My winter break has come to an end. I’ve ordered the novels I need for class (perks of being an English major: you always know that the required reading is actually required, and you can usually find extremely cheap secondhand copies) and stocked up on non-perishable snacks to keep in my dorm room. For the last week or so of break, I worked intensely with my magazine internship, binged Call the Midwife and Gilmore Girls, and made variations of egg for breakfast a few too many times.

But something that I didn’t do much of over the past month? Read.

Maybe it’s because I jumped into internship work immediately after returning from London, or because my YouTube addiction has officially become dangerous, but I struggled with settling in with a book and reading it straight through. I borrowed Kindle books from the library, and the loan period expired with the books a mere 1 or 2% read. I checked out physical books, but only got halfway through one of them. I started some books I got for Christmas, but they sat by my bed untouched as I rewatched Casey Neistat vlogs and clicked “Next Episode” on Netflix.

Why do I do this? During the school year, I discover so many books that I want to read when I’m on a school break and have the time to really get into the story. Yet, after my longest break of the school year (apart from summer, of course), I’m almost three weeks into 2016 with no books read. After reading on public transportation almost every day last semester, this feels very odd.

Now, I’ll have a lot of reading to do once classes start. Whether or not I’ll finish an entire assigned book depends on how enjoyable the story is. Because I’m a wishful thinker, I downloaded a few books onto my Kindle to read before bed this semester, which I’ve done and enjoyed in the past. I’m also known for taking the Kindle to the student union and reading while I have a coffee or snack there. But then, in bouts of procrastination, I end up discovering more books and add even more titles to my TBR list, and we’re right back where we started.

As I’ve gotten older, I have become pickier with books. I’ll stop reading something if it isn’t doing anything for me, and I still go through my Shelfari and delete to-be-read books that I added on a whim four, five, six years ago. Lately, I’ve even begun to reread books on my shelf, which is something I did constantly as a kid.

Maybe it’s a slump. Maybe it’s the start of dreaded junior year busyness that my friends and classmates anguished over last semester when I was in a gleeful, study abroad haze. Maybe it’s just a fear of being still and focused on one thing that hasn’t left my system yet after London. Whatever it is, my relationship with books is weird at the moment.

Anyone else having a similar weird period with reading? We all know that our reading habits come and go, so I do hope this one ends soon!