Day 4 - Exhaustion & Audiobooks
Even though I got another almost 6 hours of sleep last night I'm feeling so so exhausted. The weather isn't really helping either. This afternoon I was laying on my deckchair outside and almost fell asleep. I like my deckchair, but it's not the most comfortable thing to sleep on. Sleep comfortably. So I dragged my tired bones back inside and lay down in my comfy bed. After tossing and turning for 45 minutes I got back up. Ugh! I hate that the corticoidsteroids on the one hand make me so so tired and on the other hand still keep me too agitated to actually sleep. My heart and mind just won't slow down and it's wearing me down.
I was hoping I'd finally finish my second (shorter post) of the Day of Song event last Sunday. But my brain seems to be too fried to write a coherent post about that. At least I already choose the few pictures to accompany that post. Small steps.
What I can write about now though seems to be my new found love for audiobooks. Ok, it might have something to do with my profound love of the Outlander novel series and their two main characters :-) I wrote about that yesterday already. I have to admit: I've never really been much interested in audiobooks before. Probably because for a long time I just didn't own an device which was easy to use for audiobooks. I had a mp3 player long time ago and then started to listen to music on my cell phone. It was working fine with music, but audiobooks - at least the few I knew - comprised hundred of seperate mp3 files. And it was a nuisance to resume listening once I've stopped.
I usually would have only listened to audiobooks while I'm out and about and might have to stop in the middle of a chapter, when I've reached my destination. And that would mean I'd either have to listen to the same mp3 file all over again or to fast forward, which wasn't easy on the cellphones either. So, I never quite been a fan or even listener of audiobooks before. That didn't change when I bought my iPod two (?) years ago, because I honestely didn't even think that it might be much easier to listen to those on the iPod.
Imagine my delight, when I found out yesterday that it in fact is so easy and manageable to listen to audiobooks in the special AAX audioformat on an iPod. Or any other compatible device. The Outlander novel for instance comes in four parts with 7-6 chapters each. You can skip to the start of each chapter and of course also fast forward/backward in the narration. But most important, the narration resumes exactly where it was stopped before. Even if you listen to some music or podcasts or anything in between. Once you change back to the audiobook file and hit resume it resumes at the exactly right spot.
That might be old news to most of you, probably. But hey, I'm an audiobook newbie. And honestly quite excited about that feature. I'm afraid I won't be listening to much music on my iPod during the next few months. Because I'm determined to listen to whole Outlander novel series ;-). I started reading Outlander almost exactly one year ago (19th June 2009 on the way to my London / Scotland vacation) and spend the whole summer to read the complete series and of course the latest part of the series, which was published in the fall 2009. I re-read favourite scenes from all the books since then, whenever I was in the mood for it. I always knew I'd love to read the complete series once again, but I also knew I'd probably never find the time. I also knew that I'd be tempted to skip parts of it and just read my favourite Claire & Jamie scenes again and thus cheat myself of the complete pleasure, because it's such an epic story all together.
Even though it's technically possible to skip forward in the narration of an audiobook, it's so much harder to actually find the scenes you might be looking for. So I'll HAVE to listen to the complete novel again and I know I'm going to love it :-) And the huge advantage of the audiobook indeed is that I don't have to sit down to listen to it. Even on my daily commute I can only read for the time I'm actually on the train. But I'll have to walk about 10 minutes to the station and from there to the office. Plus the errands I ran on foot, groceries shopping and all. Instead of listening to music or just contemplate or worry about some stuff or whatever thoughts my brain might come up with to pass the time, I'll now be able to travel back in time to the 18th century and Jamie Fraser. And fall in love all over again. What a wonderful thing to look forward to...
I was hoping I'd finally finish my second (shorter post) of the Day of Song event last Sunday. But my brain seems to be too fried to write a coherent post about that. At least I already choose the few pictures to accompany that post. Small steps.
What I can write about now though seems to be my new found love for audiobooks. Ok, it might have something to do with my profound love of the Outlander novel series and their two main characters :-) I wrote about that yesterday already. I have to admit: I've never really been much interested in audiobooks before. Probably because for a long time I just didn't own an device which was easy to use for audiobooks. I had a mp3 player long time ago and then started to listen to music on my cell phone. It was working fine with music, but audiobooks - at least the few I knew - comprised hundred of seperate mp3 files. And it was a nuisance to resume listening once I've stopped.
I usually would have only listened to audiobooks while I'm out and about and might have to stop in the middle of a chapter, when I've reached my destination. And that would mean I'd either have to listen to the same mp3 file all over again or to fast forward, which wasn't easy on the cellphones either. So, I never quite been a fan or even listener of audiobooks before. That didn't change when I bought my iPod two (?) years ago, because I honestely didn't even think that it might be much easier to listen to those on the iPod.
Imagine my delight, when I found out yesterday that it in fact is so easy and manageable to listen to audiobooks in the special AAX audioformat on an iPod. Or any other compatible device. The Outlander novel for instance comes in four parts with 7-6 chapters each. You can skip to the start of each chapter and of course also fast forward/backward in the narration. But most important, the narration resumes exactly where it was stopped before. Even if you listen to some music or podcasts or anything in between. Once you change back to the audiobook file and hit resume it resumes at the exactly right spot.
That might be old news to most of you, probably. But hey, I'm an audiobook newbie. And honestly quite excited about that feature. I'm afraid I won't be listening to much music on my iPod during the next few months. Because I'm determined to listen to whole Outlander novel series ;-). I started reading Outlander almost exactly one year ago (19th June 2009 on the way to my London / Scotland vacation) and spend the whole summer to read the complete series and of course the latest part of the series, which was published in the fall 2009. I re-read favourite scenes from all the books since then, whenever I was in the mood for it. I always knew I'd love to read the complete series once again, but I also knew I'd probably never find the time. I also knew that I'd be tempted to skip parts of it and just read my favourite Claire & Jamie scenes again and thus cheat myself of the complete pleasure, because it's such an epic story all together.
Even though it's technically possible to skip forward in the narration of an audiobook, it's so much harder to actually find the scenes you might be looking for. So I'll HAVE to listen to the complete novel again and I know I'm going to love it :-) And the huge advantage of the audiobook indeed is that I don't have to sit down to listen to it. Even on my daily commute I can only read for the time I'm actually on the train. But I'll have to walk about 10 minutes to the station and from there to the office. Plus the errands I ran on foot, groceries shopping and all. Instead of listening to music or just contemplate or worry about some stuff or whatever thoughts my brain might come up with to pass the time, I'll now be able to travel back in time to the 18th century and Jamie Fraser. And fall in love all over again. What a wonderful thing to look forward to...