Merry Wanderer of the Night [Search results for reading resolutions] 

Okay, so I know I said no more challenges, but this isn't an actual challenge really. It's more of a personal goal and growth challenge. The Reading Resolutions Challenge is hosted by Jenny Loves to Read. I was going to wait to post this until it was closer to new years, but since I have finished signing up for challenges now seems like a good time. I am a new blogger, English Major's Junk Food has only been around for three months, but I have been a reader for a long time and every year I say I'm going to do certain things and stuff (friends, school, life) gets in the way. Hopefully publishing it for all of you to read will help keep me on track.

In the short amount of time that I've been blogging I have really seen a change in how I read. I read a lot more for one thing, mostly because I feel like I have a reason to read. I want to thank everyone who has helped me learn the ropes and get involved in the community. It's been a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the upcoming year!

My first resolution is to keep reading often and posting often. I have started a few blogs in the past and usually they only last a week or two and I quit. I don't want that to happen to this blog because I am loving it.

My second resolution is to get out of my historical fiction and classics box even more. I posted about the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge and mentioned that I want to read different kinds of historical fiction that I haven't read before. I would like to do that in general all year. I'm okay with staying inside my preferred genres but I really want to try some new things out. Specifically I would like to try out some more YA novels. There are some great ones out there but I never really pay attention to them.

My third resolution is to post more about the children's books I've been reading. On average I read about four-five children's books per week. I probably won't post about the meh ones, but ones that I really do not like or do like will be spotlighted on this blog.

My final reading resolution is not exactly a reading resolution, but we'll go with it. I want to start keeping a journal again. I used to be an avid journal writer but when I came to college I quit. I'd like to keep a journal to write about what I am reading and my life in a way that I really can't on my blog.

Finally, here are a list of all the challenges I am signed up for:
Shelf Discovery hosted by Booking Mama.
Reading Western Europe hosted by Samantha's Reading Challenge.
18th and 19th Century Women Writers hosted by Becky's Book Reviews.
All About the Brontes Challenge hosted by Laura's Reviews.
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Royal Reviews.
First in a Series Challenge hosted by Royal Reviews.
Second in a Series Challenge hosted by Royal Reviews.

EDIT
I couldn't resist this one: You've Got Mail Challenge.

Well I made it through twenty hours of Dreadlock Girl's Readathon. I was happy with that, I think I could have made it all 24 hours if my boyfriend wouldn't have been snoring. The readathon made this past week a lot more successful than it would have been otherwise since I've mostly been working on papers lately. I should actually be working on papers right now, but I just woke up so I'm trying to ease myself in. Once I get to Wednesday though I will be D-O-N-E!!! Then I will be reading a lot, which will be nice.

On Monday I posted a review of Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? by Thomas Kohnstamm. It wasn't a very favorable review because I thought the book was ridiculous trash, so if you like reading that sort of thing or if you just like reading reviews then you should check that one out. I do wonder if it's something I'm not getting because I'm not really a partier or a guy?

Wednesday I did my first children's book review of Boris and Bella by Carolyn Crimi. I loved this book and couldn't resist posting about it even though I normally do not write about children's books. I think I might start posting about them more often though as I read several in the course of a week. This will probably be a change I will make more around January because I'm almost done with tutoring for this semester.

This leads me into my next post, which is the epitome of all my challenge posts: the 2010 Reading Resolutions Challenge hosted by Jenny Loves to Read. In this post I list all of the challenges I will be participating in next year as well as some changes I would like to make in my reading habits or on my blog.

Yesterday I read and finished three books which I will be reviewing this week. The books are Are You There God? It's me Margaret by Judy Blume, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor by Stephanie Barron, and Shirley Volume One by Kaoru Mori. I started In a Gilded Cage by Rhys Bowen which I should be finishing this week and will hopefully have reviewed by next weekend. Today I am finishing Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and will most likely review that book on Monday. Lots of good stuff coming up this week so be sure to come back!

Finally I would like to send some shout outs and thank yous. Thanks to Dreadlock Girl for hosting the readathon and to I Heart Monster, Beth Fish Reads, Seriously Reading, Ronnica at Book Nook Club, Reads4Pleasure, Chick Loves Lit, and Tif Talks Books for hosting some great memes and/or giveaways during the readathon. And a special thanks goes out to Perpetual Spiral who was my main partner in crime during the readathon. Happy Reading!

Happy 2012 everyone! Hopefully, this year will be awesome for everyone!

I've never actually made New Year's Resolutions before, but I decided that, this year, I wanted to give them a try. I really like the idea of starting a resolution at the beginning of something (1st of the month, 1st of the week, whatevs) so 1st of the year should be extra awesome, yes?

