I woke up to Philly on the first of spring and almost cried. On my way to tackle the daunting task of shopping for groceries, I passed by a transformed park. The previous afternoon, eight people from four local floral and events companies teamed up to deck out Rittenhouse Square with flowers from events cancelled due to the coronavirus.
Bookshelf tour
Alternately titled: Taking Inventory Of All The Unread Books On My Shelf To Shame Myself Into Reading Or Donating Them.
I was only going to focus on the 28 books sitting on my shelf unread, but seeing as that made more than 50% of my collection (54% to be exact), I figured that I might as well give the whole bookshelf tour—all two shelves of it.
It’s a long one, so I don’t expect anyone to read it all the way through, but here’s what you can expect: A straightforward list of my unread books that you can skim through. Then I go through each book on my shelf (read and unread) in the order they are organised on my shelf, which is labeled in the next photo. I share a few sentences about each book on things like memories attached to the book, how much I got it for, reasons for adding it to my shelf, reasons for keeping it on my shelf, etc.
February in Taiwan
At the beginning of February, I was supposed to have returned to Philly from visiting my family in Beijing, but all flights from China to the States were cancelled. The same day that travel restriction was announced, my family and I flew to Taiwan, with the intention for me to stay there for at least two weeks so that I could be cleared to fly to the States from Taiwan (even though my family had basically been unofficially self-quarantining for the entire month of January already, but let’s not dwell on that) (crossing our fingers that there wouldn’t be new travel restrictions from Taiwan to the States in that span of time).
Thus, I spent most of February in Taiwan. I don’t plan on making a travel post, so I want to focus my February recap on my time in Taiwan. I haven’t been up to too much since arriving back in Philly anyway, except for catching up with friends and settling back into a routine (yes, I made it back!).
February reads
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[Note: Re-uploaded this blog post because the comment section wasn’t loading under the original post.]
I’ve been on the go in February, so my Kindle has been getting a lot of lovin’! Finishing a book on a Kindle is not quite as satisfying as finishing a physical book, but I do love how easy it is to whip out a Kindle, whereas with physical books, I really need to get settled.
An unexpectedly positive development from reading on my Kindle is that my impulse to buy books and obtain ARCs has cooled off. I suppose that ebooks take away the distraction of shiny new covers, which is what makes a good part of bookstagram hype, and brings the main focus back to the writing.
All that said, there’s something romantic about a physical book that just can’t be beat.
January lately
So, ya know how I’ve been visiting family in China? And ya know about the coronavirus? It’s put me and my family’s plans all out of whack. We’ve been self-quarantining at home (my dad’s whole office is working from home, my mom has always worked from home, my brother’s school is giving classes online, and I’m just chillin’), which was fun at first, but then I started missing going out on my morning coffee runs. And I’ve also been missing ordering bubble tea deliveries on a whim.
We’ve been refraining from using food delivery services unnecessarily, because we feel bad for the delivery people. They’re probably working overtime (as I’m sure lots of people are self-quarantining and needing food delivered to them) and they’re also exposing themselves to potentially contaminated environments/people. In terms of food delivery, my family is only getting groceries delivered. My dad’s friend sent him a screenshot of the instant noodle category of some store/platform’s app and they were all sold out, which was kinda funny, albeit dark.
If everything goes according to plan, I should be back in Philly early February, as long as my flight doesn’t get cancelled and I don’t get quarantined woohoo. Fingers crossed. I feel like I just jinxed myself, welp. But anyways, before all the coronavirus stuff, I did manage to do some things the first few days of January…
Edit: All flights from China to USA cancelled… I won’t be giving regular updates about this because plans keep changing.
January reads
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Is it crazy that I read just over 1 book/week this month and it felt slow? This January I read 6 books; in the last third of 2019, I read 10 books/month on average! I think that a reading rush at the end of the year is natural; there’s an urgency to get certain reads in before the end of the year (for me it was a selection of 2019 releases) or read a certain amount of books to reach your annual reading goal. Perhaps, come January, it’s natural to feel a little burnt out. Perhaps you’ll dial your pace back down (for me, seemingly, a steady pace of 1 book/week).
But this year I’m not so focused on how quickly or slowly I get on with my next read. My main focus/reading resolution for 2020 is to read more presently. To slow down. To soak it in. To embrace bigger books.
So, this January I read a “mere” 6 books and DNFed 2! I’m so proud of myself for DNFing. After recapping my top reads of 2019 and reminding myself of how good books can be, it was so much easier to make peace with DNFing those books.