@Cb – here’s hoping the ear re-piercing goes well! I thought I needed to get mine repierced but it seems to work ok with those reinforcer things behind my ears…

@Elisa – I did it! White knuckled, but I did it. And then driving in a few weeks later just didn’t feel like quite so big a deal.

I need to get back on track with my reading in translation project. My library access changed when we moved, but I bet I can get some from my uni library. Another holiday project – a spreadsheet with where I can get the books.

Ooh, I love the idea of Jane Austen!

Re: Shakespeare…I took Shakespeare classes in college and felt like every line was a clever little puzzle that took time and effort to figure out and appreciate. War and Peace was long but not hard, whereas Shakespeare to me feels very effortful!

@Heather – if you can read War and Peace in a month I don’t think Shakespeare will be beyond you. I read the Wikipedia article summarizing the plot of each play before I read it. That helped me figure out who was who and what was going on. I’m sure I’ve missed plenty, but I had a pretty good sense of things (and I’m also reading the Harold Bloom Shakespeare book after reading each play to analyze a bit more…)

I’m planning on reading all the works of Jane Austen this year, so that could be a good project! Maybe do a big pairing of the same theme/subject like The Odyssey and Ulysses? Or long books by women, including something like Kristin Lavransdatter and Middlemarch…

I am very impressed by your working your way through all of Shakespeare. I did the War and Peace reading challenge this year (though I couldn’t keep myself to one chapter a day…I tore through it by early February. Perhaps an interesting “know yourself better” question a la Gretchen Rubin– what’s less intimidating: breaking a massive project up into bite-size chunks that will take a long time or trying to knock it out as quickly as you can to get it over with) and am trying to come up with next year’s reading challenge. Shakespeare seems beyond me. Any other suggestions? Thanks!

@SHU- it was a fun one!