This week, I did a horrible job of keeping track of… well, pretty much everything, but more specifically for this post, I forgot to write down how much I read each day during the whole last half of the readathon. Because of that, I probably won’t be able to give as many specific numbers as I normally do in these wrap-ups, which maybe you don’t care about, but I love stats like that, so I’m disappointed in myself.
Anyway, let’s get started. (If you don’t want to know all the details for each day, just scroll to the bottom of the post; I always put a TL;DR kind of recap with more general stats and a reflection on how I did in the readathon overall.)
Day One
I kind of started off on a bad foot with this readathon. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been because I did actually read something. That something was Caraval by Stephanie Garber, According to my notes for that first day, though, I only read 50 pages, all of which were read during reading sprints over on the Series Crackdown Twitter.
It was a good 50 pages though. I was really enjoying the book.
Day Two
I didn’t read anything on day two. I don’t really know why, because I don’t think I was doing much else for most of the day. Although I was unable to attend the reading sprints because I was working while they were going on (they’re at 2 pm my time, for reference)
Day Three
Thanks to reading sprints, I actually read a little on this day. Thirty-eight pages, to be exact. I spent most of the day doing things around the house, though, which meant that I couldn’t read physically. I was, however, able to listen to my audiobook—I listened to 2 hours and 43 minutes of Wildcard by Marie Lu. On this day, I also got the exciting news that I’d been hired for my new job! (More on that later.)
Day Four
I spent some more time doing odd jobs around the house on day four, and also worked on some things for the internship I’m currently doing. Once again, I didn’t get much physical reading done, only 19 pages’ worth, thanks to a reading sprint I joined at the last minute. I did get a fair amount of listening done as I was doing all that.
Day Five
Somewhat ironically, I spent most of this day hanging out with my mom, and yet, this was also the day where I read the most pages out of all of the other days—in terms of reading a physical book, anyway. I read a total of 91 pages in Caraval. I also had a lot of fun with my mom. We went shopping, and we got lunch, and, of course, stopped by Barnes & Noble. I also got a call with instructions to come in and get set up for starting my job. Basically, it was a pretty exciting day.
Day Six
Like I mentioned earlier, this is the point in the week where my tracking of my progress became sporadic at best and nonexistent at worst. On this first day, I didn’t write anything down for pages read, and I think that’s because I actually didn’t do any physical reading that day. Instead, I listened to the last hour and 22 minutes in my audiobook for Wildcard. I also did some work, and went in for that set-up shift for my new job.
Day Seven
This was the only day all week where I was free all day, and I took advantage of that time to get some more housework done, especially now that I knew I had to do a lot of working the next few days, what with balancing two jobs and an internship. I wanted to be as productive as possible on this day, but I also wanted it to be fun, because I knew the next few days (well, actually, weeks, and maybe even months—we’ll see) would be very stressful. So while I did do some housework, I also worked in some reading time.
I wasn’t in the mood to read a physical book, so I found the audiobook for Caraval on Scribd, and, starting from where I had left off in the physical book, I ended up listening to the whole rest of the book. I don’t know how many pages that was because I haven’t bothered to check and I’m not writing this in a place where I have access to my copy, but I think it was most of the book because I wasn’t even halfway through it yet. I also read the first 54 pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I was enjoying, but like I said, I really wasn’t in the right mindset for physical reading. I couldn’t really focus, so I ended up putting it down.
Day Eight
I had a lot of things to do on this day, most of which couldn’t include reading. Once again, I ended up doing a lot of listening instead—though not of Order of the Phoenix, what I should have been reading, because I don’t have access to the audiobook for that. Instead, I started listening to the audiobook for Windwitch by Susan Dennard, which I found on Scribd. (This is not sponsored, by the way. I’ve never been sponsored by a company.) In total, I listened to 4 hours and 42 minutes of that audiobook as I drove, which I did a lot that day. I had to work for 8 hours at one job and then immediately head over to my new job to work for three hours. I think this was also the day I posted my Series Crackdown update post, so honestly, I’m impressed with how much I managed to read, considering how much I had to do.
Day Nine & Ten
On day nine, I had to do 5 hours of work for my internship and then 4 at my new job, so that took up a lot of my time, and once again, the only reading I did was listening to the audiobook of Windwitch. On day ten, I had an 8-hour shift at my new job, and when I got home from that, I was exhausted and not at all in the mood to read. I did listen to the Windwitch audiobook on my way to and from work that day, though—I didn’t finish it though. I still have 5 hours left. I also didn’t touch Order of the Phoenix.
Overview
Here’s a graphic showing the books I read and what challenges they counted for:
I don’t know how easy it is to read, so here’s the breakdown, just in case:
- First book in a series: Caraval by Stephanie Garber
- Sequel: Wildcard by Marie Lu
- Last book in a series: Wildcard
- Includes a map: Caraval
- Recommended by a friend: Caraval
- Fantasy: Caraval
- Been on your TBR FOREVER: Not completed
- Film/TV Adaptation: Not completed
If it had not been for audiobooks, I would have barely read at all this week. Out of the two books I completed, one was read entirely on audio and the other was read using three different mediums—physical, ebook, and audiobook—though I ended up reading the majority of it on audio. And the only other book I came close to completing this week was also read entirely as an audiobook. So yay for the existence of audiobooks.
Now, some stats.
Books Completed: 2
Pages Read: 252
Listening Time: 25 hours, 15 minutes
Challenges Completed: 6/8
I wouldn’t exactly say that I’m proud of my performance during this readathon, but I can say that I did my best. I’m trying to remember that sometimes it’s okay to take a break, even from something I love, if I need it.
For my question today, instead of the usual stuff related to a readathon, I want to know, what do you do to make sure you’re taking care of yourself during a readathon (or really, any stressful time)?
Thanks for reading, everyone! I’ll see you next time!
-Ariel