It really pains me to do this given how excited I am to start this book, and given that I’ve encouraged others to join, but I’ve decided that I will not be able to read along with the club from the beginning.
I’m at a frustrating point where I’ve come far enough along in Japanese that I want to jump on every opportunity to use the language more, but I also need to think practically and roll back for the sake of my professional and social life (not to mention sleep). I’ve probably let myself get to the brink of ~4 hours of Japanese study per day when you include reading and listening practice. While I can handle this day-to-day, I’m afraid the whole house of cards would come crashing down if I had a particularly busy few weeks (I nearly experienced this after moving, where it took me over a month to fully catch back up with all of my commitments even though I was still studying Japanese at ~70% capacity throughout the move).
My current plan is to wait ~2 months and hopefully jump into the discussions well behind the rest of the group. I’ll also put it out there because I know a few people were looking for either a mental break or a chance to catch up on other things–might we consider delaying the start for a few months? If a couple months off would alter your participation status, please comment. Otherwise don’t hold up for me! I’ll be looking forward to reading and joining the discussion down the road.
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And several others… 
