Hey everyone, welcome to The Sunday Post – a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer to share all the weekly news and feels!
Back to Uni
This week has been incredibly hectic as I’ve been super busy getting ready to go back to university to start my MRes in Anthropology! Alongside sorting out all of my enrolment stuff, I also went to a number of Welcome Week activities so I ended up being out every single day during the week (a big achievement for me). Whilst it was really nice to be able to go to so many social activities for a change, it also meant that I’ve gotten a bit behind on all of the other things I was meant to be doing like writing articles I’d agreed to do, catching up on reviews, tidying the house, actually buying some food, and getting in school supplies!
Rather than resting this weekend, me and my partner have been playing a game of catch up with everything and at 6pm the day before we have our first classes we’re still not done. RIP us. I’m really looking forward to starting my Masters but having now had my induction and spoken more in-depth with my supervisors, I know that this year is going to be pretty hardcore. I have a lot of independent work I need to carry out and I am going to have to organize my time and work exceptionally well as I have funding deadlines coming up in just a few months. As I’m doing a research degree, the aim is to go straight onto my PhD in September 2019 which means I need to absolutely smash my funding applications, work, and preliminary reading as well as continuing to submit writing to journals, conferences, and other websites to build my portfolio.
I’m a little bit worried about what this might mean for my blogging, reading and reviewing time, especially as I’m seriously behind on reading and reviewing, but I’m hoping to be able to get into a good work/life/blog balance soon as I definitely don’t want to find myself in a blogging dip (particularly when I’m just put in so much work for the redesign!)
For those of you who are doing postgraduate study and blog, how do you manage to juggle everything? Share your tips with me, please!
Books, Books, Books
This week has been complete chaos for reading. Partly because of how busy I’ve been but also because I’ve been really stuck on Defy the Worlds. Although I loved the first book in the series, Defy the Stars, I’ve been struggling to get through its sequel which has really set me back with my reading.
This week I also received 5 physical ARCs from publishers which has been really, really exciting whilst simultaneously being a little bit stressful. Because of recent events, I have gotten behind with my reading, meaning I am also behind on my ARCs, have 7 books out from the library and my own books that I bought back in August that I still haven’t read. I know I’m going to have to do a lot of reading for my course so the thought of combining my personal reading mountain with my academic reading mountain is pretty terrifying! It might be time to bring that pesky TBR list back this month…
Other News
I haven’t had any time to play games this week either but there is other news to fire at you:
- I sent my draft off to Sidequest where I have provided a queer reading of the indie visual novel Emily is Away and critique of cis male reviewers talking about marginalized identities. If all goes well it should be published in the next few weeks and I will become part of the Sidequest team which I’ve been really looking forward to!
- I am currently working on a guest post for the wonderful Marie at Drizzle and Hurricane Books for the Shattering Stigmas 2018 event. It’s a fantastic blogging event which challenges stigmas attached to mental health through book reviews, discussion posts, and lists. I feel honored to have been chosen by Marie to participate and am excited to share my post with you all when it’s published later this month.
- October in the UK is Black History Month in addition to Halloween being at the end of the month. As I’ve got so much going on this month, I have devised a TBR list to keep myself on track so I can read books for Black History Month, Halloween, and October ARCs being published. I’ll be sharing my TBR with you all tomorrow so keep an eye out ❤
That’s all for now. This coming week will definitely be a busy one for me as I’ll be dipping my toes into the waters of postgraduate study, catching up on reading, writing articles, sharing bookish update posts, and posting normal blog content.
Meet me back here in a week’s time and let’s see how it all goes haha!
Red Rocket Panda 
Congratulations again on your masters’, Avery, exciting but busy times ahead! I hope you’ll learn a lot and that you will enjoy it, that’s what matters the most. Juggling between everything is complicated and it takes a bit of time to find the right rhythm, but I am certain that you will 🙂 I have found it easy to have dedicated periods of time during the week for my reading and for my blogging and blog-hopping, something that helps me a lot in keeping organized and not losing my mind. I hope you’ll manage to find your right rhythm, you can do this! 🙂
Wow, congratulations on getting 5 physical ARCs, this is amazing, I’m so happy for you! I hope you won’t stress out too much about reading everything, you can do it, I’m sure you will do great. Take your time, pick the ones that inspire you the most and you’ll do great 🙂
I’m really excited to read your post for the Shattering Stigmas Event and it is my honor to have you, really ❤
I hope you will have a fantastic week and start of October! xx
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Congratulations on your masters’! Saw it pop up on Facebook; definitely something to be proud of and I’m sure you’ll figure it all out schedule / balance-wise eventually.
Don’t let the ARC-pressure get to you though. Your education definitely comes first right now. 😉
All the luck to you!
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Thanks Kathy! 🙂 looks like we’re all starting new and exciting phases!
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Hah, that’s for sure! 🙂
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