My Reading Buffet, or Why I Read More Than Ten Books At A Time

Ten books is an understatement. If I were to trust my Goodreads record I actually have about eighty books on my Currently Reading List. But I want to keep the number to the books I have been actively reading through for the past two weeks.

Reading multiple books naturally slows me down but just to be clear, I do get to finish them. According to my Goodreads record, again, I am 28%, or 11 books, ahead of this year's Reading Challenge.

Books are my therapy. More specifically, owning them, reading them, and highlighting my favorite passages, not to mention copying those passages and using them in my various writings. I read both fiction and non-fiction, popular as well as literary works. I am partial to fantasy and mythologies and books with magic.

But why do I read so many at the same time? Because I get impatient. And I have this irrational need to feel that I am moving along more than one story. Maybe it is a way of filling my near-absent social life, filling in my social calendar with different stories instead of different parties. But I also like pursuing a thread of thought or the urge of a mood as soon as possible. That is the impatience working. The thought or the urge could be triggered by anything. It could be a genuine need for knowledge and information that could be useful for my work. It could be pure whim or curiosity from hearing a book or an author or a subject mentioned in fils, or even another book, that has moved me in some way. Neil Gaiman gets me going on a lot of reading, helping me discovering authors and genres in the process, expanding my reading appreciation. So does Joseph Campbell and Julia Cameron.

I have this strange constant sense of running out of time. As if I am forever cramming for an exam or a graded recitation. I have this constant hunger, every single day, to learn something new or to feed myself new images and words and stories. I can feel that what I read buoy me up and help me survive every endeavor and every encounter. What I read may inspire me, or literally provide me with a nugget of knowledge that will enable me to save the day, or guide me in the decisions I have to make. Books are my lifeline. They anchor me amidst the sea of unpredictability of the everyday. They remind me of my values and set examples by which to conduct my life (Thank you, Jane Austen).

I seek the variety because it makes me feel that I am covering as much ground as I can. Who knows when familiarity with a specific subject might come in handy? I guess I also don't want to be limited to a very narrow range of topics that could severely limit my already challenged conversational skills. I make up for not being updated with current news and events by being well-versed in books. (I avoid the daily news because I avoid all the negativity and anger and vicious circles of blaming.)

I cannot be idle and not read. While I do enjoy the occasional meditative silence of being still, for most of the time I have to have a reading material of substance in my hands. A book or two in my bag plus books loaded in my smartphone and tablet give me the same comfort as a fully-loaded survival kit in a zombie apocalypse.

My reading list covers a wide range. I follow my heart which pages it wishes to explore at any given moment because that is also when I know that I will get the most from a book.

As of today here are what top my active list:

In my Kindle I have:

The Cuckoo's Calling, by Robert Galbraith
The Twenty-Four Hour Mind, by Rosalind Cartwright
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, by Mason Currey
Writing Well, by William Zinsser
Writing To Learn, by Willian Zinsser

I love finding unexpected connections between the books I read, even when they seem so different. The important lessons gets echoed because they are important. And when I badly need some clue, a hint of budge in the right direction, my books often come to the rescue. Or sometimes, a simple line can bring a whole load of comfort when I feel most alone in a dreary endeavor and resolution seems too far away, such as this quote from Kafka:

"...time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers." -- excerpted from Daily Rituals: How Artists Work.

What's on your reading list this week?

geek alert

I joined Scribd, which is hailed as a YouTube for Documents. There are catalogs from various book publishers, class lectures, serious papers -- lots of pretty useful stuff if you're doing research or merely curious. I found a paper discussing the shift from Feudalism to Capitalism which I saved for later reading. Don't ask me why. Certain things I just find interesting.

The site also shares book excerpts and I discovered this:

I have to admit, I want it.

Stuff like this interest me. Plus I really really like studying, as long as it's on a subject I like. There is a secret part of me that actually wants to be forever in a university, studying and doing research and writing papers. Spending days in the library. Hanging out in coffee shops and bookstores. Having exciting conversations with fellow learners.

