kareina

Today was one of those days during which it would have been nice to "have nothing to do and all day in which to do it", for I was very much lacking in motivation for much of it. I managed to work a little, take a break, work a little more, take another break, and so on. Alas, clovis_t was actully making progress on his uni work, and baronsnorri was at work, so I had to content myself with reading for my frequent breaks. It being a slow e-mail/LJ day (since many of my friends are in North America, where it was the last day of a holiday weekend, and so many weren't yet home, or if they were, were too tired to share stories yet), I was reduced to actually picking up fiction again.

It strikes me as odd how little fiction I've been reading lately--I've read only 19 fiction books so far this year! I've only got records since I started my PhD project, 3.21 years ago, but the first six months (I started at mid-year) I read 37 books, in 2006 I read 55 books, and in 2007 I read 60 books. I'm reasonably certain that even those numbers represents a huge decrease in time spent reading than I used to do. Part of the reason is the amount of time spent doing uni work, of course, and part of it is the fact that I'm satisfying my craving to read by reading LJ, I think. It is easier to put LJ down--once I've read all of the new posts by my friends (and commented on those that move me to say something) it is generally fairly easy to pick back up my uni work--rarely does it take more than an hour at a time to read all of my e-mail and LJ (ok, so I check fairly often!) so it is less of an intrusion to the schedule than falling into a book and not emerging for five or eight hours.

Fortunately for my uni work, the impulse to goof off didn't last all day. After baronsnorri got home from work he and I went out for a nice walk--the sun is staying up later now that it is Spring, so we were able to do a loop which involves a decent down a rather steep and muddy bit of hillside (I can't really call that stretch a "track", even though there is a clearly worn path that many others have used over the years, because it is not as developed as most of the mountain trails) as one of the last parts of the walk, and there was still enough light to see by (it was about 17:50 by then)!

After that walk I was, finally, inspired to work, and managed to make much, much better progress on gathering all of the figures mentioned thus far in the thesis into PowerPoint files so that when I give my advisor the thesis draft later this week, he will have the figures too (many parts of the thesis make no sense without being able to see the figure described!). This process involved actually creating some of the figures, and in some areas going back and adding stuff to the thesis itself, as I found figures in the list which hadn't yet been mentioned. As a result, I now have an additional 314 words and three new figures referenced in my thesis. There are still another 25 figures to put into the files tomorrow, but it is looking like it is a doable task by my deadline. And then, once that is done, I can start doing the calculations that still need doing to get results for those samples which say things like "still need to do ____" in the thesis...

I am reading for pleasure way less since staring my PhD project than I've ever done before.

( list of this year's books )

Prior to starting this project, I didn't keep records of my reading, but since I've been tracking what I'm doing for Uni, I've also kept track of what I've read for fun. In the second half of 2005 I read 37 books, in all of 2006 I read only 55 books, and in 2007 I managed 60, but this year, if my reading rate doesn't change, I'm on track to manage 50. The funny thing is, that although I *know* that these numbers represent a marked decrease from my previous voracious reading rate, I'm so very busy, I'm not missing it!

It is truly amazing the difference in the intensity of the experience when one reads a favourite story aloud to a loved one, instead of reading it silently to one's self. I have long loved the Anne of Green Gables books, written by L.M Montgomery and published in the early 1900's. I've read them 100's of times, and even after all of these years, I still tear up for certain key events in them. However, the past several/many months I've been reading the series aloud to a dear friend, who somehow missed discovering these books on his own.

By having someone with whom to share the story, I'm finding that although I *know* what happens in each and every chapter, still I am feeling it all more intently than ever before. Some passages take two attempts to read, as I'm laughing to hard to be understood. Others have me sobbing and tears streaming down my face as I read (particularly for this last one, which, being set during WWI, has any number of sad parts). Sometimes I almost manage not to cry, but then seeing his eyes welling over with tears sets me off too.

I strongly encourage all of you to find a well loved, favourite book and to make the time to read it aloud to a loved-one you know will also enjoy it who hasn't yet read the story.