Tag: Blogging

State of the ARC #13: Productive Procrastination?

This month’s State of the ARC will be more about the state of my TBR. I didn’t read any ARCs, though I did publish two reviews. Unfortunately, I also requested more ARCs so I’m right back to the same number I began with. I’m not mad though, because I managed to grab Leila Aboulela’s Elsewhere Home. Soooo excited to read it. I also nabbed Instructions for a Funeral (David Means), The Library Book (Susan Orlean) and Lies that Bind (Kwame Anthony Appiah). I had some crazy good luck this month.

 

Lies that Bind is already overdude (I requested it super late) but I’ll try to read and review it during September. The Library Book comes out October 16th, so keep an eye out for that one in a couple months. Most of my new acquisitions are going to be published until next year, so I will dedicate the rest of this year mostly to TBR and overdue books.

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I wrote four reviews (click the image to see the review). How to Love a Jamaican earned three stars and was altogether underwhelming. I gave The Namesake five stars and I recommend it to everyone (seriously, read it). The Newcomers was another three-star read for me. The review is on Goodreads for now, but I might actually post it here as well. I finished Persepolis in July, but published the review this month. It was also only a three-star read for me. July was an underwhelming reading month, making August an underwhelming State of the ARC month. September should be much better. The weird layout of the covers is purely accidental, but it looks better than the weirdness I had when trying to get them in a line. I think I really need to learn how to format things on WordPress.

 


the namesake cover

Now for the part I’m most proud of: I read ten whole books this month! I’ll simply list them, because this post is already image heavy. The links lead to Goodreads.

 

Out of these, the only one I loved was The Namesake, but there were a few others on the list that I at least liked and there were two that I absolutely hated. Keep an eye out for reviews here and on Goodreads to find out which ones. I’m definitely reviewing Her Body, The Road, Regiment of Women and Home and Exile here, but I’m not sure about the rest yet.

 

Just looking at that list makes me happy.

 

The last thing I’d like to share today is my State of the ARC BINGO. I’m making progress! I really want to put Song of Blood and Stone  in the “ARC with your favorite color cover” spot, but this is a 2nd-half-the-year BINGO, so I’ll have to find another. SOMEONE GIVE ME PURPLE ARCS PLEASE (or indigo or forest green or spring green).

 

State of the ARC BINGO

 

That’s it for now. If you want to join the meme/ see what it’s about/ read the other State of the ARC posts, stop by Avalinah’s Books!

February Stats

I’m out of my slump for an undetermined amount of time, so I might as well make the most of it. It’s been a productive month and if the momentum continues, March will be productive as well.

 

I haven’t been keeping track of Instagram and Twitter followers just yet, but based on my notifications I gained quite a few. I seem to receive a notification every couple of days. Several appeared to be spam accounts/ follow-for-follow accounts, so I’m not sure how many of those followers will stick around.

 

Last month, I published published three posts (click the image to read ’em):

Snow Flower Secret Fan Buddy Read thumbnail   Tea Haul Thumbail   image of the post header

 

Sadly, I only managed to taste one tea in Feb but my tasting notes should be out on the 8th. I’ve been trying to recover from this weird evolving flu-mixed-with-food-poisoning. My stomach can’t tolerate caffeine at the moment. 😦 I’ll try again soon; life without tea is boring, haha.

 

Though I told myself I wouldn’t request any  books in February, I couldn’t resist these Black History Month titles:

The respective publishers approved me for all three but I have no idea when I’ll get around to actually reading them. Thankfully, two of them don’t have archive dates set. However, a couple of the pub dates are about a month away so I might pause my China readings and read these instead. I’ll finally be ahead of the curve! I’m a little scared of Denmark Vesey’s Garden though, because it’s nearly 500 pages. It’ll take me at least two weeks of dedicated reading to get through it.

 

I also requested Song of Blood and Stone, which is an afro-futurist novel. I didn’t include it with the Black History Month titles because those are all political, but this one definitely deserves a mention because afro-futurist novels tend to be pretty good. I think I’m most excited to read this one.

 

I’m almost finished reading Imperial Woman (Pearl S. Buck), so that review should be out soon (the 12th?) anyway, but do you think I should continue with my original plan or do the Black History Month reading first? Alternating is also an option, but I like themes.

General Reading Stats

Books Finished: 3

Read but Unreviewed Arcs: 5

Unread Arcs: 15 from Netgalley, 5 from Library Thing

I promised myself I wouldn’t sign up for Edelweiss until I cleared my NetGalley and Library Thing ARCs. Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.