If I could, I would like to go back to college and earn another degree, or two. Maybe I could. I wonder if I will survive the long homework nights as well as I did when I was eighteen. I'll take up Literature, Creative Writing, and Psychology. Then maybe take extra courses on History and Language Studies. All those reading to be done! Perfect excuse to stay curled up with books, paper, and pen for whole days.

digital photography workshop

I took one last May 27. It was a whole-day class and I took it for the following reasons:

- I wanted to make the most of my DSLR.
- I wanted to know what kind of lens I need to make the shots I want.
- I wanted to have more confidence taking photos and composing my shots.
- I have tried reading a number of beginner's photography books but I simply could not get past the technical stuff. I was hoping an actual person explaining it in local layman's terms will be easier for me.
- I wanted to meet new people.

I am happy to say that all of the above were met and fulfilled. It was a very simple workshop and really designed for beginners. What I loved most about it though was how the technical stuff was discussed and demonstrated -- I finally get the whole shutter and aperture and ISO thing. I also appreciated the way that we were made to work with our own camera and that every feature and button was discussed and explained. It was very practical. When I got home I was able to put most of what I learned to practice.

I also now know that I want a 50mm f1.8 lens. It will cost me about Php5,000 so I need to save up for it.

Meanwhile let me share some shots from the workshop. The last couple of hours were spent shooting models who were came specifically to pose for us.

There I am, the only girl with glasses :) 

While it was fun to have subjects willing to be shot, I find that I prefer to capture them when they are in a more natural state. So I try to catch them in-between poses and before they realize that I am aiming the camera at them.

The workshop also inspired me to really get my photo editing and management system in place because with the volume of photos I would be taking, I could not afford to waste disk space and time trying to find the ones I want.

I also realized that I have not been doing as badly as I thought when it comes to photography. :)

What have you been learning about lately?

bigger wishes

In a previous post I shared that I made a post-it wishlist. Two from the list have already been fulfilled (in only a matter of days) so I have updated the list with much optimism and anticipation. This time I added bigger wishes such as:

• shopping for learning books in Amazon : because most learning books are not in Kindle such as textbooks required for many online university courses, hence for these I need to allot budget for safe shipping and the books themselves are also more expensive than the regular fiction and self-help 
• a degree in literature and writing : this would be a second degree since I already have one in Communication which I got from college. However I have always wanted to study literature and creative writing and I almost shifted courses when I was in university, except that I had to consider which course would open up more job opportunities so I could help out my parents (I was born lower-middle class so there's a lot of need I would have to fulfill).  I am open to either an online course or attend actual classes. My most pressing challenge now in this arena is the tuition budget so I'm looking into a plan for that.
• publish an e-book : this one has been something that has played in my head since I was in my early twenties. Even my friends who are familiar with my writing have encouraged me to pursue this path. I have the beginnings of a collection of material and I just need to allot serious time and work on it. Also the budget for self-publishing it.
• a solid savings system : this post-it is not visible in the photo but it's there. Being breadwinner and supporting two households (my parents' and my own), my cash flow is pretty heavy (mostly flowing outwards) and it has been really tough to keep a safety savings account plus a savings account for the stuff I personally need (such as getting an extra degree). But since I have been distilling my life I have been continuously finding better ways to simplify and free up budgets for re-allocation. It's a process that takes time and the progress can be sometimes difficult to discern but after almost a month I believe I am really seeing improvements. 

I have made lots of lists and to-dos in my life and this is but another that helps refresh my perspectives and renew my hopes that there is something worthwhile in following our heart and the call of our own spirit. In many ways I have witnessed how the universe conspires to bring to us what we need for things to happen, from the smallest seemingly insignificant matters to the life-transforming ones. Never lose hope!

a thirst for learning

I have decided to avail myself of A Beautiful Mess's Dream Job e-course.

At this point in my life I could use all the help I could get from the people I admire. Just as I took Holly Becker's Blogging Your Way e-course (which has proven to be super-rich and super-satisfying) to help improve my blogging, I am now looking into useful lessons to help me realize my dream job.

I have friends who are fortunate enough to have the financial capacity to take courses in real schools or go abroad to study and train in real places. They can afford to take that much time off from work to immerse themselves in study. With my solo business I can't yet be as free with my time or money. Thus, I am very grateful for the generous souls who offer their own lessons and wisdom online and who spend so much time and effort producing really good e-courses.

