First job — October Memoir Challenge
This is my twenty-second post, for age 22, of the October Memoir and Backstory Challenge hosted by Jane Anne McLachlan. My previous posts: Baby Speed Eater, Two Tales, Curls, Most Magical Christmas, Kindergarten, Places, Mental Health in 1969, The Boxcar Children, The Little House Books, Too Thin, Four Square, Curls: Take Two, Scouting, Schools, Sophomore Year, 1979 Book Review, Library Assistant, College Food, Dear Santa, The Muny, and College Graduate.
My first full-time job out of college was with a company that used the new graphical capabilities of computers to do molecular modeling. My hometown paper thought this was newsworthy–it didn’t hurt that my mother handled my press releases.
Joy Weese Joins Tripos
Below is a picture of the kind of graphics I was working on at that time.
A molecule
My reading changed when I went to work. I stopped reading for pleasure in college, but I got right back to it at my new job. On the advice of a professor, I took a break at lunch time. My favorite mid-day recess was to go to a nearby postage-stamp park with a sack lunch and my book. The first book I read was Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel.
Did you ever stop reading for fun? What book reintroduced you to the pleasures of reading?
I won’t allow myself to read for fun in November, lest it eat novel-writing time. Just got my brain back from the clutches of George RR Martin by finishing book 3 of his series, and I’m noodling through “Creativity Rules” by John Vorhaus, who wrote my favourite book on humour writing, “The Comic Toolbox”. I’ll read for fun in December, so long as Paul hasn’t snaffled book 4 by then.
I haven’t started George RR Martin yet, but those seem like the kinds of books that would consume everything needed to write during NaNoWriMo.
The exact same thing happened to me when I graduated college and got my first job! I rediscovered reading for fun. I remember going to the public library in the new town that I moved to, getting my card, and being ridiculously excited at the prospect of choosing any book I wanted from the shelves.
Wow, totally cool graphics. That must have been some fun making those. Reading for pleasure dissapered for semesters. For my BSc I also had two babies so…gone…and for my BA CMNS also gone. These days I read three pages at bed time and I’m toast! Old age…lol But the summer reading is the best. I never got out of that having permission to read anything over the summer. I still love that.
What great photos and memories you’ve been sharing with this memoir challenge, Joy. I’ve really been enjoying them even though I haven’t always left comments.
I stopped reading for fun in college, too. I had a pretty intense course load. I barely had time for anything else, much less anything recreational! After college I picked up some craft-type hobbies in my free time and then went to grad school while working full time so there I went back to “no free time” for a while longer. I finally picked up recreational reading again–after way too long of a hiatus–several years later when my girls were school age. Since then I’ve made up for lost time by reading way more than I ever have in my life before. Now I always seem to have one book or another within arm’s reach and I don’t see that changing any time soon. 🙂
I never stopped reading for pleasure during college. Never graduated, either . . . .
The George RR Martin books are excellent, and huge. And, all my best Nano ideas are presented in his books, which is damn frustrating.
Love your mom’s pinking shears! I want to live your life! How charmed! Wow, three exclamations is a row is a record for me. I always sneak reading in…I just make it seem practical. So I do have times where I read more nonfiction than fiction…many of those times. My girls gave me a great excuse to read volumes of fiction guiltlessly…good for THEIR reading scores.
What a great job! Can’t say I ever stopped reading for fun. Once I read every literary and genre fiction book that interested me in the local library and had to buy, borrow (drew the line at stealing) books till they got more. It was a desperate time, as I remember.
Jane Ann
http://www.janeannmclachlan.com