LLP: September 2009 Wrap Up

I forgot to do Lifetime Learning Project monthly wrap ups for July and August. Oops. I guess the summer flew by too fast. :-) It's the end of the quarter now, so let's take a look back at the goals I set in July and how close I came:

1) My main focus was the Reading Challenges I signed up for. Because the Countdown Challenge ended Sept. 9, I made that one my primary driver and aimed to finish it along with at least seven others. GOAL ACHIEVED! Yay for me!!

Decades Reading Challenge Completed: 9/9 **Finished July 2, 2009**

2nds Reading Challenge Completed: 12/12 **Finished July 12, 2009**

Pub Challenge Completed: 9/9 **Finished July 29, 2009**

Support Your Local Library Challenge Completed: 50/50 **Finished August 5, 2009**

1% Well Read Challenge Completed: 13/13 **Finished August 10, 2009**

The Countdown Challenge Completed: 45/45 **Finished September 6, 2009** (Yahoo! I did it!!)

100+ Reading Challenge Completed: 100/100 **Finished September 17, 2009** (The rest of the year is gravy!!)

New Author Challenge Completed: 50/50 **Finished September 26, 2009**

2) I wanted to finish up The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. I never looked at it. Not even once.

3) I have at least three Knowledge Blocks in progress, including the one I originally wrote about regarding Art Forgery. I wanted to try to rein in my literary ADD long enough to finish at least one of those blocks and write about it. Nope. Didn't do this. But I thought about it! :-)

4) Continue picking away at books and lectures from my Teaching Company Course "Classic Novels: Meeting the Challenge of Great Literature". Nada on this one, too. I was very busy with those challenges!

I'll call eight finished challenges an enormous success! The rest was evidently too much to ask in concert with that. Live and learn. And that's what this is all about, right? :-) Tomorrow I'll post my Fourth Quarter Lifetime Learning Project goals, and I'm pretty sure I'm going easy on myself. After all, my Timberwolves are about to start playing some basketball, and they need me. GO WOLVES!!

LLP: June 2009 Wrap-Up

July, as quickly as it flew by, was a pretty productive month! Out of my four goals for Third Quarter, my focus for this past month was primarily on my Reading Challenges. I finished three challenges, possibly four if I finish Bleak House later today, and I only have seven books left to finish the Countdown Challenge, which I have an obsession with completing because I made such a mess of the 888 Challenge last year. For some reason they are related in my mind, and I have no reasonable explanation for that. Anyway, here are the challenges I finished off in July:

Decades Reading Challenge **Finished July 2, 2009**

2nds Reading Challenge **Finished July 12, 2009**

Pub Challenge **Finished July 29, 2009**

I have done bits and pieces of the other three goals for the quarter, but nothing I'm ready to report back on. I *really* want to finish up my challenges, because I have some other plans perking and I need those out of the way. I suppose I could abandon them and move on, but I don't want to do that because one of my Lifetime Learning Plan goals for the year is to write about using Reading Challenges for personal growth and self-education. One of the things I'm mulling over is branching out from those challenges into a broader educational tool. I know that is incredibly ambiguous, but I don't have the whole thing worked out in my head yet either. I'm staring at the full bookshelves and piles of books on my desk figuring out where I'm going with it all. I'm getting there!

In the meantime, while my Classic Novels course seems to have stalled while I focus on the challenges, I did pick up a brand new DVD course from The Teaching Company that I started watching last night: The Art of Reading! I watched the first two lectures last night, and I LOVE it! As I progress through it, I'll tell you more about my experience, but you can check out the content of the course by clicking here.

Tomorrow morning I'll announce the winner of the autographed copy of The Blue Notebook, so good luck to everyone who entered! And you all have a great weekend!!

LLP: May 2009 Wrap-Up

I know May isn't quite over yet, but I've got a busy weekend of sitting on my behind on the patio looking at all our new flowers and reading planned. Therefore, I'm getting this out of the way now. :-) Looking at the plan for May, it appears as if I didn't do very much. However, in addition to all the other books I read this month (list at the bottom of my blog), I finished The Faerie Queene and I'll be finishing Ulysses tomorrow, so I feel like I've had a smashing month!

On the downside, my eyes got bigger than my free time at the library, so I had to take back 18(!?!) books without reading them. Bummer, because I really wanted to read them all. I added them back to my library wish list, so hopefully I'll get to them eventually.

I'm going to use this evening to decide what my goals will be for June. I'm leaning toward a "summer vacation" and spending the month reading whatever looks good at the moment. (Like I haven't been doing that anyway. Ha!) Maybe I'll modify Andi's plan and read off my own shelves for a few weeks. I'll think of something, have no doubt! :-)



Back to 2009 Second Quarter Goals
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LLP: April 2009 Wrap Up

So, let's see how I did for my first official month of my Lifetime Learning Project:

Books To Read:

Day by Elie Wiesel (My Thoughts)
Survival In Auschwitz by Primo Levi (My Thoughts)
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Stone
Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac
Blindness by Jose Saragamo
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene (My Thoughts)
Managing Your Own Learning by James R. and Adelaide B. Davis
How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch (My Thoughts)
Book III of The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spencer
Book IV of The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spencer

Listen to Teaching Company Lectures on:

Tristam Shandy
Dangerous Liaisons
Pere Goriot
Wuthering Heights
Moby Dick

Text Chapters To Read:

The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative
Chapter 3 (My Thoughts)
Chapter 4 (My Thoughts)
Chapter 5 (My Thoughts)
Chapter 6 (My Thoughts)
Chapter 7 (My Thoughts)

Writing About Literature: Step by Step
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Finish What's In A Name Challenge

Well, I got a lot read in April (see the bottom of this blog for a full list), just not necessarily what was on this list. :-) I got hung up with The Faerie Queene, Tristram Shady, How To Read A Poem, Introduction To Narrative, and Writing About Literature going all at the same time. Consequently, I got no lectures listened to at all. I need to fix that going forward.

On the upside, I got a lot of good reading done in general, made a dent in my Lifetime Learning Plan, started teaching myself about poetry, and rather than the What's In A Name Challenge, I finished the Chunkster Challenge. I'm calling it a success! On to May . . .



Back to 2009 Second Quarter Goals
Back to 2009 General Concepts
Back to Lifetime Learning Project Personal Mission Statement