Tracking progress

I’m a little early this year, but as I’ve got plans for upcoming blog posts that are a little time-sensitive, I decided I might as well dive into this now. At the beginning of the year, I set myself some very loose ‘goals’, based on the ones I’ve had for the past few years. Nothing too strenuous, nothing that should be impossible to achieve, just a slight improvement on the targets I met last month. It’s all about trying to find my level, a baseline I can work from that I can set as a bare minimum for what I should be doing throughout the year. Last year I was fairly successful (though not completely), so I took that into account when I was coming up with the targets for this year. In case you don’t remember, they were: to read more than 20 books (at least 2 of which must be in Welsh), watch more than 25 films, continue learning Welsh and Korean, and take part in Polyglot NaNoWriMo in November. Obviously that last one is a little difficult to measure at this juncture as it hasn’t been November yet, so we’ll skip over that one for now. But what about the other three? Well…

Read more than 20 books. As you can see on the graph to your right, I’m making pretty good progress on this. This isn’t entirely surprising, I’ve been reading more ever since I started using The StoryGraph, and I think I’m correct in saying that I more than doubled my target for last year. As it stands, I’ve read 13 books this year (2,362 pages of both physical and e-books, and just under 46 hours of audiobooks). So I’m over half way towards achieving my goal, which was an increase on last year’s. I think unless something very drastic happens, I should manage to get there before the end of the year. And I promise, I’m not just reading manga to bulk out the numbers (though there is some manga in there… what can I say, my weeb phase continues!). The one fly in the ointment is that I’ve not yet started any books in Welsh, but there’s still time! Maybe I’ll pick one up when I finish writing this.

Watch 25 films. This one I’ve really made a conscious effort with. Letterboxd doesn’t offer graphs in the same way The StoryGraph does, so I don’t have my yearly progress to show you, just a selection of some of the films I’ve watched (in a seemingly random order, as there are definitely some from last year in that selection). But I can tell you that so far this year I’ve managed to watch 21 films. I have to admit I’m not entirely surprised by this, because as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been making a concerted effort to go to the cinema more often, and choose to watch a film when I’m at home instead of binging one of my comfort series. I’ve rewatched a lot of films from my childhood recently, so that’s been a nice way to spend some time while studying, as I already know what’s going to happen so I don’t need to pay quite as much attention as I would with a completely new film. But this is no time to get complacent, I’d like to see how many films I can get to if I continue this pace. Only time will tell!

Continue learning Welsh and Korean. Well, this one is probably the target I have the least to show for, and this is kind of a wake up call for me. I’ve probably neglected my language studies more than anything else over the past five months, and I’m not sure what for. I do feel like I’ve spent a lot more time doomscrolling this year than I have for a while (there’s just so much quality doom out there these days), so I really need to make an effort to stop doing that and focus on something like this instead. I’m just about to start Unit 23 of my textbook, Routledge’s Basic Welsh by Gareth King, and there are 40 units in total, with grammar explanations and exercises to complete, and I’d like to finish it and move on to the next one before the end of the year. Ideally before November, as I think it would stand me in good stead for Polyglot NaNoWriMo. So it’s time to pull my finger out and get cracking, I suppose. Watch this space! As for Korean, well… the second spot on my language roster has been a little more flexible over the past few months. I spent a little time with Polish, and Japanese, and for the past few days I’ve been dipping my toe into Bulgarian, and I’ve not done any Korean at all. I’m not too bummed out about it, as Welsh has always been my primary focus, and it’s nice to have a bit of diversity. Maybe I’ll get back to it before the end of the year, and then again, maybe I won’t.

So that’s basically it! Goals mostly seem to be on track, I know which area I need to put the most effort into… I feel quietly confident that I should be able to get over the line with all of these by the end of the year. What about you, did you make any goals for yourself at the start of the year, and how are you measuring up as the year goes on? As always, feel free to leave a comment here, or I can alternatively be found on both Instagram and Threads (as @sprakskatan) and Mastodon (as @sprakskatan@toot.wales). Thanks for reading, and until next time, take care!

— J.