By 12:00 noon, after 4 hours of reading, I had read 230 pages, almost 1/4 of my goal. Since I was planning on reading for 16 hours, I knew I was doing well.
Then things got a little crazy. The night before the readathon, my laptop, which runs faster on wireless internet, began acting really weird, showing me all kinds of warnings and pop-ups. I shut it down and went to bed. The next morning, it was still not functioning right. So, all day during the readathon, I was trying to keep up with the messages and mini-challenges on my desk top computer, which runs slow because of dial-up internet.
Because of all this, I was reading only about 30 pages an hour. Also, we had the computer guy here in our house for over two hours trying to fix my laptop, to no avail. Add in three children who were making various noises and involved in much activity all around me in a small home. Needless to say, I couldn't get much reading done.
So, at about 6:00, after the computer guy left (with my computer), I decided I had to get off the internet and just try to read all I could in the time I had remaining. Well, it seemed by then that my family wasn't going to tolerate my isolation or ignoring them any longer. As much as I tried, I only read about 80 pages between 6:00 and 10:00.
But I wasn't giving up. I sent the kids to bed, took my book to my room, and proceeded to read 110 more pages in the last two hours of my self-allotted time.
So, the final page count? 590. Much less than 1000. However, if I consider that I read one book completely, and two others partially, then I think I did okay. In fact, I'm glad that I had this opportunity to enjoy doing what I love to do. And next time, I'll know what to do differently: reserve a hotel room for the day (don't tell anyone where), and leave my cell phone at home! Yeah, that sounds like a plan.........
5 comments:
590 pages isn't bad! Especially considering the circumstances. I only managed around 500 myself.
A hotel room, not a bad idea :P
That's not bad at all!
Sorry about your laptop.=(
Yup, I figure until the kids are older, I will have to refrain from readathons for awhile. It's a fun idea for me, in theory, but for now I must just see what experiences the rest of you have with them! THey sure do sound like fun and, hey, I like the idea of the hotel room! =D =D
Doesn't the very word "readathon" sound like heaven on earth? It does to me, I would love to try such a thing. However if everyone left me alone for 16 hours, I might actually run out of books! Wouldn't that be nice, to catch up on my list...
Congrats on your readathon, despite not meeting your goal. I am still very impressed.
(Hey, I'm a bit of a computer tech, so I wanted to let you know in case you weren't aware. You can buy a small part usually $20 or less that will turn your desktop computer into a wireless computer. They can be installed inside of it, or simply plugged in. This is a great option especially as a back up, because lets face it, laptops can be unreliable, even if we love them. As a PC repair tech, I recommend this to a lot of people, and it is what I do at home. Less wires, too!)
Shirley
I think 590 pages is great considering all your obstacles. You still managed to complete over half your goal.
Despite the computer glitches, you did great! Congrats!
--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric
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