The year is almost over which is something I really cannot wrap my head around. What a weird year 2017 was, and I had gone in imagining it would be one of the bests. I scrolled down to January, which was fairly quick since I have hardly blogged this year. Eleven months and nine posts, quite a pathetic performance I might add. 

Life got in the way, as it usually does, but wasn't really lived very well either. You know, when a tragedy hits you and you wade through it, you're Left with a false sense of security that anything else that life may throw your way would be a piece of cake in comparison. But I couldn't have been more wrong. The mundane problems, the adult realities of life, are so much worse to tackle. Dying friendships, money struggles, job politics, each one a small bite, until one day you wake up and realize a large chunk of you is missing. 

I planned to read 48 books this year and Goodreads has ingratiatingly informed me that I can still do it! Except, I'm 15 books behind. Of course it's not about the numbers, but I can feel it in my bones - I haven't been reading, or worse writing, like I used to, and it's affected my curiosity and creativity. I feel drained all the time and the worst is this: I have lost that bubbling enthusiasm in my teaching, I hardly go to class with a crazy smile anymore and no longer pore over children's books with the eagerness of a ten-year-old avoiding studies. 

There isn't a lot of time left to fix this year's numbers, but I have done it before. So I'm going on a personal readathon (without a goal in numbers) and planning to bookworm my way into the new year, feeling much happier than I am right now. And of course, blogging must go hand in hand with reading, as it has for the past (how many would you say) seven years!