M: Hey, Karen, you are not really reading it, are you?
W: Pardon?
M: The book! You haven't turned the page in the last ten minutes.
W: No, Jim, I suppose I haven't. (1)________________
M: So it doesn't really hold your interest?
W: No, not really. I wouldn't bother with it, to be honest, but I have to read it for a seminar. I'm at the university.
M: It's a labor of labor then rather than a labor of love.
W: I should say, I don't like Dickens at all really, the author, indeed, (2)________________
M: It's not just the book, it's the course as well?
W: Yeah, in a way, although the course itself isn't really that bad, a lot of it is pretty good, in fact, and the lecturers
are fine. It's me, I suppose. You see, I wanted to do philosophy rather than English, but my parents took me out of it.
M: So the course is OK as such. It's just that hadn't been left to you. You would have chosen a different one.
W: Oh, they had my best interest at heart, of course, my parents. They always do, don't they? They believe that my
job prospects would be pretty limited with the degree of philosophy. Plus they give me really a generous allowance,
(3)________________ They would be so disappointed though if I told them I was quitting.