Books: Buried and Kept

Dear KNOT,

My name is Geliza and reading books is my life. It started during my elementary years that I have been introduced to books that brought wonder and interest to my ordinary life. And ever since, I just could not stop reading.

I remember that it was because of my best friend Andrea that I fell in love more and more to books.
We always stay in the library of our school to chat. Sleeping on the tables had always been my first motive, but then as another day go by with me nothing to do but sit, sleep, and stare at my best friend reading a book, the books on the shelves poked my heart and I started reading. I can recall that I was fond reading detective books such as by Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and classics like the “Great Expectations” at that time. It also surprised me that I like reading magazines, too. By then, I was introduced to the novel series of Eoin Colfer “Artemis Fowl” that blossomed my way to old English books and fantasies.

When I got to high school, my time for reading books had been lessened. This is when the Otaku, K-pop, J-pop of me rose. I was focused more on watching Korean drama and anime that I almost couldn’t sleep every night. However, I still read stories but only through online; Wattpad and Manga. My bestfriend and I weren’t classmates anymore and maybe that’s why it happened. I know it wasn’t great but I’m glad it happened because I found another part of me which is an artist; I started to draw anime characters and surprisingly not bad at it.

Today, as I pave my way through the road of college life, books had been my safest haven. Almost every week I read books and every single day I loved them. Whenever I’m bored or stressed about school, I read books. And I’m not even ashamed to say that it became my very own best friend.
I am socially-awkward person, and my friends in high school and I parted ways, maybe that’s why my love of books grew intense. It’s even funny to confess that I still hide in the four corners of the library and my room just to read a book.

Books reached the soul of me that a person can’t do, and it stays. It wasn’t just because of the characters of the story or the genre of it that made its way to my heart, but because of the real story hidden in the words and sentences of each paragraph.

Books are like mirrors of the feelings I can’t convey. No one can comprehend but only me. It is like an invisible rope that blinds my reality to fantasy. Books made the real me; books see the soul in me. And this will be forever buried in my heart.

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Thanks Geliza. This will help for sure our student-readers. ‘Til next kwentuhan! – Cheng Vilog