Hi! Thanks @windupbird for setting up this challenge, it’s promising to be really fun! I’ve never participated in challenges like this, but always thought that I was missing out on the collective spirit and the extra motivation from external accountability. Seeing how welcoming and supportive WK community is, I decided that this is a perfect opportunity to give it a try! 
I still have very little idea how this whole challenge thing works, so I guess I’ll look at what everyone else is doing and try to follow suit. Here’s my calendar (thanks to whoever came up with it!):
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Goals and books
I don’t have any specific reading goals right now, but I’m currently at the point where I understand most of the basic grammar and quite a bit of Kanji, but lack a lot of simple vocabulary, and find reading to require quite a lot of effort. So my plan is to focus on just reading whatever I feel like – to get into the habit. Hopefully, over time, as I get more reading experience, it will become less and less laborious. I also hope to somehow maintain the balance between effort and fun, so that I habitualize it rather than burn out, even though I don’t have a solid plan for this last part 
Here are a few things that I’ve been reading lately, so I’ll probably be mostly continuing with these:
- よつばと！ – I started it from scratch 2-3 times already and have read through about half of the first volume so far, but even though it’s probably the easiest entry on my list (at least, for me), and it’s been quite fun to read, somehow I can’t get through with it (and I have all 15 volumes sitting on the shelf waiting…) Let’s see how it goes this time around.
- 五等分の花嫁 – Much harder for me than よつば, but I enjoy it quite a lot. I’m currently on the second volume, and waiting to get to the part of the story not covered by the anime with both excitement and dread (as in, will I still be able to follow it without knowing what is supposed to happen?)
- 時をかける少女 – I tried it a few months ago, and it was a bit hard, but within reason. I like the story (which I vaguely remember from the anime), so maybe I’ll push through this time.
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涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 – Given its writing style, this one is very hard for me right now, but I occasionally attempt to read it “immersion-style”, i.e. without looking anything up, just trying to absorb as much as I can – which is to say, not that much
I also have a bunch of other books and manga, some of them perhaps more appropriate for my level, and some completely out of reach (e.g. 〈物語〉シリーズ), so I might add more as time goes.
Links to daily updates
From a quick glance at the previous threads, it seems like a lot of people tend to post daily updates as well as maintaining their summary post. So, a question for those of you who have tried it before: in what ways do you find daily updates help you (and/or others) – psychologically or otherwise? I’m still a bit uncertain about doing them myself (since I’m a bit too wordy, but not at all chatty, if this makes any sense), so I’d be happy to get some insight into why people like doing them. Thanks!