Weekly update #3: Second round of SPL books

I went back to the Seattle library on Wednesday for more books, taking the bus this time, because (unlike with the Sounder train which I’m so fond of) there’s a bus stop just a block away from the main library. I came back with a nicely stuffed bag of books, and now my word count is up to 90,511, so by the time I write next week’s update, I’ll be up to 10% of my goal!

I’m gradually becoming able to pick up level 5 books and read them without feeling like I’m in over my head, and level 3 books are starting to be too easy. In my case, I have a rather wide base of words I’ve seen once or twice before over the years but never learned or had reinforced until now, and that’s serving me well — I don’t know what kind of progress someone without that base of years of video games and lots of lang-8 diaries and comments would be making. For me, though, it really feels like I’m tying a lot of previous experience together very quickly.

One weakness of my apartment is that I don’t really have a cozy place to read: the office and the dining room table feel too hard somehow, our living room furniture is good for playing video games but somehow not so comfortable for reading, and reading in bed in the middle of the day just feels goofy. So I’m in the process of making our little balcony a reading-friendly area: I set up a little container garden, and all that’s left to do is to find a better chair than the one I have now. I’ll take pictures when it’s all done.