Not a good year for blogging either #blog12daysxmas Day 11

Oh dear! I haven't read my Goodreads targets and really my blogging wasn't up to much either.  However, the good news is that as I actually didn't set any 2015 targets for blogging it cannot be deemed a failure. But how does it compare to the last few years?

The last time I reviewed my blogging was in 2013. In 2013 I successfully completed #blog12daysxmas in January 2013, both for myself and for the Collingwood Historical Society.  In June, I embarked less than satisfactorily in #blogjune for both myself and for the Collingwood Historical Society. That meant I was committing to doing 60 blogposts in June.  I must have been mad!  I have blogged about my madness here. In the end I managed to do 30 blogposts for the Collingwood Historical Society and 22 for myself.  So all up it wasn't too bad.

I maintain to a greater or lesser degree three blogs for myself and one for the Collingwood Historical Society.  The number of posts I did for each in 2013 are as follows:

Collingwood Historical Society 51 posts

Hecuba's Story 40 posts

Hecuba Reads 1 post

The Librarian and the Kitchen 4 posts

For 2014, I set myself the following targets:

Collingwood Historical Society 52 posts

Hecuba's Story 12 posts

Hecuba Reads 4 posts

The Librarian and the Kitchen 12 posts

And in 2014, what I actually achieved was as follows: 

Collingwood Historical Society 16 posts

Hecuba's Story 6 posts

Hecuba Reads 4 posts

The Librarian and the Kitchen 12 posts

So in 2014, I actually achieved my blogging aims for Hecuba Reads and The Librarian and the Kitchen. I can be thankful for small mercies. The Collingwood Historical Society and Hecuba's Story rather fell off. There were a couple of reasons for this. And yes, I'll blame the Greek again.  In 2014 for the first time since it started, I didn't do #blogjune because I was overseas at the end of my Greek course trip.  The previous year, posts from this had featured in both blogs. A further reason for Hecuba's Story was that I stopped doing #anz23mthings when I got to number 14 and stalled on Thing15, although I had planned on completing it in 2014. But I will reflect upon that on another occasion.

As has previously been noted, I didn't set myself any blogging targets for 2015.  But what did I actually complete?

Collingwood Historical Society 4 posts

Hecuba's Story 1 posts

Hecuba Reads 8 posts

The Librarian and the Kitchen 12 posts

So again, Hecuba Reads and The Librarian and the kitchen were tracking along as they had been. Hecuba's Story just fell off completely, as did the Collingwood Historical Society. And there are different explanations for both. With both again #blogjune didn't feature as I was off doing Greek again.

As for the Collingwood Historical Society, there were two key issues. Changes to the blog plugin to our website along with issues with Flickr no longer allowing posts to Blogger made what and how we were blogging previously very difficult and required cumbersome work arounds. Eventually we embarked on a project to change the platform for the website and in December 2015 launched the new site on a Wordpress platform. We are still playing with the blog format but hopefully in 2016 the blog will be more active.

For Hecuba's Story, I have to wonder if my lack of interest in blogging about technology relates to my lack of interest in libraries?  I am certainly still interested in technology.  Some would say I am obsessed with it.  However, I haven't felt like blogging about it. But maybe it mirrors my reduced interest in Twitter. Who knows? All I can say is that I still blog quite regularly about cooking and more sporadically about reading.

So for 2016,  I am purposely not going to set myself blogging targets.  I am just going to see what, if anything happens. The following illustration may just symbolize what I heart.

2015: a bad year for reading #blog12daysxmas Day 9

A number of years ago, at  this time of the year I decided that I wasn't reading enough.  So I set up my Hecuba Reads blog and at the same time experimented with various online tools for recording my reading. After a bit of experimentation, I finally decided to go with Goodreads.  My sister who uses it voraciously had suggested it during my first musings.  Yes, she was right I finally decided.

I actually had no idea how much or little I was reading and so I made a modest commitment to read 52 books in the year, i.e. an average of one a week. Surely I could do that? That was for 2010. Without any particular effort (apart from the recording) that year I easily reached 62 titles, by reading or rereading.  In following years, I have made the same commitment, some times documented here, some times not (most notably not for 2015 when I didn't document anything here) but always there on Goodreads.



So how have I gone after that initial year? Quite well really to 2014.  In 2012 I read 71 titles, in 2013 76 titles, and in 2014 I managed 105 titles!  So that was all to the good.  But then came 2015.  In 2015 I succeeded in reading only 34 titles! Why did my reading levels plummet like this?  Is there an explanation?

I think there is and it is probably not going to go away any time soon. I definitely haven't stopped reading.  I just don't read books or can't read the ones I want to! In 2013 I decided I was going to try to learn Greek again and in 2014 I headed for Athens and an intensive Greek language course at the Athens Centre. That was an amazing experience and has set me firmly on a new (or revisited) pathway.  But you may well say, that was in 2014 when your reading levels didn't plummet. 

When I finished the Athens Centre course in 2014, I did continue to try to read bits and pieces in Greek news sites but it was all rather sporadic and without application. After a short flurry of last-minute revision I returned to the Athens Centre in 2015 for the next level of the course. And what a different experience that was! I was so cross with myself for the stuff I couldn't remember from the previous level - out of sight, out of mind for a year. Because I had on a number of occasions over the last 40 years (gulp!) made efforts to learn Greek, there was actually very little that I learned in the 2014 course that I hadn't already learnt before. I certainly didn't remember it, but it wasn't particularly new and, let's face it, we were there for fun.

There was certainly fun in the 2015 classes where there was constant laughter and much hard learning going on. And there was lots of new stuff this time. Outside the classes the homework filled up most of my spare time and I was also doing a MOOC from Monash University so that was taking time. I started several books during that time - and have never finished them. And, whilst I have read titles since, I date the downward slide to that period.

