the perils of

Many years ago, I begged my mom to buy me this really big and heavy Jane Austen book. In my memory, this took place in the National Book Store at SM, but I don't know that for sure. My mom had hesitations about making the purchase since it was expensive, but when I explained to her that it was really a collection of 3 Austen novels ( Pride and Prejudice , Mansfield Park , and Persuasion ) and therefore worth the money, she acceeded to my demand request. So that night, I set to work trying to read the famed  Pride and Prejudice.  I was not a reader of classics, so I really wanted my first to be special. I affixed small, neon strips of paper next to sentences that I liked. Whenever I encountered an unfamiliar word, I looked it up in our big dictionary (yes, the old-fashioned way;  hindi pa uso ang Internet noon)  and wrote it down on a Post-It. Needless to say, it was the most effort I had ever  put into reading a work of fiction. Alas, my young and feeble mind could not keep u