Category: Lifestyle

I need to start by clarifying that reading is not a competition or that I think it should be. Reading is a hobby, a source of entertainment, therefore, should never be a competition. And in the golden age of online sharing, I know it can be hard to avoid comparing our reading with others, especially when some are capable of hitting double digits every month. But this post isn’t about reading more than other people. Every time I mention competition or competing, I’m talking about doing it against myself, challenging myself, and pushing myself as a reader, not comparing myself with others. Keep in mind this is purely an experiment to get even more enjoyment of reading. To be completely honest, I decided to make this post on a whim. I had a couple of ideas left for reading experiments to do this year when I came across a video …

The title is very self-explanatory. I decided to experiment for a month to track words instead of books. Yes, I’ve managed to complicate something so simple. Although, I have a good reason. I am a slow reader, as in I usually read at a speed of 180 words per minute. And my original idea for this experiment was to keep me motivated to read, possibly to read bigger books. Every time I look at a book with more than 400 pages, my first thought is how many weeks or even months it will take me to finish it. And that discourages me. So I was on the hunt for a way to allow me to fall in love with reading, no matter the size of the book. How the idea came to be One day in February, I found a YouTube video about reading 30 books in 30 days and, …

Some readers don’t care about tracking books and keeping tabs on everything they read. But I am not one of those. And I’m guessing you aren’t either. For that reason, I bring you three mobile apps you can use to track your everyday reading! I’ve been tracking my reading for a few years now. It started with Goodreads and has been getting more and more specific over time. What every reader wants to track can be a lot different. Maybe you just want to know how much time takes you to read each book. Or maybe you want to keep track of the genres you read most often. Or you just want a place where you can store all the quotes, thoughts and highlights while reading. No matter what you want, I’m going over the features, what I liked and didn’t like on each app, so you can see if …

Back in 2018, I gave myself for Christmas the Collector’s Edition of the Divergent series. And since then, I’ve been meaning to do a reread of the series. I was also planning another reading log type of post, so I merged both ideas. And I’m glad I did because otherwise, all my thoughts while reading Divergente for the first time since 2016 would be lost. The only thing left was to decide when I was going to read it. And Instagram decided for me. I casually stumbled upon the new 10th Anniversary Editions and… oh my… the artwork is BEAUTIFUL! Now, I want to find a reason to justify spending more money on a series that I already own two copies of (the Movie Tie-in Edition in Portuguese and the Collector’s Edition in English). And maybe, just maybe, rereading the story can give me a reason why I should buy …

Science-fiction and fantasy. Two genres often presented together. Although they couldn’t be more different from each other. And I’m the one to know that. I love one and dislike the other. I never hide it from anyone. And whenever there’s an opportunity, I like to point out that I enjoy keeping a harsh distinction between sci-fi and fantasy. But why do I find them so different? After all, what defines science fiction? Sci-fi, for short, is a wide genre of speculative fiction based on scientific or technological principles. The story can be set in our world or in a galaxy far far away. What makes it sci-fi is the existence of elements explained through laws of physics, even if they don’t exist today. For example, Interstellar. The movie is based around the idea of wormholes and travels between the space and time continuum. So far, that’s only a theory. There …

Usually, we bookworms are the advocators of “read the book before seeing the movie”. Obviously, this isn’t some sort of law, and it does not improve your enjoyment of said movie – probably will take most of it away. And all because we believe that the books are always – probably most of the times – better than the movie. But there are times when I can’t squeeze in another book in my TBR, or I honestly don’t bother, and I go see the movie anyway. I always thought that watching the movie first was me just giving up on reading the book. The mystery is all gone. I already know how the story is gonna go. Why bother taking hours reading something that I already know how it’s going to end when I can rewatch the movie instead of in an hour and a half? Yet, I found myself wanting to read …

One of the top apps for the past few years to learn any language is Duolingo. People seem to be obsessed with this smiley-faced-but-actually-wants-to-murder-you Owl. While I’m on my long journey to learn Japanese all by myself, I want to try the more hip and helpful free apps on the market. To be completely honest, I just haven’t found the right app or source that allows me to learn the way I want, so meanwhile, I’ll be trying everything. After A LOT of Duolingo memes, I decided to finally sign up. I was determined to see what all the fuss was about. And… I never got so mad with an app in my life. Seriously, it was nerve-racking! At first, I was trying to understand exactly how everything worked. I took the initial test to evaluate my level of Japanese since this wasn’t my first rodeo… It got me nowhere! …

OWLs 2020 is officially over – it has been over for 4 days already – and I decided to compile the last two weeks into one post. After the second week, it started to get a little complicated to keep the momentum. These are some exceptional times we are living in, and not every day is a good day. Also not having a book like Pachinko that would give me a lot to think of and to share, didn’t help. But now it’s time to conclude the OWLs and turn the page to start a new month. Wednesday, 15th April 2020 Well, there goes my posting schedule! I haven’t done anything today other than resolve tech issues. First, I was trying to understand how some memory cards work in a Wifi IP camera and others don’t. Having all that figured out took me hours, not even counting testing time. Then, …

Another week of reading books for the OWLs 2020 is done. It wasn’t as productive as the first one, but I’m still reading and that’s all that matter. Wednesday, 8th April 2020 Last night, I entered the third and last part of Pachinko. The book is divided into three parts, each one sort of following each generation, and now I’m in the final round. This part is going to focus mostly on male perspectives, and I’m not excited about it. The characters that I’ve been loving are going to stay in the back and the ones that are being pushed forward I’m not as connected with. I hope this doesn’t affect my enjoyment. And day three of yoga complete. I have to say that it’s a challenge to try and do yoga or any other type of exercise with a bunny hopping around, jumping on top of you, and sniffing …