This time I left the Greek course not only with my head stuffed full of new stuff that I needed to get my head around properly but also with the realization that my brain was remembering stuff it had learnt decades ago! How amazing was that?  This started happening to me during the course when I would come out with words that I had no idea I knew. It must have been quite frustrating for the teacher as I was also remembering ancient Greek and katharevousa words and not distinguishing the difference. "Yes, I understand the word, but we only really use it in church" is one response I remember.

I hasten to add that this was just a very little transformation and only noticed by me. However, it was enough to make me determined not to go backwards again - for the umpteenth time. So the end result of this has been that my reading time almost every day since has focused on quite short Greek pieces which I take forever to read surrounded by dictionaries. And it's very much a two steps forward one step back sort of feeling.  But I definitely do spend time reading almost every day. And in addition to the short articles, I have over the year, in addition to the 34 titles which include a number of Greek easy readers, read some Greek poetry.  I have read some Cavafy and Seferis and I reintroduced myself to Dimitris Tsaloumas. But that has just been dipping and not whole books. I did also read some Greek picture books which I didn't document. 

And so, for the coming year what will I do?  Yes, I'll certainly keep slogging away with my Greek and one day I might even find myself up to reading a short story :)  And I will again set myself an annual target on Goodreads of reading 52 titles in the coming year.  A good start might be to read some of the books I have downloaded and never read, or ones I started reading last year but didn't finish. 

So that determined librarian at the top of the post is fighting for two things in relation to reading:  firstly, her continued struggles with Greek reading, and secondly, a greater effort at reading English language books so that 52 titles will be read with great ease again in 2016.   We'll see.   Θα δούμε.

#blog12daysxmas Post 13 Epiphany

 

I don't usually do an Epiphany post to end #blog12daysxmas but this year I seem not really to have been very reflective about my 2013 challenges, nor to have documented the ones I have set myself for 2014.  So here goes!

Most years I do set myself some challenges which have arisen from my doing the original 23 things all those year ago in 2008. Some of them are challenges that I have done for years, and others are one offs. Read on to hear about my successes and failures in 2013, my learnings and my aims for 2014.

 Blogging
In 2013 I successfully completed #blog12daysxmas in January 2013, both for myself and for the Collingwood Historical Society. I finished it a couple of days late.  In June, I embarked less than satisfactorily in #blogjune for both myself and for the Collingwood Historical Society. That meant I was committing to doing 60 blogposts in June.  I must have been mad!  I have blogged about my madness here. In the end I managed to do 30 blogposts for the Collingwood Historical Society and 22 for myself.  So all up it wasn't too bad.

I maintain to a greater or lesser degree three blogs for myself and one for the Collingwood Historical Society.  The number of posts I did for each in 2013 are as follows:

Collingwood Historical Society 51 posts

Hecuba's Story 40 posts

Hecuba Reads 1 post

The Librarian & the Kitchen 4 posts

I was fairly pleased with the Collingwood Historical Society blog and amazed that with Hecuba's story I actually completed more blogposts than I had since 2009!  However, I am not so pleased with the others. In particular, more people actually read the Librarian and the Kitchen blog than anything else I write and people actually ask me when I am going to post something again.  I do create recipes, note them down on scraps of paper, take photos and them forget to write them up.I could definitely do better.

So, for 2014 what shall I do?  I have already completed #blog12daysxmas though only for myself. And as I am going to be away for part of June, I am not sure that #blogjune is going to be for me this year.  I regret that as I have been doing it ever since it started but sometimes things have to change.  I guess I will assess that as the time. And for the blogs, I am going to set myself some targets and see how I go.

Collingwood Historical Society 52 posts

Hecuba's Story 12 posts

Hecuba Reads 4 posts

The Librarian & the Kitchen 12 posts

#anz23mobilethings

I  started doing #anz23mobilethings enthusiastically when the program first started in May 2013.  I completed the first four things and then stopped.  My stopping seemed to relate to being overwhelmed with my over commitment to #blogjune but then I never went back to it.  However, I was determined to return to it during #blog12daysxmas, and I have now completed Thing 11.  I'm halfway there as Jan Holmquist supportively told me yesterday. I have committed to finish this in January 2014.  I am on a roll with it and enjoying doing it, so I believe I shall succeed.



Goodreads

In 2013 I made a modest commitment to reading 52 books in the year, i.e. an average of one a week.  I more than succeeded in this by reading or rereading more than 106 books. I document almost everything I read on Goodreads and will continue to do so in 2014 with a similar target of 52 books.  But I will try to review my reading a bit more during the year by blogging about it in Hecuba Reads (see above).







Flickr

In 2013, I took part in three Flickr challenges.  Two of them were 365 day challenges, the 2013 Photo a Day Challenge which I administer and the Happy365 challenge which Kathryn Greenhill set up.  I succeeded in doing 365 photos for both of these challenges.  I also took part in one 52 challenge, Friday Photos, a themed weekly challenge which I completed myself and which the Collingwood Historical Society completed with input from me and another member. 

In 2014 I am again participating in one 365 challenge, the 2014 Photo a Day which I am again administering, and in Challenge Friday, which is a follow on from Friday Photos in previous years.  Flickr itself set up a 52 challenge Friday Photos last year which lead to all sorts of confusion so ours has changed its name for the New Year.  The Collingwood Historical Society is also doing Challenge Friday.  I am up to date with all of these so far.  So far so good.

This all seems enough for me to do.  I will be interested to review it in twelve months.  What challenges have you set yourselves?  I'll be interested to read about them.