Numbers: October 4, 2021

So how’s your Mondays going?

Mine’s is full of biter sweetness.

It is not a secret that this passed month I have been struggling with my mental health, but as with all important decisions concerning our well being, I have reach out and ask for help. There’s some challenging times ahead of me, but as always, I’ll navigate thru this storm successfully and unscathed.

The have seen that reading is one of the things that help me cope with my depression and anxiety, I don’t saying it lightly, but, books literally saved my life. And this project of reading 1,000,000 has helped stay focus and creative, which I express thru my constant tweaking of my reading journals, I have a new one brewing for year number 14, my best one yet.

Now to get my ass back in line with my reading. On the positive note, my 52 book in 52 weeks challenge is working like clockwork, I am about to start book number 18, Ender´s Game, the beginning of the classic Science Fiction series by Orson Scott Card.

I’m going into this intriguing universe, starting off with the Spanish version of 9 books of the Enderverse, and see what else I can get my hands on.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 18,882 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, the next milestone will be 25,000 pages, and a very special bottle of Mexican Red Wine awaits for the mandatory celebratory drinks

The end of the year projection of total pages suffered a setback, right now is at 57,790 pages, a bit below where it should be, but I’ll see how this week fairs, and hopefully there will be some forward momentum. My reading schedule stayed 2 weeks behind, and what should have been the day I reached 20,000 pages is long gone, but I’ll work to reach that milestone by the anniversary of Lost in a Million Page, which is this Saturday October 9, thirteen years and counting.

The biggest challenge is to get the weekly schedule back in balance, I start this 18th week with a deficit of 3,219 pages, but a good sign is that week 17 not only did I got the mandatory 1,246 pages, there were also a small surplus of 15 pages, not impressive, but a step in the right direction.

This little hiccup had an negative effect on my progress, not as big as I feared, but with a bit of some intense reading sessions, this will be erased pretty quickly. Now, for the first 500,000 pages, I have only 130,544 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is May 6, 2026, 13 days sooner than the last projection, still my sights are pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, that gap narrowed from 1,157 to 1,144 days behind schedule.

The second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, the weekly average needed is now 1,884 with a daily average of 269 pages, pretty much the same as my last projections, fluctuating between 2 or 3 pages on the daily average.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 8,097 days away, a 51 day gain from the last projection, making the end date is December 5, 2043, that’s 4,566 days after the original plan, 23 days less that the last projection. In spite everything, I managed to stay in 2043, with my eye on the prize of the coveted end date of 2031, and the very special trip to the Emerald City.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

• Pages to reach 500,000: 130,544 pages
• Days to reach 1,000,000: 8,097 days
• Days behind schedule: 4,566 days

Now ,if you’ll excuse ,those 3,219 pages aren’t going to read themselves, and the chilly weather is signaling me home.

Off to read.

azr.