Challenges

Wie der Name schon impliziert sollen hier 12 Lieblingsbücher in 12 Monaten gelesen und rezensiert werden. Für mich als absolute Reread-Queen ist das natürlich perfekt – und kommt doch gerade richtig. Zwar bin ich mit meinem SuB äußerst gut befreundet und lasse mir von ihm kein schlechtes Gewissen einreden, wenn ich mal wieder zu einem schon gelesenen Buch greife während er wächst und wächst, doch wirklich viel Zeit für meine Lieblinge habe ich dann doch irgendwie nicht. Manche der Bücher, die ich ausgesucht habe, wollte ich schon ewig nochmal lesen. Jetzt werde ich also endlich dazu gezwungen …

In May, there was music in the air. The task was to read one book each that somehow fits one of the following media: record, cassette, CD, and MP3. How we interpreted the connection was pretty much up to ourselves, as long as we could come up with somewhat of a decent explanation …

So in April, we have a game which does not need such extensive explanations as the last one since it is pretty universal: Bingo! I know that it varies from game to game, but Crini’s version of bingo is played with a card of 4×4 fields. For those who don’t know, depending on the topic of the game, the fields carry numbers (original form of Bingo), symbols, words, etc. For example, we had a teacher buzzword bingo in school using a teacher’s favourite expressions. Now, because this is a reading challenge, the fields carry criteria the books we choose to read have to meet. The goal is to read four books that form a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row …

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the following scenario:

At some point, you’ve started to learn another language for one reason or another. Perhaps you came to like this language but unfortunately, you never had enough opportunities to use it. In time, you’ve forgotten most about it. Then comes the day it would come in handy – but even the most basic vocab and grammar are gone. How annoying! Everything you had invested into this language was all for nothing because you were too lazy to spend time on maintaining your language skills.

Welcome to my world. This is exactly what happened with my French – and I’m about to do something against it.

In March, we played a round of Stadt, Land, Fluss, an infamous German game that requires only a piece of paper, a pen, the ability to handle time pressure, and a considerable amount of general knowledge. If one’s convincing, one can replace the latter through a good deal of imagination (it can be a little like Scrabble – discussions and arguments included). So I’m not sure how it is called in English but it seems to be the equivalent to Scattergories with the difference that one uses the resources at hand. It is one of the long runners for killing time during free periods at school.

In February, Crini invited us to dine with her. We were allowed to choose our bookish dishes from the following categories: aperitif, starter, main course, dessert . . .