 

 

A Brief History of Swallow Song + 2018 Stuff

I realized yesterday that January 2nd marked the one-year anniversary of my having a dedicated domain.

 

I decided to launch a hair and lifestyle blog back in 2013, just before I went to university. After I started covering my hair full-time, I realized it made no sense to publicly discuss my hair when I was no longer allowing people to see it. I can’t remember exactly when I shut down the other blog, but it must have been sometime near the end of 2014. I focused my attention on writing and editing articles for my school’s newspaper instead.

 

For nearly a year I didn’t post anything on my own domain. Then, in August 2015, I started writing again.

 

I joined a book club at my school and discovered NetGalley shortly thereafter. In 2016, I started writing reviews in earnest.

 

To be honest, I mainly purchased the domain to satisfy the “personal portfolio” requirement for one of my courses. Since I was already blogging though, I decided to keep the domain after the course ended. Blogging about books helps me keep track of what I read.

 

Halfway through the year, I decided to blog about tea as well. My love for tea is no secret, and I like sharing that love with you. Over the course of 2017 I wrote 35 posts, which is more than 2.5 times the number of posts I wrote in 2016.

 

Right now, I’m trying to strike a balance between work and blogging. In the past, school took nearly all of my energy, and now it seems work is doing the same. That said, I’m going to try my best to keep this blog alive. I enjoy writing, and I hope you all enjoy reading (if you don’t I’d like to hear how I can improve, but please be nice D:).

 

I’m going to try to keep a regular schedule, but no guarantees. 😉 If my Goodreads goal is 36 books but there are 52 weeks in a year, how can I write a review every week? I’d run out of books, lol. I guess you could argue that I should read more, but I’ve got to take things one step at a time. I know that blogs with more frequent posts receive more traffic, but this is a matter of quality over quantity, isn’t it? Besides, on the off weeks, I can post tea reviews or random rambles.

 

There are still quite a few books I never got around to reviewing last year, so I’ll most likely start with these, unless something else catches my eye (update Feb 2018: I read some more interesting stuff and review those first, with the following reviews mixed in):

  • Old Geezers: Alive and Still Kicking
  • Anne of Green Gables (Graphic Novel)
  • POS: Piece of Sh*t
  • Zen Pencils: Creative Struggle
  • The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom

 

They’re mostly graphic novels, because I was trying hard to reach my reading goal, but The Newcomers is standard nonfiction book, even if it isn’t a very good one (spoiler?).

 

I didn’t personally make any resolutions because I acknowledge that I don’t have the follow through to even bother with them, but I’m curious to know if any of my readers made resolutions. Drop a comment below, then get back to working towards those goals, ha.

 

Cheers to a wonderful 2018!

October Updates

Hey Birdies!

October shall be the month of site-wide updates and upgrades. I’m keeping the look and feel pretty much the same, but I’m adding functionality and content. For starters, I’m going to try to get my comment widget working. It’s still throwing an error every time someone tries to submit a comment, but I do see the comments that come through. Hopefully I can find a solution for that.

 

I’m also going to be dropping downloadable tea guides around the site. I haven’t quite figured out how file transfer works around here yet, but that’s why I’m giving myself a month to do it, lol.

 

In terms of general post content, I’m going to aim for 2-3 posts per week on Swallow Song, as well as guest posts in other places. I still write for Muslimah Media Watch (I’ve actually recently taken over their Twitter account as well) and I’ll see if I can get some guest posts up elsewhere.

 

Just a heads up, my next few Saturday Series posts will be hella personal and potentially quite intense. I feel like I’d be doing myself and the world a disservice if I don’t use this platform for a PSA every now and then.

 

I think that about sums up what’s in store for October. If you have suggestions, drop them in the comments below (don’t be afraid of the scary comment error <3).

 

 

 

30-Day Minimalist Challenge, Part 3

This is the last post in the 30-Day Minimalist Challenge Series.

Part 1

Part 2

 

21. Journal for 20 minutes

I’m never been much of a diary person, and writing about my emotions felt forced. Instead, I took some time to sketch the plot for a novel. Random story ideas frequently pop into my head, but I rarely sit down and write them down. Perhaps I should take more time to flesh out the ideas.

 

22. Create a bedtime routine

Right now, it doesn’t seem like I’m at the point in my life where I should create bedtime routines. I’ve tried so many “power morning” and “relaxing night” routines but none of them have stuck. Part of the problem is that I don’t have an addictive personality type; it’s very hard for me to form habits, regardless of whether they’re good or bad. I have to actively force myself to make a change in my behavior for months before the habit sticks. I’ve had the same issue with blogging. I usually sit down and draft three or four posts in one sitting because it’s easier for me to do that than to sit down and write every day.

