When reading the title of this post, you may ask what I am referring to. The Scarlet Letter is by far the hardest piece of literature that I have ever read. I dreaded reading it every day for my AP English class my sophomore year of high school. It was deep, dark, and just had too much wording to explain something so simple (a few sentences vs. a few pages). I thought nothing would ever top that piece of literature. That is, until I first got to Maastricht. When I first started by EU Law class, I was given a textbook and a reading list for when I needed to have certain chapter done by. I didn’t think of it much because every textbook that I have read in the past has been pretty straightforward. That is, until I started reading this particular textbook.
When first reading this textbook, I was flabbergasted at how complex EU law was and the history behind the EU. I thought US law and its processes was complex enough, but EU law was something else. That is what made the textbook so in-depth and complicated. I would spend hours sometimes just reading a chapter and it did not help that I had to read two chapters (ranging from 80-100 pages) a week. This actually had an impact on my schedule, particularly with the gym and frisbee practice. I had to skip most of my sessions just to finish reading these chapters. The note taking was not far behind. Every time I would take notes, I would get excited to turn a page only to dread when it was my notebook page and not a page in the book. I would be up until at least 1 am finishing the chapter depending on how much I procrastinated, or just took a break because that book exhausted me. I needed a lot of Starbucks to help me finish certain chapters of the book (the store nearby sold cartons of Iced Carmel Macchiatos).
Despite how tough the readings were, they helped out a lot and I was able to do very well on my midterm exam. After the exam, I thought the amount of reading I had to do would die down; I was so wrong. For the next 3 weeks, it was two chapters a class for two days a week. In addition, the second half of the class was all cases and application of what we learned in the first part to the second part of the class. In other words, the readings were longer and more complex, so that means more note taking and longer periods of time to finish the chapters. This part of the class was one of the hardest stretches of schooling that I have ever had. I had to put all of the non-schooling aspects of my life beside just to focus on the readings and to finish them on time. This included restructuring my gym plan and having to do full body workouts any time I could go to the gym (about two times a week during this stretch). It was a tough crunch, but I was able to make it work. However, at the end of every week, I was exhausted, too exhausted to even go out and let off some steam. I needed sleep, and because I only averaged about 5 hours every day, I often went to bed early on the weekends.
I just recently finished the textbook and I was overjoyed. The pain and stress were over. I was able to learn a great deal from it and now I have knowledge on the inter-mechanisms of the EU. Anyway, is this book my hardest read ever? Yes it is. Sorry Scarlet Letter, but there is a new holder of the hardest piece of literature I have ever read.
DU Abroad 