Preparing for some serious synergy…

The Anne Girls’ 2011 South America Reunion begins in t-minus 16 days!

Theoretical Theorizing…

Confession: I have had the hardest time reading lately!  I started Rilla of Ingleside over a week ago, but every time I go to pick it up and start reading, something stops me.  I have a few theories, so I thought I’d hash them out here.

Too much multitasking: I’m in school.  I’ve got 2 majors and a minor.  I’m averaging a couple hundred pages of required school reading every week.  It’s hard to get my brain to read anymore than it has to!  Once you’ve finished an essay by Durkheim, 2 chapters on peace negotiations in the Balkans and Mrs. Dalloway in its entirety, (on top of having weird dreams) my mind is DONE! FINISHED! FINITO! Call Mr. White, because my brain QUITS!

There’s only so much it can take.  And though the content would be cathartic and restorative, the physical action of reading is more than my poor little eyes can handle.  It’s much easier to sit back, watch another episode of West Wing and call it a night.

Emotional turmoil:  This book turns me into an emotional wreck. Keep the mascara away, and bring out the jumbo Puffs, because once this book gets going, I start to resemble our friend Nancy:

That’s right, Rilla of Ingleside is an emotional crowbar to my knee…and by knee I mean heart.  (If only I could expand the metaphor and make Mary Vance be Tonya Harding…) But  I digress… This book stresses me out, breaks my heart and leaves me with a pitiful tear-stained face on the subway.

Don’t mistake me-I love Rilla. At times, I would put it in the running to be one of my top faves of the eight.  But the emotional dedication required to read this book can be intimidating.   Am I prepared for the emotional rollercoaster, highs and lows, and yes-snot- that this book causes?!

The bend in the road that leads to Windy Poplars: I love all of the Anne books.  I really do.

However.

Anne of Windy Poplars can be a bit….vexing.  When nudged in between Anne of the Island and Anne’s House of Dreams it is a nice and at times even enchanting slice of Anne’s life.  But since we are reading the books in their published order this year, we will go straight from the raw emotional no man’s land that is my heart to……………..Kingsport Ladies College.  hm.  Somehow battling the Pringles doesn’t seem as tough as sending your children to war.

So those are my theories.  What do you think? And how do I overcome them?

I’ll keep you posted..

-lil sis