Welcome to the second Magic Monday of the year, and let me tell you that this one was just exactly what morale needed.

My total for the week was a whopping 2,818 pages, that’s 126% more than the week’s quota, this was in part thanks to the amazing manga series Happiness written by Shuzo Oshimi. I haven’t read such an eerie and unsettling vampire story since John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In, and to know that there are still a few volumes left to read, just got thru volume 8, makes me really happy.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 29,870 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s 3,399 pages of progress since last monday, with this, I’m 2,278 pages away from making this year enter my top 5 of the best page total. Still, there’s the 3,000-plus week that eludes me, but this week was a glimpse of hope, falling short only by 920 pages.

My reading schedule, the Achilles heel of the whole shebang, is 49 days behind, making a bit of headway, taking 11 days off last week’s 60 days. My current projections put my total around 50,000 pages that are 14,942 pages less than what I’m comfortable with. The mantra for every morning will continue to be: one step at a time, one page at a time.

I start week thirty-two with a more manageable deficit of 8,863 pages, given my quite the challenge to balance out this gargantuan number in each of the 20 weeks left on this year of reading. That number for this week is 521 additional pages to the 1,246 pages of the weekly quota.

For the first 500,000 pages, I have only 53,754 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is September 27,2024 that’s around 1 month earlier than the last projection, my sights are still pointed at March 20, 2023, as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, now I have 71 days to do so, but according to my current projection, the reality is that I’m 627 days behind schedule.

For the second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, my weekly pages needed are now 1,432 with a daily average of 205 pages, two daily pages less than the last projection.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections put it 6,491 days away, a 44-day gain from the last projection, making the end date September 17, 2040, that’s 3,392 days after the original plan, 67 days less than the last projection. I have to keep reminding myself that my goal is to reach my goal by my 50th birthday, right now, I would be 59 years 3 months, and 12 days old.

To summarize the numbers from my Journey Back.

• Pages to reach 500,000: 53,7543 pages
• Days to reach 1,000,000: 6,491 days
• Days behind schedule: 3,392 days

Off to read.

azr.