 

Eventually I would like to have healthy morning and evening routines, even if they’re small habits, but I think I’ll focus on that a little later in life.

 

23. Identify your stress triggers

Jeez this wasn’t a fun time. Thinking about stress makes me stressed, it’s one of the things that I’m working on. I won’t post all of my stress triggers because that would be reckless. I will, however, talk about some of them. Being in a situation where I am a student at an institution is a huge trigger for me. I was so stressed for so long that the stress turned into trauma, and now I have full-blown panic attacks whenever I even consider the idea of going back to school. I’d like to continue my education, just not necessarily in a school setting.

 

Another trigger is tardiness. It’s such a strange one but it’s huge for me. I pride myself on being punctual, so tardiness (even being a late responder to emails or late completing a task I promised I’d do) sends me into a debate over whether I should just give up going to the event/responding to the email/completing the task at all. It’s an incredibly unhealthy thought process but for some reason, being late freaks me out.

 

24. Practice gratitude

I know a whole lot of positivity gurus swear by gratitude but I’ll be honest: being thankful didn’t change my life. On some level, I always have an underlying level of gratefulness for the position I’ve been born into, but that gratefulness always leads to guilt when I find myself dissatisfied with something. I throw in a random alhamdulillah throughout my day and I truly mean it, yet it seems wrong to complain about the privilege I have, about the roof over my head, the safe neighborhood I live in, and the food in my stomach. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I had a more simple life, one where I live off the land with my family. Perhaps I’m not doing the gratitude thing correctly.

 

25. Leave today unplanned

I learned from the first time I completed this task. I wrote a to-do list like I always do, then I allowed myself to follow my whims. I didn’t guilt myself for straying from the list. Doing this felt much better than going without a list altogether.

 

26. Go bare-faced

I only wear makeup like twice a year. I don’t even own foundation or concealer. I don’t know how to use highlighter. I guess I could have tried to come up with a replacement challenge for this one but meh.

 

27. Clean out your junk drawer

Don’t have one of these either. 🙂 I don’t believe in junk drawers.

 

28. Let go of a goal

I let go of my goal to learn CSS. I’m still interested in becoming proficient in web languages, but it’ll have to be something I do later I guess. Right now, C# has my attention. I want to learn how to use Unity more efficiently.

 

29. Turn off notifications

With pleasure! I turned off my WeChat, Email, Instagram and Facebook Messenger notifications. They’re the only apps that I use regularly. Without the notifications, my day was much quieter. Turning off the notifications also resulted in my forgetting conversations while I get into my work flow. I can’t say I’m upset.

 

30. Evaluate your last 5 purchases

My last five purchases were all food and books. That pretty much sums up my life, lol.

 

If you’ve tried or plan on trying this challenge, let me know! 🙂

30-Day Minimalist Challenge, Part 2

If you missed the first part of this series, you can read it here.

11. Evaluate your commitments

I wasn’t quite sure what could be considered a commitment in this context.  I could have chosen to focus on work, or I could have chosen to focus on promises I made to other people. Since my priorities were all personal, I decided that I would define commitments by groups of people. I chose to commit myself to self, family, friends, my significant other, and work. I purposely put work last, even though it ties into self. I have decided that people are more important to me than my job; I don’t want to be the kind of person who gets so wrapped up in work I forget my relationships.

 

12. Define your goals for 2017

I did this challenge throughout the month of July, which made it the perfect time to re-evaluate the goals and resolutions I made at the beginning of the year. I took each category of my priorities and listed one or two steps I can take towards improving myself, my life, or my relationships in those categories. The major categories are: religion, health, finances and dreams. My goal planning became the beginning of a longer, multi-year plan.

 

13. Clean out your dresser

I clean out my closet every year and donate the clothes I no longer wear, but I rarely go through my dresser. It took me several hours to sift through the three drawers, and I discovered tee-shirts and underwear that date back to kindergarten. Talk about embarrassing. I gave the tee-shirts to my mom so she could have keepsakes from when I was younger, but I donated the vast majority of the pajamas, socks, and miscellaneous clothing items.

 

14. Take a step towards a new skill

As a multi-potentialite, I want to try out and become proficient in a number of different skills.  Though people like me have been historically called Jacks of All Trades (and masters of none), Emilie Wapnick suggests it isn’t always necessary to have “one true calling.” Since learning Blender (a 3D graphics engine) was next on my list of projects, I watched a few tutorials and made donuts dance. I also worked on an embroidery project I’ve had on the back burner for a while.

