Well, I Read A Lot Anyway

I keep taking on new challenges and forgetting the old ones - not entirely, they niggle at the back of my head, but I let them slide. I started off blogging everyday, then I moved to doing 101 in 1001, then I started Project 365, and then I started the Couch to 5K and ran my first race.

Reinstated
6. Fail Part Two. One more time. Maintain the book ban (no books without trade-in credit) with 5 slips. (15/5) (5/5) (0/5)

3. Read 50 children's books. (57/50)(32/25)(0/25)

The Giraffe The Pelly and Me, Suddenly!, Esio Trot, The Magic Finger, A Wrinkle in Time, Beezus and Ramona, Ramona and her Father, The Giver, What Mommies Do Best What Daddies Do Best, Play Ball Amelia Bedelia, John Patrick Norman McHennessey, The First Woman Doctor, The Reptile Room, Jacob's Rescue, Flat Stanley, Stanley Flat Again, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Sadako and the 1000 Paper Cranes, Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger, If I Ran the School, The Enormous Crocodile, Miami Makes the Play, Fairest, The Journey of Peter and Anna, My Name is Not Angelica, Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes, Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School, More Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School, A Girl Named Disaster, Horrid Henry's Underpants, If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, The Gunpowder Plot

Done!
5. Spend 30 days reading out of the house for at least one hour. (36/30)
7. Go to a book club meeting.
12. Complete a month of posts each year (NaBloPoMo or other month.) (7/3)
15. Complete Postcrossings.
19. Be able to label a map of Africa.
23. Win at any of the quiz nights.
24. Participate in a scavenger hunt.
26. Learn to play a new game (Backgammon, Bridge, etc.)
27. Play 5 board games. (5/5)
28. Learn how to do Suduku. And how to spell it.
32. Do something creative - paint a picture, throw a pot, etc.
34. Take a photo every day for a month. (31/31)
35. Take the good camera out once a month. (30/30)
51. Try a new kind of alcohol. chuck and sodja in Togo (spellings are complete guesses!
53. Eat chicken wings in a bar for the first time.
58. Make that chocolate/whip cream dessert from when I was a kid.
59. Make popcorn on the stove.
60. Visit a new continent (South America, Australia, Antarctica, Africa.)
62. Dip my toes into two oceans/seas. (2/2) The Atlantic!
64. Visit a country from the Axis of Evil.
68. Go to a sporting event, a play/opera/ballet, a museum, and an art gallery. (4/4)
69. Take an odd form of trasportation (dog sledding, etc.) Trou-trous are odd.
76. Take the subway to or from work once a week. (44/38) Should add to this one, since I renewed the contrac for a year.
78. Buy a round for the bar.
79. Let Shawn talk me into Hashing once.
82. Go to the dentist.
83. Buy a frickin' toothbrush.
84. Finish all my multivitamins.
87. Buy new glasses.
88. And sunglasses.
90. Go to bed by midnight thirty times. (30/30)
89. Buy a bathing suit.
92. Buy purple underwear.
97. Buy a new iPod.
99. Find a charity I believe in and donate/join a protest for a cause I believe in.
100. Get my damn hair straightened already.
101. Wash Martha's dishes.

To Do!

2. Read 101 books. (124/101) (40/101)
Tall Dark and Hungry, The Year of Living Biblically, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Me and My Shadow, The Last Summer (OF You And Me), Guilty Pleasures, The Sunflower, Fantasy Lover, Night Pleasures, Jitterbug Perfume, The Color of Water, Slam, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Elbow Room, Body Wars, Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, The Family Way, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Model World and Other Stories, World War Z, A Hundred Bullshit Jobs, Good in Bed, A Mercy, Timbuktu, Nightlight, Dead and Gone, The World Without Us, 206 Bones, Love in the Time of Dragons, Good Omens, The Year of the Flood, The Penelopiad, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Master Pip, Push: A Novel, Quicksilver

4. Finish reading War and Peace.
8. Read all the magazines in my place. This is impossible, as I keep buying more.
9. Read Man Booker Prize and Pulizter Prize winning book from the year of my birth. (1/2)



10. Write a haiku.
11. Finish up all draft blog posts.
13. Learn to write my name in 5 scripts. (0/5)
14. Send 60 handwritten letters or postcards. (24/60)
16. Send Christmas cards. (1/2)
17. Send flowers at random.
18. Do something to put knowledge in, rather than spouting it out.
20. Be able to name 20 foreign leaders and their countries. (0/20)
21. Memorize a poem.
22. Stop saying THAT word (the one Martha doesn't like.)
25. Play croquet or bocce.
29. Complete a jigsaw puzzle.
30. Watch Gone With the Wind.
31. Only use candlelight for one full evening.
33. Take pictures at one of those weird photo places in Hongdae.
36. Complete 26 Things.
37. Send a postcard to Postsecret.
38. Color an entire coloring book.
39. Climb a tree.
40. Play with PlayDoh.
41. Rewatch the Princess Bride and reread A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. (0/2)
42. Do a cartwheel in the sun.
43. Make a snowman.
44. Go on a picnic.
45. Try making lasagna in a toaster oven.
46. Try 10 new foods. (7/10) plantains, fufu, Togolese cheese, soja (Togolese tofu)
47. Make pancakes with my nieces twice. (0/2) Not doing this when I was home was a big mistake. But then, I hope I'm home again in the next 600 days...
48. Bake a cake from scratch.
49. Make a curry dish from scratch.
50. Learn to make good cream sauce.
52. And a new kind of tea.
54. Make and decorate cupcakes.
55. Make banana bread and once again make my poor mother mail me the recipe.
56. Have a banana split party.
57. Eat at 25 new restaurants. (29/25)(4/25) Indian with Jas, Mill Street Brewery, Thai with Samarra, Sydney Fish Shop
61. Visit 5 countries I've never been to. (2/5)
63. Visit 5 UNESCO Heritage Sites. (2/5) Cape Coast Castle, Elmina Castle
65. Go canoeing or kayaking again.
66. Participate in a winter sport that is not sledding.
67. Go zorbing/hot air ballooning/skydive or something along those lines.
70. Control one vehicle.
71. Encounter an interesting animal in its natural habitat.
72. Sleep in a tent.
73. Watch the sun set and rise. (1/2) Nearly had camera confiscated for taking a photo of a sunset in Lome.
74. Take a series of pictures of the neighbourhood I live in.
75. Finally go to the National Museum, which I pass every day, and Seoul Tower, which I can see from my window. (0/2)
77. Walk into Itaewon to get coffee at least 15 times. (8/15)
80. Explore 12 new places in Seoul - one for each month. (3/12)
81. Get a tattoo or a piercing.
85. Be a vegetarian for a month.
86. Be a vegan for a week.
91. Start and stick to an exercise routine.
93. Pay off half my credit card.
94. Then pay off the rest.
96. Clean up iTunes.
95. Make one day a month internet and TV free. (37/30)(0/18)
98. Buy another external harddrive and have old harddrive fixed.