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Wrap Up | August 2019 + updates
There’s almost no point in me doing a wrap up for August because I completely fell out of the blogging and reading worlds. August truly turned out to be the month where time kind of ate itself; I remember preparing for World Con back at the start of August and then before I knew it the first day of September arrived?! I have a fairly good excuse in that preparations for and recovery from World Con turned out to be pretty all-consuming. That combined with a 5000-word report, a statistics exam and writing my 15,000-word dissertation meant I basically had zero time for anything else. I feel a lot less guilty now seeing how much I actually had to do in August written down…
August wasn’t just a complete non-event on the blogging front but I also barely read anything despite it being the NEWTs readathon. In total, I only managed to read 2.5 books before August was over which is kind of disappointing and also means I’m not behind on both my reading and my blogging 😭
→ by Becky Chambers – ★★★★★ ←→ by Emma Newman – ★★★★☆ ←→ by Chen Qiufan – Currently Reading ←
I may only have read 2.5 books in August but at least they were all excellent books and some of them have been waiting ages to be read. I pre-ordered my copy of Record of a Spaceborn Few last year, couldn’t wait to get my hands on it, and then left it to sit on my bookshelf for a year as I psyched myself out of reading it. It was absolutely excellent though, it made me so incredibly happy reading it and I just wanted to keep reading it forever. After Atlas is another one I had been meaning to read since I read Planetfall in 2018 so was pleased to finally get round to reading After Atlas. I didn’t love it as much as Planetfallbut it was still thoroughly enjoyable. Lastly, I’m still midway through my copy of Waste Tide which I finally picked up after meeting Chen Qiufan at World Con which is also excellent. All of these are excellent and I highly recommend them.
In terms of my progress in the NEWTs, I think it’s fair to say I didn’t do very well but am considering extending my NEWTs readathon until the end of September to give myself a fairer chance in light of how much work I had to do in August? But I also feel like this is kind of cheating? Argh, decisions!!
What’s New?
🌻 I submitted my 5000-word research design report which I will be getting the marks back for in just a few more days and also submitted my second statistics exam which I got the marks back for on Friday. I managed to get a first overall for the Quantitative Methods module which I am super ecstatic over
🌻 I had a blast at World Con even though it was also highly stressful! I haven’t yet done a write up of my time there but I did post my little book haul. I got to meet so many friends both new and old, moderated an ownvoice panel which was INCREDIBLE, and attended some great events. Now I am sad to be home but proud of myself for everything I achieved on that trip
🌻 To be honest, I’m having some sad/anxious feelings about blogging at the moment but not sure where to pop them so here seems a decent bet rather than write a big old post about them. Taking time out from blogging has obviously been super important and necessary, there is only so much that people can juggle at one time and I needed to prioritize my masters. However, I’m also feeling anxious about how much blogging I need to catch up with in terms of ARCs, reviews, posts, etc and have also been feeling isolated from/forgotten about by the community which I know is silly but is still a brain feel that I am having at the moment. I am hoping that things start to improve a little over the next few months but I also have some concerns given that I’m about to start a PhD and don’t want to be forgotten 😅
That’s all for August, sorry to end on a bit of a downer note but I’m looking forward to (hopefully) being more present over the next few months ❤ As I’ve been so out of the loop make sure you drop a comment to let me know what you’ve been up to and reading in August. I hope it was a great month for you all.
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