May is almost here, and as much as March and April have been terrible, hectic months, I’m sincerely hoping for a much better may 2020 – and as such, I’m making plans !

I’ve just recently started a new job in a grocery store, packing online orders for customers who are self-isolating at home, so I don’t have as much free time as I had over the past few weeks of quarantine – but I’m really excited over what I have planned, so hopefully I’ll be able to tackle at least some of these monthly goals !

The goals part

Blogging goals

Maintain a regular posting schedule

This month, I’d like to post twice a week. This is honestly a goal that I’m probably just going to repeat every month for the whole of 2020 – keeping a regular schedule is sincerely difficult for me, and I want to improve on that while still keeping all the fun of blogging ! I’ve read a lot of books I haven’t reviewed yet, and I want to try writing one or two discussion posts, so we’ll see how that goes.

Personal goals

Keeping up with university work

I’ve signed up for two summer classes at my university for this summer ! It’s the intensive summer schedule – instead of 3 hours of class a week, it’s 6 hours per class, which means two full days of class every week – which will split my summer weeks into 5 days of work (if all goes well at my new job) and 2 days of class. Hopefully I can stay on top of all of this, get good grades, and not overwork myself too much !

Playing video games

My boyfriend got me a copy of Harvest Moon : A new beginning this week, and I’ve been playing it every evening since then on my 2DSxl – and enjoying it a lot ! Playing video games helps me relax in stressful times, and Harvest Moon is such a sweet and wholesome game that I really want to make time for myself and play it while curled up on my bed in my comfy heating blanket !

Watching TV shows

I’ve been slowly making my way through the latest seasons of NCIS: Los Angeles, and I’m now halfway through season 9. Watching this show is such a fun time for me, I’d love to be able to take some time to watch one or two episodes per week on the days I don’t have too much work to do !

Writing something

I feel like it might be a silly thing to post about, but I really want to try my hand at writing fanfiction in English – I’m just having a hard time taking that first step and actually daring to write the stories I’d love to share. I’ve been feeling like no matter how much I try, what I’ll end up writing will never be as good as what a native English speaker would be able to write, and so I shouldn’t even try – and even if I know that’s not a very rational thought, it’s been preventing me from doing something I’ve been wanting to do for years now.

If you’ve got any advice on how to get past imposter syndrome when English isn’t your first language, please feel free to share it with me !

The TBR part

I’ve got a pretty ambitious TBR (for me !) this month, mostly because I might have bitten off more than I could chew while putting books on hold at my local library and requesting ARCs. Since I’m not planning on backing down from that challenge, I’ve got a total of 10 books I absolutely want to read this month : 5 from the library, 3 overdue ARCs, and 2 books I have in my bookshelf that I really should have read a long time ago.

Library books

Men explain things to me, by Rebecca Solnit

I had this one in my last library eBook haul, and managed to get halfway through it… and then my library hold expired and I had to request it again because I forgot to renew it. So this month, when my hold comes in again, I’m finishing this book !

Crown of feathers, by Nicki Pau Preto

This one is a case of “judging a book by its cover” – and by that, I mean that I saw it on my library’s website, the cover looked amazing, so I placed a hold on it and it came through this week ! I’m pretty excited to see if the contents are as good as the cover promises they are !

Furyborn, by Claire Legrand

Ooooh this one also has an amazing cover ! I actually saw this book at my local bookstore a while ago, and didn’t have the cash to buy it at that time even though it really made me want to read it – so when I saw that it was available on the library’s website, I didn’t hesitate one second !

The 30-day money cleanse, by Ashley Feinstein Gerstley

My love of personal finance books strikes again. I have no excuse for this one. I just love reading personal finance books and comparing different authors’s advice. Sue me.

Better than before, by Gretchen Rubin

This is also a book I had in my library eBook haul ! I didn’t have the time to read it these past few weeks, but I’m hoping I’ll get to it sooner than later this month.

Late ARCs

Buy yourself the f*cking lilies, by Tara Schuster

I’m a little more than halfway though this one, and so far it’s… meh. I usually love self-help books, but this feels like more of a memoir than self-improvement advice, and as far as memoirs go, it’s not the most relatable one. But I’ll keep my judgement until I’ve completely finished reading it.

Followers, by Megan Angelo

I’m super super late in reading and reviewing this book ! I got it through NetGalley, and it was published in January this year… I’m putting this one on the high priority list and hoping I can be done with it and review it before the middle of the month.

Surrender your sons, by Adam Sass

Finally, an ARC I’m not late for ! This one will be published in September 2020, so I’ve still got quite a bit of time to read and review it – still, it looks really good so I’m adding it to this month’s list just in case I’ve got some spare time lying around at the end of May to read it.

On my bookshelf

The rise and fall of the dinosaurs, by Steve Brusatte

In December (or was it November ?) 2019, I borrowed this book from the library, and got through around half of it before my hold expired and I had to give it back for the next person to read it. Since then, it’s been bothering me so much that I finally caved and made an exception to my one book a month book-buying ban, and ordered it on the online store of my local bookstore ! From what I read so far, it’s an absolutely excellent book about dinosaurs, and honestly, that’s all you need to know to borrow it / buy it for yourself / buy it for your sister with a never-ending love for dinosaurs.

Caliban’s war, by James S. A. Corey

My parents actually gifted this one to me for Christmas, and I started reading it in January, but stopped a hundred pages in ( why ? I don’t know ! My reading habits defy logic) even though it was a perfectly enjoyable read. I’d love to get back to it this month !

Did you set any reading or blogging goals this month ? Feel free to link your posts in the comments so I can check them out !

Me and my boyfriend will be moving out of our basement apartment into a much nicer one downtown on May 1st, and a lot of changes are on the way during the next week, so I might have some trouble keeping up with those objectives, but I’ll do my best !

Stay tuned for June’s TBR, where we’ll see if my unrealistic reading goals were somehow miraculously met this month !