Fall/Autumn 2021 Reading Challenge Completion Post
Completion: 58 / 61 days (95.08%)
Work done:
- Satori Reader: 24 episodes.
- Final Fantasy XIV: 26 sessions.
- Stardew Valley: 9 sessions.
- Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale: 3 sessions.
Thoughts on Fall/Autumn 's challenge:
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As the summer challenge, I’ve enjoyed a lot having a daily commitment and a nice place to come back to. This challenge has been very popular again, and it’s very nice to see familiar faces and new ones alike. I’m very fond of the laid back nature of these threads, where everyone is doing their own thing but coming back to report cool stories and thoughts to the rest. It reminds me of the Shared Study Log thread I was participating in earlier this year, and now that I don’t participate there right now, it’s nice that I can get the same sentiment with a lot more participation. But on top of that, it has worked its magic and made me read virtually everyday for two months. I really like the short nature of it.
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Having participated in the summer challenge I was already aware of some pitfalls that I needed to take care of. I learned to drop resources that I don’t feel like using, to not feel the pressure of having to finish them when I can just drop it right there and find something else. This has happened twice for me in this challenge: once with the Satori Reader story I was reading, and the other with Recettear: An Item Shop’s tale, which is not a bad game but it didn’t hook me much in the end.
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I’ve learned to work with failure a bit more. I’ve always been very perfectionist and little failures could always potentially make me derail a lot or quit altogether. It’s not a healthy mindset to have at all and something I’ve been working on with varying degrees of success over time. It’s also not realistic, and you can’t learn anything without failing over and over again. When I missed my first day in this challenge I made it a chance to not let it demotivate me, and to keep going just as normal, even though it bothered me a bit. In the end I’ve missed 3 days, which is honestly awesome and something I’m very happy about. The fact that I kept going makes me genuinely proud. And not only that, I’m much more willing to miss days or take rest days altogether, because I would rather miss 10 days than month and a half. I’m happy that I can interiorise this more and more. Sometimes life happens and breaks are needed. And I like to keep track of the percentage, I feel like it takes away the thought of “if you fail once that’s not everyday and therefore you’ve failed the challenge”. You can very well complete a certain % of it and call it a success. My challenge consists more of “how many days can I do out of 61”.
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I’ve learned that it would be much more beneficial for me to prioritise easier resources. As much as I would love to be fluent and play hard games, I’m just not at that point. I’ve had days when I’ve fought FFXIV so much that it was barely productive, and I could have used that time to go through a larger amount of vocabulary and grammar. Finding resources that are just for my level or close will be the next challenge. Both 君の名は and 星の王子さま will fall close, I think. I want to try a full novel next.
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I was right in that 61 days seems to be my sweet spot. I made it to 75 last challenge and it burnt me out a bit. I will end my challenge here, and now that it’s over, I will most likely keep posting in a very relaxed manner what I’m doing until the Winter one. There are still 2 months left, and I would certainly miss this thread. It probably won’t be a daily thing, though ^^ .
Thank you to everyone that participated, and good luck to the ones that are still fighting their own challenges. 頑張ってください。 