ひらやすみ • Hirayasumi Book Club Week 3!

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ひらやすみ Week 3!

This Week’s Reading:

Chapter 2
Page 45 → Page 77
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Week 3 November 28th? 2025
Start page 45
End page 77
Pages 22p
Previous Week Week 2
Next Week TBD
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Happy reading!

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New week, new notes:

Page 46

美大に入学して一週間ほど経ちました。
About (ほど) one week (一週間) has passed (経ちました) since [Natsumi] entered (入学して) the art college (美大に).

新芽かおる爽やかな４月のお昼。
(It’s) an April afternoon (４月のお昼), delightful (爽やかな) with the fragrance of budding leaves (新芽かおる).

食堂
Cafeteria

なつみちゃんは
As for Natsumi-chan,

Page 47

残念ながら大学生活があまり楽しくありませんでした。
Regrettably (残念ながら), [her] college life (大学生活が) was not (ありませんでした) very (あまり) enjoyable (楽しく).

なぜなら友達ができないからです。
The reason is (なぜなら) because (からです) [she] cannot make (できない) friends (友達が).

Page 48

アレのせいだ
The fault (せい) of that (アレ) is (だ)…

自意識過剰ななつみちゃんは、
The overly self-conscious (自意識過剰な) Natsumi-chan (なつみちゃんは),

Page 49

絵画科オリエンテーションの自己紹介タイムで印象に残ろうとして、
To try to (として) make a lasting impression (印象に残ろう) during (で) the self-introduction time (自己紹介タイム) of the painting department orientation (絵画科オリエンテーションの),

なぜか普段やりもしない輪ゴムマジックを披露し大スベリしたんでした。
I took this sentence as a puzzle and spent way too long on it… So, the verbs in the ます stem are for a formal conjunctive (連用形 (JLPT N3) | Bunpro). It translates to something like:

For some reason (なぜか), even if (も) [she] normally (普段) doesn’t ever do it (やりもしない, where やり is the nominalized version of やる “to do”, + もしない, which I think it’s this grammar point), she performed (披露し) a rubber band magic trick (輪ゴムマジックを) and it was a big flop (大スベリした + んでした which should be the past of んです to add an explanatory tone).

しかも失敗してる。
And yet she failed.

もんちゃん!!
Mon-chan (the cat)

彼女は恥ずかしいことを思い出すと実家で飼ってる猫の名前を発作的に叫んでしまう。
As for her (彼女は), when (と) she remembers (思い出す) embarassing things (恥ずかしいことを), she totally shouts (叫んでしまう) in a fit (発作的に) the name (名前を) of the cat (猫の) that she kept (飼ってる) at her parents’ house (実家で).

And I’m already liking Natsumi-chan more and more.

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Poor Natsumi and poor Hiroto, lol, very relatable!

Overall this chapter was kind of melancholy - hard to make friends, hard to keep friends…

I need to see more Mon-chan :grinning_cat:

On p.66 I saw a new grammar thing I hadn’t heard こう (JLPT N3) | Bunpro こう- prefix to indicate “something the speaker thinks is the right or correct way”

I think both Hiroto and Natsumi need better friends!!

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Finally got caught up today - I haven’t been reading since week 1 but so glad to see everyone’s been enjoying it so far! I’m enjoying the softness feeling of this volume a lot. Feels very grounded :slight_smile:

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