The Rage Diaries

Dewey, you fool! -- What I read this month

Oh, I have such good intentions. But to be honest, this month has been sort of busy with the actual, paying jobs and with the Quick!-Get-outside-and-weed-before-the-next-monsoon-hits! household chores and with the occasional social commitment or volunteer obligation. And next thing I knew, my beautiful dream of starting off the year right with my two-parter on My Time in the 000s and weekly reviews of what I read ... well, I'm now dreaming of getting off on the right foot in time for the Chinese New Year. Or later. It depends on how many other cultures have new years' celebrations I can use to make myself feel better about my time management skills.

(Note to self: see where time-management books are in Dewey Decimal system. Won't it be fun if I get all hardcore GTD on you all? No?)

However, if you'd like to read quickie summaries of the wonders to be found in the 000s, click on through.

Dewey, you fool! -- My time in the 000s, part I

What is the point of exploring the Dewey Decimal system if I don't provide an accounting of what I'm finding on the shelves? Reading a book doesn't start when you crack it open; it begins with the moment you pull it from the shelf and judge it. So I'm accounting for what I bring to the selection process, and what is there for me to choose from. Who knows what adventures lurk at the Alameda Free Library?

Aside from all of you following the jump, I mean.

Dewey, you fool! -- How I'm reading books

It is easy to read about something you like. Choosing to read about subjects that unfamiliar ... that's where the real learning takes place, the kind of hard learning that makes you empathize with the kid in the Far Side cartoon who asked, "May I be excused? My brain is full."

Since I brought home a stack of books on cryptozoology, the book as a vehicle of civilization, and the media as the vehicle destroying the same, I am experiencing that feeling: my brain is full.

No list goes up: How I'm playing 2008

Is there anything less sexy than incremental change?

Nobody writes books or makes TV shows about slow and steady alterations. They make montages about them.

However, in the past two years, two incremental projects I've done via this weblog have effected some long-term change in my habits. The first was in 2006, with the "What I read last week …" posts keeping me honest about my reading habits. The second was 2007's Reduce, Reuse, Recycle efforts. I figure I am not cut out for the dramatic makeover; my lot is to trudge through the stuff that everyone else zips over in montage.

This year, I'm shelving the usual list for two weblog-based incremental projects. The first is the Fiscal Fitness challenge of 2008. Every month, we'll focus on a new area of financial behavior and figure out how we can improve it. There will be more on that in a second post.

The second is a new reading project I'm calling "Dewey, you fool!" The plan: to focus on a new section of the Dewey Decimal system every month. We'll go in order -- the 000 section in January, the 100s in February and so on. I'm doing this because I want to push myself outside my usual reading comfort zones (I spend a lot of time in the 300s and 700s) and because I am a big fat nerd who thinks it would be fun to reacquaint myself with all the nuances of that classification system.

(By the way -- the title of the reading project comes from one of my favorite Futurama episodes, one that's definitely pro-reading.)

So … anyone want to labor through the montage sequence with me? If we're lucky, we'll end 2008 with more cash in our pockets and more facts in our brains. And then, the story can pick up again with someone exclaiming, "Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're erudite!"