A Time of Change

A Time of Change

David Theisen
Balogh, Honoria
E03
8 September 2014
A Time of Change
I can’t think of a time in my life when reading didn’t play a big role in my life. But it was only recently that I began to enjoy writing. English and literature were always my strong point throughout my time in school. I excelled there where I lacked in other areas such as math and more importantly a lack of communication skills that ultimately culminated in my decision to drop out of high school in my senior year. After dropping out of school I spent the next couple years getting well acquainted with alcohol and drugs with the end result being a 5 year prison term where, with nothing but time on my hands I delved into the writings of George R. R. Martin and Robert Jordan.
I knew going in that I had a decision to make. I could immerse myself into the politics of the prison system, which I knew would culminate in more of a criminal mentality than I already had, or I could work on myself. I decided early that I would spend my time making myself a better person so when I wasn’t in counseling or drug treatment I was in the library or in my room reading. The library in the facility was very small and the selection of nonfiction books was very sparse. Looking through the fiction section I noticed there was a very long series of books called The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. I mainly chose the first book in the series because it was over 800 pages long and it was a series of what was then 11 books, so I knew it would take plenty of time to read, and seeing as how the facility only allowed one visit to the library a week it seemed a good way to kill time.
As I read the first book just planning on killing time, I ended up surprising myself as I immersed myself in the world that was described to me in absolute rich detail and I really couldn’t believe how well the story was told. The writing was so well done that there wasn’t a part of any of the characters or landscape that I couldn’t literally...

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