Back to Reading

Tags

48 hour book challenge, Audiobook

Just 10 minutes in to reading/skimming blogs about the challenge (after spending 15 minutes blogging) I’m itching to get started reading again. So here I go. I’ll be starting with “What Do You Do All Day” by Amy Scheibe. It seems like basic mom lit so that’ll be fun. I might switch genres after this book but I don’t know for sure. I’m aiming to get six hours of reading done before I have to get some sleep.

Alright, with this blog I’m now 7 hours in (6.5 of audio book, .5 of blogging/reading blogs). Off to read. I’ll keep updating with progress as I have yet to use my full hour that I can for my six hours of reading.

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6.5 hours in…

Tags

48 hour book challenge, Audiobook, Jane Eyre

Wow. First off let me say that listening to an audio book at work as opposed to listening to music makes time go much faster. Music is fun and I love to listen to it but not for my whole shift. My mind tends to wander and I get antsy and bored and turn it off. Keeping my audio book on the entire time was easy as pie. As an added bonus, I was able to politely ignore coworkers I didn’t feel like talking to as I was plainly otherwise occupied. Due to many work-related issues (my coworkers wouldn’t stop talking at break time if I paid them to… Well, maybe if the price was right.) I wasn’t able to “read” for 8 hours straight but all told I got a little over 6.5 hours in.

So, I’m at almost the end of chapter 16 of Jane Eyre, farther than I’ve been before. The narrator gave new life to the chapters I’d already read, breathing a different inflection than the one I used in my head as I read previously. The quality isn’t super great on certain chapters, my phone’s volume doesn’t go up as high as an mp3 player would, and I had to rewind a few times as I couldn’t hear bits of it. Last night made me wish I had some noise blocking headphones.

I’m going to spend the remainder of my hour of networking/blogging time to read and comment on some participating blogs and then I’ll get back to reading. I’ll have to take a break and make some coffee at some point. Maybe I’ll take a bath and listen to Jane Eyre instead of showering in silence like I normally do. I would skip it but I don’t think my coworkers would appreciate that.

This is so much fun. 🙂

Pondering the Challenge

Tags

48 hour book challenge, Audiobook, books, Jane Eyre, LibriVox, mp3 player, Wuthering Heights

A recent comment led me to the decision to go ahead and do the dinosaur unit study. No promises on when I’ll be finished but I’m looking at writing it next week (a little internet time to recover from the 48 hour challenge) and either doing it the same week or starting the next week.

Remember the 48 hour challenge? Turns out I have to work all weekend (as opposed to the one day I thought I was going to have to work) which deeply cuts into my reading time but I’m still going to play, just for the fun of it, even though I have no chance at winning. The audio book qualification intrigues me. The rules say that one audio book can be included. While I’m not normally one for audio books, perhaps I can change that for this challenge? Ok… Problem is that I don’t have an mp3 player (well, I have one but haven’t been able to find it for months). Maybe I can find it in time. Or figure out how to put audio book files on my phone…

…

Mid-typing I began to panic about where I’d obtain an audio book of appropriate length in enough time so I stopped writing to google “longest audio books”. I won’t go through my long search but eventually I was led back to LibraryThing (why don’t I just go there first?) to their audiobook forum (that I’ve previously ignored). Of course, there was a thread on places to download free audio books. I decided to look through LibriVox to find an audiobook. I figured that I needed to find one that would last two workdays  so I decided to “read” either Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. Both are books that I’ve attempted to read in the past and put down after awhile. Both are still on my (ever-growing) reading list. I’m leaning towards Jane Eyre. Now I just need to find my mp3 player.

With the addition of being able to read one audiobook, I think I’m actually back in the running for a prize as I won’t have to waste the time that I spend at work!

If I can find my mp3 player or manage to get the book on my phone, I’ll start tonight at work. If not, I’ll start at 7 a.m. tomorrow. I’ll post a “first post” when the decision is made.