I didn’t realize how nervous I was for my race last weekend until things got really hard. And yes, that included reading.
I doubled down by having both me and my daughter on the same day, just fifteen minutes apart. For her, it was her longest race ever. At two and a half years old, I wasn’t confident that she could do four hundred meters, but I was willing to let her try. Failing would just give her something to try again later. For me, my running has just been off, and I didn’t feel confident that I could do ten miles well. Add to that significant rain and lightning in the forecast, it just all felt problematic.
What happened? Well, the weather dealt the kids race a significant blow. Three kids showed up, and my daughter was half the size of the other two kids. Despite that, she made me so proud. She ran most of it and didn’t ask to be picked up once. One of the kids doubled back to run her in and the whole crowd was chanting her name. Seeing her big smile at the finish line was the best thing ever.
On the other hand, I didn’t have a good race day. But in the end, I dug down deep and finished so strongly that I couldn’t help be proud of what I had done. At least when everything goes wrong, I still have the power in me to finish strong.
And with that, let’s get to what I’ve read over the last two weeks.
Reading Social Media News
Google is now rating AI content as the lowest quality. This is important, because it shows that AI content is likely going to get dinged by all of the algorithms. So if you are considering off-loading your content creation to AI, know that it will not reach nearly as many people. Social algorithms will easily recognize it and limit its reach.
I’m over the TikTok drama. Everyone is over the TikTok drama. So when Meta started wooing the influencers over to their networks, it wasn’t actually shocking. Over the next seventy five days, I’d expect lots more of these tactics as influencers and brands are looking for stability. And I personally am not that excited about any of the companies rumored to be buying TikTok. I think that might end up being the same for everyone. So we’re all still stuck waiting to see what will happen.
Reading Books, Books and More Books
Past
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall was my book club book, and well… I didn’t like it. Everyone else loved it, and I took their points. But it just felt like something I had read one too many times. The rich family ruins the life of the poor, young girl, and she has to live with those consequences for the rest of her life. Some of the details were changed and it was presented as a mystery you had to pick apart, but that was the basic story. The main character seemed extremely weak to me, and I just was over her rather quickly. On the plus side, the writing was super readable, so it was a quick read. And to be completely fair to this book, I get why a lot of people might like it. It just wasn’t for me. Score: C+
Present
I’ve never felt so bad for a book as I do for You’re a Mean One Matthew Prince by Timothy Janovsky. I started off trying to rush it to read it in time for book club. I did not succeed. Then I just let it sit in my house. I stare at it and know that I should pick it back up. But it continues to sit. It’s a gay Hallmark movie in book form. There’s a lot that’s fantastic about that, but it’s not a book for me. I’ll trudge through it. Before next week. Hopefully.
What are you reading? What books are you looking forward to?