 

Decided to learn some basics of 3D modeling and the dancing donut makes me laugh lol. #Blender #3dmodeling #WIP #summer

A post shared by 潭●燕歌 (@sarabineventide) on

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15. Examine your daily habits

My daily habits suck, I’m not even going to lie. While I do get in a fair amount of reading and blogging, I also spend entirely too much time watching television and scrolling through social media. I only really watch TV when I’m in my parents’ house, but trying to kick the social media habit has been a serious challenge for me. Mindless scrolling makes me blissfully numb. It’s cathartic to scroll through everything while looking at nothing.

 

I’m also trying to balance my social media use as a blogger. I feel like we have to use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc more and more to be successful. To be honest, I haven’t yet seen the fruit of my efforts, so perhaps its time for me to change tactics.

 

16. Don’t buy anything for 24 hours

This one was easy. I don’t buy much anyway. I bought bus tickets to New York for my friend’s engagement party, but that was it.

 

17. Practice single-tasking

I’m not even sure I properly completed this challenging. I single-tasked while doing a tea tasting, but I was taking notes and mentally drafting a post. Does that count? I set aside separate time for reading and watching TV, instead of reading during the commercial break which gives me a bit of a headache anyway.

 

18. Leave today unplanned

THIS WAS THE ABSOLUTE WORST CHALLENGE. Leaving the day unplanned gave me so much anxiety because I kept feeling like I was forgetting a really important task. I have a questionable short-term memory, especially when I’m stressed out so I have to write things down. Without my to-do list I felt lost all day. I prefer to have my day planned and allow for spontaneity. I don’t mind abandoning the list if I have one, but I can’t do without writing the list in the first place.

 

19. Go for a walk and practice mindfulness

I don’t go for walks in my neighborhood. Instead I waited until I was in New York to complete this challenge. I was walking around Times Square at around 6:30 AM and I must say it was an absolutely wonderful feeling. At that hour there is almost no traffic– neither pedestrian nor otherwise– but you can still experience the sights and sounds of the city. I felt the breeze on my skin, I heard far off traffic. It was exhilarating.

 

20. No TV all day– read instead

This one actually wasn’t too hard for me. I was traveling to New York so I didn’t have access to television anyway. I don’t really stream things on my phone, so I had no choice but to read. I think I was reading The Prophet and the Messiah at the time, but I eventually put the book on hold to read Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.

 

I truly enjoyed the minimalist challenge. The tasks gave me something to focus on during my long, uneventful summer days. Look out for the third and final part in a couple of weeks. If you’ve tried any of the tasks above, or if you have ideas for a new challenge, let me know!

I’m Finally on Bloglovin’

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

The past few days I’ve been seeing Bloglovin links and references on some of the feeds I follow. Previously, I’d been using Feedly to keep up with blog feeds. I highly recommend Feedly, because there’s virtually no learning curve. It’s easy to find and follow blogs and to create categories so you can split your reading up by type of content. There are paid features for Feedly, but I’ve never needed to use them.

Because so many people used Bloglovin, though, I decided to check it out. I figured something with “blog” in the name was probably relevant to what I’m doing here. It turns out that Bloglovin serves a similar purpose to Feedly; it gathers all the feeds you follow in one place. I’ve only been on Bloglovin for a few hours, but I noticed an option to create an account and “claim” a blog. In order to claim a blog, I have to make a post with the link I’ve included at the top of this post, and Bloglovin will register the connection. I couldn’t find my blog on there through a simple search, so I’m guessing I have to claim the blog to make it visible. Regardless of whether this is true, I don’t see any harm on jumping on this bandwagon and making my blog at least a little bit easier to find. If I like Bloglovin, I may even start including other integrations such as the Bloglovin follow button and comment add-ons. For now, I’m just trying to see how this experiment goes.

I’ve Been Nominated for a Liebster Award

First off, I’d like to thank Noor for nominating me! After reading all the wonderful poems and prose of the other nominees, I don’t feel worthy, ha.  The nomination came at a great time, actually. I’ve got a lot of ideas for the future. Perhaps this will be the push I need to finally start writing everything. Again, thank you.

