{"id":948,"date":"2020-05-11T02:49:45","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T06:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/?p=948"},"modified":"2020-05-11T02:50:31","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T06:50:31","slug":"hide-behind-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/hide-behind-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Where I hide behind books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Summers in Riyadh were not very eventful. We lived in a gated 2-storey building with its own pool, so really all I could do was swim a few hours a day. As for the rest of the day, to avoid the boredom, I would read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would read. That sounds so cool and sophisticated, no? But I didn’t read like that<\/em>. Nope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by\u00a0Caio<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0from\u00a0Pexels<\/a><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My father had a 1973 edition of the Merriam Webster dictionary. I read that. I would start at the preface and read it, word by word, page by page, to the end of the appendices. Every summer for 4 summers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we moved to Jordan. I started Grade 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was easy to pick on me: Everyone knew everyone since they were kids. I was new, Lebanese, spoke English, and had all the vocabulary. And I didn’t feel the need to prove my manhood by fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the first few weeks, I learned that I cannot escape the mockery in class but I could<\/em> avoid the playground bullying by hiding in the library. So I did. I went to the library for both recesses. Each was 20 minutes long, so I would have 40 minutes a day to myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And since I was in the library, I might as well read. So I started with The Encyclopedia Britannica, letter A. By the time we left Jordan two years later, I had read my way through to letter N.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, I can confidently say I’ve not been an honest reader. I hid behind the books. I used them to protect me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summers in Riyadh were not very eventful. We lived in a gated 2-storey building with its own pool, so really all I could do was swim a few hours a day. As for the rest of the day, to avoid the boredom, I would read. I would read. That sounds so cool and sophisticated, no? … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Where I hide behind books”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":951,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions\/951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramisalame.com\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}