School Daze & Kindle Love

It's a catch-up-on-homework week, so natch, I'm taking time off to blog, stare at my twitter feed, and generally do anything-but-write-that-paper :)

I've also been thinking about my Kindle Love. This week, me and that cute little device have been spending a lot of time together. The thing about being a grad school student is that professors make you print out OODLES of scholarly articles for classes (and even more on your own when you are doing research). I went through an entire expensive ink cartridge on my laser printer my first semester. But since I got my Kindle for Christmas, all semester I've just been reading the PDFs on it, saving paper, saving hassle, and they're all in one place. This is infinitely cool. Then for one of my classes I had to read Pilgrim's Progress. No problemo, it's a free e-book on Amazon, downloaded and read it.

And then there's the other little feature the Kindle is for--you know, like reading books for fun :) Which, as part of my Procrastination Station mood, I've also been using it for a bunch this week. I'm finally getting around to reading Julie Kagawa's The Iron Fey series. Yep, it's as awesome as everyone says it is, don't know why I waited so long to dive in!!

Lastly, there's the main reason I bought the Kindle in the first place: reading ARCs of books. I hate reading on my computer screen, but I love reading advance copies of books through NetGalley. I had no idea the Kindle would be so freaking handy for school stuff too.

At the same time, I'm not a total Kindle Convert. If given the choice, I'd still rather read the paper kind of books. It's a different experience somehow. With actual books, I almost always sit down and read them in one sitting. They are an Event. For some reason w/ Kindle books, I read for awhile, then stop, read a few more chapters the next day, then stop. I don't know if it's because you can feel the pages pass and see your progress in the thickness of pages left. It's weird to see my reading habits change with the technology. I'm glad that I'm getting published now rather than later so I can hold my beloved book in my hands, stare for hours at the cover, caress the pages, and see it nestled on shelves at book stores :)