Change of Mind: The Kite Runner

Being open to new things can be difficult. Why change when things are already perfect? With the start of school, new people and teachers, its imperative you allow yourself to look at things openly.


Last year, I was shy and sluggish, not wanting to do anything. Homework would be assigned two days before it was due, I would be up until 1 o'clock the day before sprinting to finish. I was encouraged to talk in class, but the butterflies in my stomach were fluttering a little too fast for me. I wanted to do well in school, I knew I had to. The parents, the teachers, my younger sister and friends, they all looked at me like I was genius. As if I was programmed to do well, computer-like. Automatically expected to succeed. "I think I failed that test," I would say. My friends would reply, "Sam, I'm sure you did fine, you always do. You always study hard."



But the funny thing was, I probably hadn't. The hours that should have been spent studying were on Facebook. With my friends. Or texting. I had no motivation to cross the threshold into the lands of in depth thinking nor immerse myself into my academics. In the past I had gotten nearly perfect grades, been involved in masses of activities, and actually had a social life. Why was freshman year so different?


It took me a whole summer to understand, but I discovered my laziness occurred because it could. I didn't have to be interested in a subject to do well. I read, understood the storyline, and passed. Throughout the short time I have been reading The Kite Runner, I realized I could take two different routes. The first being the quickest. Read, get it over with, and not learn anything. The second road would be a little more challenging, but worth it in the end. Read with care, enjoy it, and understand the authors lessons and learn from them.


I can relate to Robert Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken.


"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,



And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."



I learned from our discussions of The Kite Runner that you have to read carefully and try to understand things, rather than skipping right past them. You can either attempt or not attempt, and as Robert Frost tells us, the harder, less traveled route is the one that benefits us in the end.

I read the two chapters of The Kite Runner as fast as I could, to get through it and move on to other homework. But after discussing it with our class, I saw all the things I missed. Where was my mind while i was reading? Merely floating along the text, being just another piece of driftwood in the river of paragraphs? How did I fail to notice the beautiful symbolism and detailed metaphors Husseini gives? While we talked about it in class, it shocked me how a quick two pages can give off such an impression. If he can do that in two pages, I can't even imagine how much he will do with the rest of the book.

I have decided I don't want to miss out anymore. I want to care, and I want to know. I desire to be part of the light in our classroom, guiding everyone through the dark, unexplored parts of the texts we read.