August and September Goals

 

In this post I want to reflect on the goals I created last month and make new goals for how I would like to move forward in September. Here is what I had planned for August.

I did not read either of the two books that I picked out for myself.  I guess that style does not work for me and I need to be able to pick each book based on my mood the day I start reading it. I think I may have to officially give up on reading Weathering with You(天気の子).  I saw this movie in theaters and really enjoyed it, but I am just not into the idea of reading another novelization of an anime. I think I am just going to give it to a Japanese Professor I know so that she can re-home it.  Having books around that I do not enjoy is kind of bothering me so hopefully I will be able to do something about it soon.

Books I read

コンビニ人間 by 村田沙耶香 (reread)
時をかける少女 by 筒井康隆
キッチン by 吉本ばなな (reread)
西の魔女が死んだ by 梨木香 (reread)
愛がなんだ by 角田 光代

I am actually really pleased with the amount of books I was able to read this month.  I thought it would take me a while to get to a one book per week pace, but I was able to do it as soon as I created the goal. I wasn’t planning on rereading books, but I am happy that I was able to spend more time with the books that I have read previously.  I plan on rereading at least one more book in September, but I am really excited about all of the new books I have purchased.

I recently read ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる and ポプラの秋 and would like to try to reread them while I still remember the story lines fairly well.  But like I said, I think all of those new novels are calling me and I might end up with no repeats this month.

Increase the amount of pages that I read at a time from 10 to 15

I do not have an exact page number now, but I really pushed myself this month and was able to read for longer periods at a time.  While breaks are very important, I think the breaks I was taking in the past were unnecessary and really slowing me down.

I really increased the amount of pages I was able to read per day. Right now I am reading 100 pages per day on my days off.  I try to squeeze in a few pages during work days when I am able to as well.

Read more outside

Yep!  I was able to do it and increased the amount of sunlight I got everyday.  As someone who works the night shift, I found this really helped me to get outside, enjoy the summer weather, and get some vitamin D. As much as I love cafes, it was a struggle finding times to go where there were less people around.  I usually have weekends off and found that the cafe was too crowded for me to be comfortably as I take social distancing fairly seriously.

Complete 4 book reviews from previously read novels

I was able to do so!  But I found myself rereading some of the books so that I could try to increase the level of my book reviews.  I am glad that I was able to reread some of these books as it is not as easy for me to purchase Japanese novels as it used to be.  I am currently working on purchasing some more online now.  But again, I did not review all of the novels that I set out to, as I guess picking out titles ahead of time does not work for me.

My goal is to post one book review per week.  I am trying to really work on my pace so that I can have a line up of reviews to cover me for when I start to read longer books.  I have a few Murakami novels that I want to read, but I am worried about getting them finished within a week as they tend to have multiple volumes per story.

Moving forward, here are the new goals that I plan on working on.

September 2020 Goals
 – Read 4 books
 – Branch out and read different types of books
 – Find ways to read books for free
 – Purchase more Japanese novels
 – Try to interview people for blog posts
 – Work on improving the quality of my reviews

Read 4 books

I am hoping to surpass this goal and read more this month.  But since I was able to read 5 last month, I think this is a good goal for me.  I am guessing that I might read more, but some of the books I have purchased recently are longer then the ones I have been reading in August.

Branch out and read different types of books

I am working on researching some novels to purchase and my goal for shopping is to get books from all different authors that I have not read yet.  Its kinda of difficult to pick out books when I am unable to go to a store and physically see them.  But I have found that sometimes even when I can see them and flip through the pages that I still miss some features that make the book hard to enjoy for non-native readers.

Find ways to read books for free

There is not a strong Japanese population where I live right now.  But I am still working on this goal.  I found out the the local university library does have Japanese novels!  Sadly, it is closed to the public due to COVID.  But I am hoping it will open up to the public later this year.

Purchase more Japanese novels

Working on a shopping care now and hoping to spend at least $100 this month on Japanese novels!  I have picked up extra at work just to make a book budget for myself.  I already started a bit early and made a purchase on Kinokuniya’s online store and Amazon JP.  I’ll post my reviews of each site on this blog.  Please let me know if you know of any other sites to purchase Japanese novels from.

I am hoping to go to Chicago Kinokuniya sometime this fall/winter.  But I am not sure yet as I do not have a car.  Once we completely run out of Japanese food we will most likely rent a car to go to Illinois for a shopping trip.

Try to interview people for blog posts

I want to be able to use this blog to give me a reason to reach out to others with similar interests.  My blog is new, so I don’t expect anyone to say yes, but I want to practice reaching out to people online!  There are so many people out there with valuable experience and I would love it if I could use my blog as a platform to share that information.

Work on improving the quality of my reviews

There are so many people out there writing great reviews and I hope I can slowly develop this skill as well.  Once I get really good, I hope to rewrite the reviews that I am working on now. I am trying to read reviews that others have been writing and see what I can take away from their style.  I am also trying to expand my thought process while I am reading the novels and think of different things that may be worth adding to my reviews.

If anyone has any questions about Japanese novels, please leave a comment or contact me and it might be something that I will be able to add to reviews in the future to give everyone a fuller picture of each novel.