Parasol Protectorate

Talking about my new camera: you have no idea what I went through to get that thing! The retailer messed up twice and I wouldn’t have it yet if it weren’t for a long phone call. It basically took them all of March to ship it to me. But it’s gorgeous and I adore it. Have I mentioned that it has freaking WLAN?! You can remote control it with an app on your mobile. So cool! Naturally, it was quite expensive but I wanted a new camera for ages. I’ve outgrown my beautiful EOS 1000D a while ago and it’s literally getting senile anyway. Ever since we strolled through Vienna on a rainy day in March 2013, it has some kind of error and frequently forgets that it has an SD card to which it’s supposed to save the images. It’s my own fault for not taking care of it properly that day. After all, it survived several wet holidays in Ireland and the UK. The new one is waterproof though I won’t test that anytime soon. I’ve been saving for the last couple of years but could never bring myself to spend that much money. When I finished my bachelor thesis, I decided that it was time to reward myself – although I didn’t know whether the thesis was any good. Turns out it was and now my new camera answers to the illustrious name of Katniss EOS-70D-een …

As a matter of fact, I failed yet again to read the stuff that I put onto the March list. Of the eight novels I planned to read, I only finished two. I just happened to fall into a reading slump right in the middle of The Bone Season. Hopefully, I’m back on track now. At least I feel a little more motivated …

I got lucky and discovered a couple of amazing authors this year! …

May started out great: I read four books in the first week! That blew me away since I hadn’t read much in April. Suddenly, everything seemed possible – even finishing off my whole utopian tbr-list. And then … then I spend two long weekends at home and everything went downhill. It’s the strangest of things, but when I’m surrounded by almost all of my beautiful ~1,300 books, I just don’t get to read at all. There’s a fast Internet connection and four horses that keep me busy. At least I somehow managed to read the book(s) for my fantasy literature seminar but instead of getting back to my list, I spontaneously decided to re-read A Game of Thrones, because we were also discussing it in class and I thought that my memory could use some refreshing. In an act of extreme desperation, I tried to read The Nightmare Affair on the very last day of the month, but I was too slow to finish it in time …

Coincidentally, there are exactly ten books on my first reads favourites 2013 shelf. They are listed according to the date I read them from January to June …

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 …

In April, I hardly had the time to read thanks to university. Admittedly, my reading list was utopian and hardly manageable, but I always like to plan more and hope that I would take it as an incentive to read more. Now, I have to transfer the still utopian list into May, whether I want it or not. I hope that I will have more time to read due to the holidays and can work off a few books at least.