I'm probably making too many, but I've got quite a few this year. Some of them are personal/life goals, that I'm not going to share specifics of, but some of them are blogging goals. So, here are my 2012 blogging goals:

*Keep my Review Archive & Goodreads Reviews up to date. (Possibly include Amazon reviews also)
*Be better at general blog upkeep — updating pages, procrastinating less, etc...
*Be better about commenting — both commenting on reviews I read and visiting those who comment on my blog.
*Have at least some reviews written before they are supposed to be posted. (An awful lot of my reviews are written either before I go to bed the night before they post, or right before I post them. It'd be nice to have a few written ahead of time)
*Get (and stay) ahead of/on top of review books.
*Memory Monday
*Stay up to date on both reading challenges I'm hosting.
*Remember that this is something I do for fun, because I enjoy it. And stop letting it stress me out.

That last goal has more to do with personal pressure than any outside pressure. Because I've felt, off and on, throughout the whole time I've blogged that I have to be reading, and sometimes, that I have to be reading those books. And every time I feel like that, I get bogged down and overwhelmed and I get so focused about WhatIneedtobereadingrightthisverysecond and it gets to be too much and so I read nothing at all. I do that about a lot of things (this is another of my life goals: P) When I feel overwhelmed because there is too much to do, I generally end up doing nothing. It's my way of coping. With reading, I've never thought about reading slumps and stuff before. If I felt like reading a ton, I would. If I didn't, I wouldn't. And it wasn't any big thing. It just was. But since I started blogging, I'm hyper aware of my reading moods and it stresses me out now when I don't feel like reading.

Long explanation there, to basically say — This year, I'm going to read if I want and what I want, and it's not going to be a thing anymore. It's just going to be me, enjoying my books and telling the whole freaking world about how awesome this reading thing really is.:)

Another one of the things Dewey did so well with Weekly Geeks was a weekly round-up. In her weekly post, she would feature a few of the bloggers who participated in the prior week’s activity.

We’re a little slow in getting that part of Weekly Geeks off the ground, and since it takes many Geeks to carry out the tasks of one Dewey, the round-up will be in the form of a separate post.

Since the first week’s activity asked us to list our favorite blogs and subsequently increased the size of all our feed readers by 5 gazillion blogs, I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I skip that round-up and start with Weekly Geeks 2009-02.

Last week, an unfinished person and Joanne posed the following questions:

For those who have been with the group, either from the start or joined within recent months, what does being a member mean to you? What do you enjoy about the group? What are some of your more memorable Weekly Geeks that we might could do again? What could be improved as we continue the legacy that Dewey gave us? For those just joining us, why did you sign up for Weekly Geeks? What would you like to see here?

Erin from crazy comma momma is a self-confessed newbie who is already doing happy dances when the Weekly Geeks blog updates. I practically did a happy dance myself when I read that. Erin says she is new to book blogging and Weekly Geeks gives her a chance to get her feet wet. Welcome Erin! We’ll keep an eye out for that video of you doing the happy dance. ;-)

Megan at Leafing Through Life is a long-time geek. For her (and for a lot of people), Weekly Geeks is about community. Megan was “a particularly big fan of the weeks when we were asked to go out and visit some Geeks we hadn't seen before either to comb their archives or to find something we had in common or just to leave a comment to say "hey, I've been here" and post the links to our travels in our Weekly Geeks post.” “Links to our travels”…I just love that line, don’t you?

Julie at Booking Mama is another fairly new Geek. One of her New Year’s resolutions is to “to be a bigger part of the blogging community. In addition to leaving more comments, I also decided to start participating in Weekly Geeks. So here I am and here's to hoping that I stick with it!” We hope you stick with it, too, Julie! Although we won’t send the Geek Police after you if you skip a week.

Maree at just add books is in it for the fun. “For me, it's a fun thing to do once a week where I get to virtually hang out with lots of like-minded people :)…I really enjoyed the Weekly Geeks where we interviewed each other about what we were reading. I'd be happy to see a repeat of that one. Oh! And the quotes one, where we posted a quote a day on a specific subject. That was a lot of fun too.” Since I'm all about the fun, too, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Maree!

Ms. Ulat Baku of Ulat Baku in the City sees Weekly Geeks as “a great platform that allows me to make new friends, exchange ideas and learn new things from people regardless of race, religion and background and that’s the main reason for my participation. Plus the fact that I love Mr. Spock to pieces and never had an appropriate post to feature him in my blog until now of course, LOL.” Well said, Ms. Baku, and may Weekly Geeks live long and prosper.

Many of you mentioned favorites Weekly Geeks that you wouldn't mind seeing again. We will be adding the suggestions to the list of themes, and as usual, if you think of any other ideas, feel send us an email.

We will try to post this weekly round-up every Friday. Additionally, once a month we're hoping to feature some of the other Dewey-inspired events that are continuing around the blogosphere. Look for that post next week. In the meantime, happy geeking!