Autobiography

My Name is MacKenzie Oliver. I am a sophomore at Eastern Oregon University this year. You can call me MacKenzie or I go back Kenzie. I have two majors currently Psychology and Theatre. My hobbies include motorcycle riding with my grandparents, playing water polo, swimming, and hiking with my family/friends. I haven't lived in Oregon all my life. I was born in Rochester, NY and moved here when I was 10 to live with my grandparents.
The story of my reading life is simple to me yet complex to others. I have gone thru a lot of things in my short life and I used reading as my outlet. When I was younger there was alot of fighting and arguing in my house so to get away from it I would run to my room and read the books my teachers in school had given me. My favorite memory from my past that involves reading was back when I was in 4th grade. I wasn't able to go home right after school and since I was shy my teacher would let me stay behind in her room after school and read. She would even stay until 7 or 8 o'clock at night if I was really into a story, because she knew I felt safe. As the year progressed, as I finished my school work she would let me go to the reading corner to read when I finished work. Thanks to that teacher I'm know my love for reading is so great because of that experience. I have had a college reading level since elementary school and I am proud of that. Currently, I enjoy reading true life stories from an authors childhood, but more specifically tragic ones. I enjoy reading these stories not only because they touch my heart and take me to a place I cant always go, but because when I read these stories they always make me think of two things. One is when I'm sad and I read these I realize my life is not as bad as their life is or was, and two it makes me strive to be a better person and one day help people similar to the ones in the story.
When I asked people what kind of books they liked to read and why I got some interesting answers. Two people told me they like to read science fantasy. When asked why they responded completely different. One told me it was because he liked the way the genre was written, because to him science fiction books are always a good story just waiting for him to read. The other told me it was because she liked to escape reality and be in her own world for a little bit. This woman also told me that she likes to read action adventures, because when she sits down to read them she gets pulled into the story and can't seem to stop reading. I then asked a close family friend what they liked to read and why, and was told my favorite type of book to read is a murder mystery. Slightly perplexed by this I asked her why she would want to read something so closely related with murder and death. In response she told me these books help her think, because she likes to try and figure out who committed the murder before she is told by the author. If she is right it makes her feel like she really is a detective and it makes her want to read more just like it.
All of these people like reading because it makes them think and escape reality, yet I like to read books that are closely related to reality, because I don't want to escape it I want to live it over and over again. They are all similar to me though because they all share the love for being able to sit down and read a good book for a while and just escape the drama that your everyday life throws at you. I also feel that by making the connection that I read for different reasons then them shows you that everyone is different and has gone thru different things, which in turn makes reading important in different ways then your own.