My next course to save up for is Raining Umbrellas - Lessons in Creativity. I hope I scrape together enough to be able to sign up before the class gets filled up.

Meanwhile I have been slowly applying what I have been learning to real life. It's slow going because there is a lot of thinking and processing involved --- which is good because it really forces me to pay attention to what is really important. There are some hard decisions to be made, as well as a lot of hard work. But I am determined to have something to show for all that studying and effort sometime in the near future.

How are you doing with learning and living? Any good e-courses you can tip me off with?

after more than a decade of dilly-dallying

Please welcome my new companion:

Bought on a hard-to-resist installment deal with zero interest. It has been price-reduced because its next-level brother has been launched.

Last night and this morning I have been like a child discovering a whole new universe. Every successful shot (I have jumped bravely into aperture-priority setting) got me grinning from ear to ear.

I still have a lot to learn, including memorizing all the buttons and switches and every number and letter on my camera. But I am pretty excited to take this particular journey -- definitely I have come so far from trying to take a moody dramatic shot of a rooster on a late sunny afternoon while using a super old 35mm film camera that can only click and nothing else. That was me in high school or college I think. The photo did not even come out in the developing because it was either over or under exposed and the photo developer took the liberty of deciding not to print it anymore.

After that self-searching post about photography (helped a lot by a beautiful course I am taking right now), I am now better set with what I want to happen in my life. Shedding and clearing away the stuff that derail or discourage you is not an easy task but knowing the stuff that do matter to you no matter what will take you a good long way.

And I do believe that when you know where you want to go, the universe will conspire to show you the way.

:)

my love-hate with photography

My only camera right now is my iPhone 3GS.

But lately I am wanting a Canon DSLR. For many reasons. I am also wanting a Fuji Instax.

I actually like photography. Maybe I even love it a little. But it has become such a "cool" thing to do that I did not want to be associated as a wannabe enthusiast. With the advent of digital photography and the internet, almost every other person I know calls himself or herself a photographer, although very few can actually shoot decently.

When I was a child I remember being one of the last few kids whose family had a camera. And while everyone had a camera that shot 36mm film, we had the cheaper one that shot the 110 film.

When I was in my junior year in college I had the option to take a photography class and I was excited and I signed up for it. Then I received the list of requirements - including an SLR camera and other paraphernalia that I couldn't afford because I was only even in college because of a scholarship. To my disappointment I had to apply for a load revision to change my photography subject to something else. I can't remember what replaced it. I think it was another writing class.

My ex-boyfriend is a photographer and maybe that is one more thing that adds another shade of reluctance to embrace it.

I have always felt that photography didn't want me. When I tried self-studying I could not make heads nor tails of f-stops and shutter speeds and apertures.

It didn't help that I also know people who just took to photography like fish to water.

Camera shops intimidated me because shop personnel almost always assumed you knew something already and they get a look on their face and a tone in their voice when they realized I know less than something.

It often feels like everyone else knows something about photography that I somehow missed out on.

Photography is not my main passion but I would love to get to know it better. I do want it to be one of the things I can do well. I want it to be my ally. I want to not by shy or embarrassed when I carry a camera in my hand in public. I want to be able to ignore the knowing looks ("oh, another one of those") when I take my shots.

I want to surround myself with beautiful photos I have taken instead of constantly borrowing from others. I want to stop just looking. I want to capture. I want to take.

I want to tell stories instead of just taking photos for posterity.

I want to learn now. I am ready.

a very late dinner

Plain scrambled free-range egg 

Stir-fried chicken breast and onions flavored with thyme, soy sauce and sesame oil

I hardly noticed time passing by I was so immersed in what I was doing. First I did a short writing assignment in the morning. Then I went online and did some research on a few projects I'm working on and made notes. I had a late lunch then went back to the research. By 4pm I took a break from all the reading and writing and did some house chores. Then I paid some bills online. Continued with the research which morphed into studying and learning new tricks and finding out about new options for getting creative. It was 9pm when I realized I haven't had dinner (and my tummy was grumbling). So I made do with leftover ingredients because I won't be going to the supermarket until Saturday.

My shopping wish list just got longer tonight. But I am so happy to get a lot of studying and writing done. I haven't been that absorbed in a long time and actually enjoyed it.