Hooray-Term's-over!-Readathon

Term's over, grades are good; time to celebrate!

After seemingly infinite days it is finally here: I announce my Readathon for opened!
Again a huge Thank you to all participants, I hope you'll have a great weekend and I'm eager to read your updates during the Readathon (I am afraid I'll spend a little too much time reading them instead of my books).

I have pondered the question what I would read this weekend for two weeks and have not been able to come up with a decided list, so when I say I am going to read the following books it is just a rough outline and perhaps I'll end up reading something totally different.

Les Misérables
I really want to read the first 200 pages of this, because I should already have read them according to my Readalong timetable. January was such a busy month...

Little Women and Peter Pan
I know, both of them are children's books but I haven't read them yet and I feel like that's a huge gap in education.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht
This is a play I have to read for my German literature class (yeah, holidays and I still work for school) and in fact I find the idea of reading something German for a change quite nice.

???
This is where my planning ends, but possible candidates are King Oedipus by Sophocles, The Metamorphosis by Kafka, The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera or Oliver Twist by my beloved Dickens.

We'll see what I choose in the end! I will report my progress in updates at the end of this post. For now, have fun and off to Les Misérables!

1.30 pm
Whoa. As promised I've read the first 200 pages of Les Misérables and on the whole I liked it a lot. The start was a little slow (the first 70 pages are only devoted to describing a bishop's everyday life...), although I surprisingly enjoy Hugo's wordy writing style and a lot of his picturesque metaphors are astonishingly beautiful. I am really interested how all of the loose threads in this looong novel will fit together in the end, but for now I'd like to read something shorter, with less references to French history. Oh, before I forget it, during the chapter "The Year 1817" I came close to throwing my copy against a wall. There are at least two names of people who were famous in France two hundred years ago and whom nobody knows anymore today in every single sentence, for 6 pages. I am not joking. That was excruciating.

4.45pm
Finished The Caucasian Chalk Circle and didn't expect it to be so thrilling. It was also really clever, Bertolt Brecht is an author I'll have to investigate in further. More about this later, for now I'm going to watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother with my little bro to have a short break from reading.

9.30pm
Okay, this "short" break became somewhat extended because my grandmother came over for luch surprisingly and stayed for what seemed an eternity (her TV's broken).
Nonetheless I've just started reading Little Women and although I haven't found a character to identify with yet I am really enjoying the setting and the atmosphere.
I am going to delve into this one for the next few hours and see how far I come.
I hope everyone is progressing well!

Day Two: 9am
The second day of my lovely Readathon and I'm already sad because it will be over soon!
Last night I read Little Women until my mama took it away from me, complaining that I was staying up too late. I still can't identify with any of the girls which is unusual I think, but I am really eager to see how they will develop into grown-up women.
Since I am a very slow reader Little Women will probably keep me occupied the whole day, so bye bye my beautiful plans of reading so much more.

12.30pm
The morning spun away reading, I can hardly believe it's already noon.
Of course I am the thousandth girl to say this, but I have to do so nonetheless: Little Women is an absolutely wonderful book! I didn't imagine it to be so amazing, everyone seems to love it, yes, but in general I tend to dislike books which are so popular. I have read half of it and can't wait to finish it, especially since I am feeling that the second half is getting a little more serious. Unfortunately I have to give it a little break now to prepare lunch, and after just reading about Jo's disastrous attempt to cook dinner it's only fair to admit that I'm a little nervous. Be strong, my heart!

10.30pm
I am still reading Little Women (told you I was reading at a tortoise's pace) and don't have anything to report, except that I just cried out of relief that Beth doesn't die.
What is it just with this book that it is so moving?

0.30am
I have finished Louisa M. Alcott's masterpiece just in time, for, sad as it is, the Readathon is over now! The whole next week I will be busy writing more detailed posts about the absolutely wonderful books I read, but for now a quick overview:

Books read:
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (first 200 pages)
The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht
Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott

Estimated number of pages read: 540

The only thing to add for now is that I hope you've enjoyed my little Readathon as much as I have! Again, thank you for taking part and celebrating my holidays with me (which I shall spend asleep after totally neglecting sleep this weekend)!

Drum roll, please: My Readathon!

So here it is, after long days of anxious waiting: I finally and officially announce my Readathon!

Okay, I know, term is only over here in Austria, which is a tiny and relatively insignificant country, but February 18 is the first day of my holidays and I feel like clebrating that (besides, I needed a fancy name for my first Readathon).

Please participate even if you aren't in school or university anymore; for everyone who can't acclaim a break: it's still a weekend, and that's always reason to celebrate!

The Readathon runs all Saturday and Sunday, it ends at midnight on February 19. I'm sure we'll have a fantastic time reading as much as humanly possible, but do not hesitate to take part even if you can only join us on one of the two days, see it as a casual Readathon.

Finally, please leave a comment with the link to your sign up post if you want to participate (I'm looking forward to lots of comments!), spread word and feel free to grab my lovely badge (which was a lot of work even if it isn't visible...).

Let's have a great weekend in the written world!

Dickens, The Rocky Horror Show and a ridiculously busy month

January has been insane. This is no exaggeration, I mean it. Looking back I don't even know how I managed to squeeze in four or five hours of sleep every night, let alone write the few blog posts I did.
I am really sorry for neglecting my dearly loved blog so much, and I am more than sorry that I have hardly had a free minute to check out your updates and leave comments. I promise that will change again from now on!

Now the embarrassing part of this post: the look back on my January reading. I have not managed to read a single book more than three, and one of these three books is A Tale of Two Cities which I haven't even finished yet, but I will count it for January nonetheless to make my list look a little less pathetic because I read the majority of it in the last month. I plan on finishing this one today (I can't even tell you how good it is!) and since I have nothing more interesting to write about at the moment I am going to explain to you why January has been such an exhausting month, apart from the finals, which are finally luckily over.

The reason for me aging years in one month...





My music teacher had the ambitious idea of performing a whole, real musical, The Rocky Horror Show, with my class, a bunch of ordinary 16-year-olds. The word "stressful" is a huge understatement for this project.
Not only did we have to play all the roles and sing, but we also had to organise everything, from the posters (see above) to technical equipment to buffet to costumes. I didn't play a role (since there weren't enough roles for all of us we decided to split the singing and the acting), but I sang four solos and was responsible for all textual changes.
The musical premiered yesterday, and to be honest I went on stage with chattering teeth, but it was amazing.
All of us were really motivated and as if by a miracle the show was better than in any rehearsal. Although the preparations were really exhausting, being actually on stage and performing in front of 200 people was simply amazing, and I have to admit that I have gained a whole new look on transvestites.

Anyway, term is almost over and for the next two weeks I will be participating in the so-called "Compassion Project", which means that I will be volunteering in a kindergarten with disabled children instead of going to school. I am already looking forward to it very much, and since I am only allowed to work for 6 hours every day I will have lots of time for reading and blogging! Oh, and one last thing: would anyone be interested in joining me in a Readathon on February 18, 19 or 20?
I have some plans (actually I have already designed a logo...), so please say if you're interested in taking part!