick! Argh! I hate being cooped up in our house, I hate sleeping all day, I do love soup but only to a point. Most of all, I hate how it challenges my self-perception of being a robust and healthy human being. heh. How can I be smugly self-satisfied about how healthy I am if I keep fricken getting sick?

Of course, even that has a silver lining, which is that I've had a whooooole lot of time to read. A good thing, since I'm woefully behind on reading 100 books in a year. It's hard reading two books a week! I should, according to the totally arbitrary confines I've set for myself, be finishing my 30th book this week, though I just now finished my 25th... Eh, I guess that's not woefully behind. And, whatever, like I said, it's a totally arbitrary and self-imposed thing that I won't stress out too much about. But it's still so satisfying to knock out a bunch of books quickly, especially when there's not much else you're doing with your life at the moment except for napping on the couch and dousing your forehead with wet washrags.

Anyway. Does anyone have any great recommendations for classics to read? I will definitely read something by John Steinbeck in the near future, but any other thoughts? That's the category I'm having the hardest time with.

Again, if you want to see the books I've got going so far, you can scope out my goodreads page. I think you can see it without being a friend or whatever they call it there, though let me know if not. And give me some thoughts about classics!:) It's not like I'm doing anything else over here at the moment:)