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I’m Camia (ka-mee-yah) and thank you for visiting my website.

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What I Am Currently Reading

What I Am Currently Reading

For those of you familiar with my site, you know I do book reviews, thus I read quite a bit. But what you don’t know is that I read for work or personal gain and simply just for pleasure. And oftentimes, those books don’t make it to the site. I have decided to do a what-am-I-currently-reading-list. Some of these books could end up for review later on, but as of right now, I’m just reading them for me. 

Rest Is Resistance: Free Yourself from Grind Culture and Reclaim Your Life by Tricia Hersey 

My department chair suggested this book to me because I have a nasty habit of literally not resting. Staying up to 4 am grading papers and making lesson plans. While I don’t stay up late anymore (at least not 4 am late), I still struggle with resting. I used to say things like “Sleep is for fools!” And, “I’ll rest when I’m dead.” Again, I don’t say that anymore but I still find it hard to rest. It feels like I’m being lazy and not being productive. And while I rolled my eyes reading this book because the author said things like, “Rest is divine” or “rest is spirituality,” or something like that; I do agree with Hersey and the endless grind we seem to be stuck in because of capitalism. So I will continue to read and hopefully learn how to rest or at the very least, stop feeling terrible when I actually have to do so. 

No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy 

I am reading this book for my own personal reasons that I don’t feel comfortable disclosing. However, I can say that what I’ve been reading thus far, I have felt in my professional life. I do feel burned out sometimes, get stress headaches a lot and become super anxious if my unread emails get too high. And while I know I am not the job, I don’t know what to do if I am not working. I haven’t taken a real vacation in years and feel queasy at the thought of even thinking of taking a vacation. My mind immediately goes to, “How will all the work get done?” “Who will do the work while I am gone?” “Can I even afford to take time off from work right now?” But this is also why I am reading the first book in this list simultaneously with this one. I need to change the way I think about work in order to be more successful without becoming overwhelmed by that success. 

Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul by Aran Shetterly 

North Carolina A&T’s college of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences is reading this book and I am currently in the faculty book club. I honestly didn’t think I would like this book or that it would be a drain to read because of the length. But I am surprised and happy that I was wrong on both fronts. The book is rather quick paced but doesn’t read like it’s rushing through everything. The book also gives multiple accounts and perspectives of the event so that you can access it from all angles. I honestly thought that would get confusing as I read and make the book less enjoyable or understandable but somehow it works. The biggest takeaway is that despite the story being a tragic event in Black history, the book didn’t make me feel depressed or disappointed in reading another Black tragedy. The story plays out as though it were a movie; it’s action packed, drama filled, information forward and thought-provoking all at the same. A must read if you like learning the historical events of Greensboro, North Carolina. 

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