Why take the time to read?

 When I was young, I found many of the chapter books I read to be boring and long particularly at the start of the story when things were being explained. As I got older, school required you read more and more chapter books and it became harder for me to focus on reading the books we were given. Shortly before the Winn-Dixie movie came out, my Mom bought me the book for me. I decided to attempt reading it since the picture of the dog on the cover caught my attention and I was pulled into the book from the first page. I started in the middle of a scene which made want to know what would happen next. This book got me more into reading and helped me realize that reading can be a fun activity if you take the time to find the right book and read at your own pace. 
 
 I now enjoy reading because I have learned that it helps take your mind off of the burdens and pressures of life. When reading you get to use imagination and creativity in thinking up how the characters might look and the setting in which different scenes take place. Another exciting element of reading is when the story reaches a point where it grows close to the climax and the story grows tense and you desperately want to know what will happen next. I especially enjoy reading when I get to these parts in a book because it fires up your imagination and is exciting. For these many reasons I like to read.
  
 Often people refuse to read simply because either they find it boring to read words, misunderstand the story, feel they don't have the time, or they have had bad reading experiences. I feel like this at times, but when I really get into a good book such as Because of Winn-Dixie, reading can be a very thrilling and at the same time relaxing experience.

Looking towards the Future

 Many of us have an idea of how we want our future to turn out and have goals and achievements to make before we can reach that point. In my future, I hope to go to college to get a good education and through that education gain a good job with higher wages. A job like this would make living and paying for things easier and less stressful and would give me time to enjoy the pleasures of life as well.
 Although with today's economy, it is more difficult to find a higher wage jobs and things are becoming more ans more expensive. It is harder to afford an education and it is becoming much more competitive among students. In the book Nickel and Dimed Barbara describes the hardships of life as a low wage worker, when she as a writer leaves her job temporarily and tries living off low wages for a certain amount of time. She talks about the struggles she goes through, trying to find jobs and less expensive apartments and then trying to gain enough money to pay for all her basic needs. She also talks about the other worker's situations in life and how they often are living with family or friends because they can't pay for rent on their own. Often the low wage workers have unfair wages for all the work they do and sometimes are disrespected. Many of these low wage workers want to go to college for a better job, but can't afford it because it is so expensive and they most likely couldn't save up enough for it.
 Some of the things she talks about may also affect our future. The expenses of college is one of the barriers that may make it harder for me and other people to finish college. Often I hear about students who decide to not go to college or don't want to and figure they'll be able to earn enough at a low wage job, but they don't realize the many problems they will face in the future. That is why it is important to focus on your education in high school and go to college so that you don't have to deal with the problems which people in Nickel and Dimed and even in today's society have to face.