Books, Books, Books, Oh My Goodness BOOKS

First day of a new quarter at school means picking up all my textbooks at the store and, oh my goodness, I have a lot this quarter; $200 worth to be exact. I'm told by a friend who is majoring in mechanical engineering that 200 isn't actually that much but, hey, I'm still talking gen-ed classes so it feels like a lot. Granted, I have a lot of books mostly because I'm taking an English class about global literature. If the titles for that class are any suggestion to what the subject matter is, I'm going to be learning a lot about Arab/Islamic culture.
Aside from all of that babble, I think books are great. I was totally that girl in high school, the one who always had her nose in a different book. Honestly, I miss that; the escaping to another world so so often. But I guess I don't need it quite as much because I live in a place where there are actually things to do as opposed to being on the Island. I do have a goal for this quarter, though. That same mechanical engineering friend of mine (is actually also doing this challenge and it's worth checking out but not the point so back to my real sentence...) this friend sent me a care package back in November full of books; of the 8 he originally sent me, I have read 4--well, 3 but I'd already read one of the them so it counts. My goal is to read the other 4 originals plus the one he sent me in February. So 5 pleasure books in between all my class readings is one goal I have for this quarter because books are just wonderful.
When they are well done, you get to escape into this whole other world; you get to misbehave; you get to try crazy new things; you get to be in love; you get to fight until kingdom come; you get to be a superhero; you get to be a villain; you get to live in the past; you get to live in the future; and you get to do all of that (and more) without ever having to get out of bed. It's grrrrrrrrrreat.
One of the other reasons that I love to read so much is that I do really want to use my future time to write--possibly with getting out of bed. And reading a lot gets me thinking about stories and characters and styles of writing and ways to craft appropriate plot holes...food for thought is so yummy.