stargirlloveaddie

[stargirlloveaddie]

Johnny has horrible nutrition habits. Anyone will tell you this. He doesn’t like vegetables. He hardly likes fruit. The first team barbecue we had, all he ate was three hamburgers with ketchup only. He was trying to put on weight because he knew it was his draft year. He started drinking two milkshakes a day and got on a Nutella kick. He was eating Nutella by the spoonful, I guess. In the middle of one practice, he came up to me and said, ‘Coach, my stomach feels awful.’ They take him to a doctor, the doctor asks him a bunch of questions, turns out he was eating so much Nutella that he got constipated. And they were like, ‘Well you just can’t eat this.’

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Madison County, Montana, 1939

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this is your random reminder to CHECK IF YOU'RE STILL HAVING FUN

are you enjoying scrolling tumblr? watching youtube? reading that book? playing that game? drawing that art? doing that activity? if not,

YOU CAN STOP AND DO SOMETHING ELSE

you don't have to stick to something that you are doing for fun if it isn't fun for you anymore. You can come back! If you've loved it before you are likely to love it again! but you can stop!

Don't get stuck in a loop of doing something that you think should be fun when it isn't! You can put it down for a bit! Maybe that's the very thing that will make it fun again later!

[stargirlloveaddie]

summer 2024

THROW YOUR PHONE IN THE SEA

THEN SWIM IN IT

SEND POSTCARDS TO YOUR FRIENDS AND SWEETHEARTS

WATCH THE SUN RISE AND SET

WALK BAREFOOT IN THE GRASS

READ A CLASSIC NOVEL WHILE YOU SIT UNDER A TREE

THEN CLIMB IT

WRITE BAD POETRY

LEARN TO SKIP STONES

FEEL THE RAIN ON YOUR SKIN

NO-ONE ELSE CAN FEEL IT FOR YOU

ONLY YOU CAN LET IT IN

[stargirlloveaddie]

how to start reading again

from someone who was a voracious reader until high school and is now getting back into it in her twenties.

start with an old favourite. even though it felt a little silly, i re-read the harry potter series one christmas and it wiped away my worry that i wasn't capable of reading anymore. they are long books, but i was still able to get completely immersed and to read just as fast as i had years and years ago.

don't be afraid of "easier" books. before high school i was reading the french existentialists, but when getting back into reading, i picked up lucinda riley and sally rooney. not my favourite authors by far, but easier to read while not being totally terrible. i needed to remind myself that only choosing classics would not make me a better or smarter person. if a book requires a slower pace of reading to be understood, it's easier to just drop it, which is exactly what i wanted to avoid at first.

go for essays and short stories. no need to explain this one: the shorter the whole, the less daunting it is. i definitely avoided all books over 350 pages at first and stuck to essay collections until i suddenly devoured donna tartt's goldfinch.

remember it's okay not to finish. i was one of those people who finished every book they started, but not anymore! if i pick up a book at the library and after a few chapters realise i'd rather not read it, i just return it. (another good reason to use your local library! no money spent on books you might end up disliking.)

analyse — or don't. some people enjoy reading more when they take notes or really stop to think about the contents. for me, at first, it was more important to build the habit of reading, and the thought of analysing what i read felt daunting. once i let go of that expectation, i realised i naturally analyse and process what i read anyway.

read when you would usually use your phone. just as i did when i was a child, i try to read when eating, in the bathroom, on public transport, right before sleeping. i even read when i walk, because that's normally a time i stare at my screen anyway. those few pages you read when you brush your teeth and wait for a friend very quickly stack up.

finish the chapter. if you have time, try to finish the part you're reading before closing the book. usually i find i actually don't want to stop reading once i get to the end of a chapter — and if i do, it feels like a good place to pick up again later.

try different languages. i was quickly approaching a reading slump towards the end of my exchange year, until i realised i had only had access to books in english and that, despite my fluency, i was tired of the language. so as soon as i got back home i started picking up books in my native tongue, which made reading feel much easier and more fun again! after some nine months, i'm starting to read in english again without it feeling like a huge task.

forget what's popular. i thought social media would be a fun way to find interesting books to read, but i quickly grew frustrated after hating every single book i picked up on some influencer's recommendation. it's certainly more time-consuming to find new books on your own, but this way i don't despise every novel i pick up.

remember it isn't about quantity. the online book community's endless posts about reading 150 books each year or 6 books in a single day easily make us feel like we're slow, bad readers, but here's the thing: it does not matter at all how many books you read or what your reading pace is. we all lead different lives, just be proud of yourself for reading at all!

stop stressing about it. we all know why reading is important, and since the pandemic reading has become an even more popular hobby than it was before (which is wonderful!). however, there's no need to force yourself to be "a reader". pick up a book every now and then and keep reading if you enjoy it, but not reading regularly doesn't make you any less of a good person. i find the pressure to become "a person who reads" or to rediscover my inner bookworm only distances me from the very act of reading.

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are you really an AP student if you don’t drop one test day of?

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i wanna be a teenage girl forever

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as each year goes by I feel more and more lost and also more and more like myself

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i love that we get stickers on the AP tests it’s like a little treat. we have to go through psychological torture But at least we get to do arts and crafts!!! like it would Be so easy to just write down our AP label numbers But nope, we get stickers!!!

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ever in debt to my fourteen year old self

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the ache of nostalgia