Here are the questions she gave me:

  1. If you could speak another language, which language would you pick and why?

I actually already speak Mandarin and French as second and third languages (although my French could use some help). I’m obsessed with learning languages and have clear goals- I want to speak at least 7 languages by 2020. I’ve got Arabic and Hindi in my sights next.  I’m working on them at the same time, which may or may not be a wise idea. I want to learn Hindi because I want to be able to watch Bollywood movies without subtitles and speak to my Indian and Pakistani friends. I want to learn Arabic because I want to be able to read the Qur’an in its original form (which means I need to learn Classical Arabic, although most people speak Modern Standard Arabic or some dialect). My ultimate goal, though, is to be able to read as many texts as possible in their original languages. Translations are okay, but they are often no substitution for the original.

2. What is something you enjoy to do on your spare time?

As you might have guessed from my answer to the first question, I read in my spare time. I love language, I love literature, I love learning.

3. What’s one fact about you that not many or any of your followers know?

Oof that’s hard. I’m not sure what to share. Here’s a fact: my guilty pleasure is dancing like a mad woman around my room to music from the early 2000s. I tell myself I’m exercising, but let’s be real here– I just like to dance.

4. What are you hoping to reach from blogging?

As with many bloggers, I’m sure, I’m hoping to make an impact. My focus has been relatively narrow so far, but I plan on expanding my scope. I’ve got book reviews planned, perhaps a few thoughts on topics in Islam and hopefully a few photography and graphic design projects (insha’Allah!).  I want people to have fun and maybe learn something, haha.

5. Where would you want to travel to if you had the chance?

My travel list is just as long as, maybe longer than my language list. I’ve got a few small trips on my wish list, but more than anything I want to travel north to south on the east coast of China (from Harbin to Hong Kong). I’m hoping to make my trip during the winter recess senior year, before my Chinese residence permit expires. We’ll see how that goes.

6. When frustrated how do you calm yourself down?

If I’m frustrated with a project or thing, I take a break. If I’m frustrated with a person and I catch myself, I say “a’udhu billah” (I seek refuge in Allah). If I don’t catch myself, I react as humans do (and ask forgiveness later :/). No matter what, though, I need a way to expel the energy I’ve built up. That’s usually when I go for a walk or dance.

7. What’s one advice that you would give out?

Be proud of who you are. Don’t let society or your peers define you. So what if your name doesn’t sound like everyone else’s? So what if your skin is a different color? So what if you dress  a little differently? Don’t spend your life sacrificing integral parts of your identity to please others. I know it can be hard, especially when the discrimination morphs into violence and hate crimes, but you’ve got to push through it, especially when it comes to things you can’t change (like skin color). Love yourself, only then will you be able to love others. I learned that the hard way and I’m still working on recovering.

8. What’s something that keeps you going through any hardship?

Poetry and belief in Allah.

9. Are you a planner or a spontaneous traveler?

Both. I make plans for big trips (4+ days), but I tend to take weekend trips spontaneously. Even if I’ve planned my destinations on longer trips, I don’t plan all of the things I plan to do at those destinations. I just let things happen organically.

10. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up and the last thing you do before going to bed?

Besides making my supplications (to be perfectly honest, they’re not always the first and last thing I do, but I’m working on it), I usually skim my phone for any message that requires an immediate answer. In the mornings I read the news/a book for a while before I begin to prepare for the day. In the evening I’d like to get into a yoga habit (or maybe in the morning, hrm.)

11. What makes you smile?

Toddlers. THEY’RE JUST SO ADORABLE. Unless they’re crying. They’re less adorable then.

—

It turns out I don’t follow that many blogs, and most of the people I follow have around a thousand followers, if not more. Nevertheless,

I NOMINATE THE FOLLOWING FOR THE LIEBSTER AWARD:

Nigerian and Natural 

Muslimah 

Jess A

The rules are simple:

  • Each nominee must link back the person who nominated them
  • Answer the 11 questions
  • Nominate 3-11 other bloggers for this award who have less than 500 followers
  • Create 11 questions for your nominees to answer
  • You can’t nominate the one who tagged you
  • Let the nominees know that they have been nominated by going to their blog and notifying them

Here are your questions:

  1. What is one food you absolutely refuse to eat?
  2. Why do you write?
  3. What’s your favorite book/story, why?
  4. Which do you prefer, being hot or being cold?
  5. What’s your pet peeve?
  6. What is your “squirrel”?  What derails your projects and causes you to veer off course?
  7. What is one thing you want everyone to know?
  8. Coconut or mango?
  9. Do you prefer to keep your nails long or short?
  10. What brightens your day?
  11. Do you keep a momento from your childhood? (No worries, if it’s embarrassing you can just say “yes” or “no” ;D)

I’m interested in seeing everyone’s answers. Have fun!

~Sarabi.

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