Weekly Report
12/01/2025-12/07/2025Iโve been running myself like a train this week TO be HONEST!
Achievements 
WaniKani Lvl 10 
Listened to 495/420 minutes 
Read 7/7 days
- ๆชใฎ่ฏ / Flowers of Evil (Shuuzo Oshimi) Vol. 8-11 (FIN)
- ใใใฆๅใซใชใ / Bloom Into You (Nakatani Nio) Vol. 4 Ch. 18-22, Vol. 5 Ch. 23-26
- ใผใใฏ้บป็ใฎใชใ / Inside Mari (Shuuzo Oshimi) Vol. 1-6
Wrote 3/3 LangCorrect posts
Mined deck reached 1000 words
Complete 7/7 Advent of Code problems
Reflections 
If my present exhaustion is anything to go by, I might be overextending myself. Nevertheless!
Flowers of Evil was a deeply fascinating read, slow to get off the ground but so satisfying in the finish. At multiple junctures I was considering writing up my thoughts here as a separate post but I wasnโt sure about flooding my own log. I might start doing that this week, though, to help flesh out my impressions of readings I found particularly interesting. As far as Flowers of Evil goes, my short impression is that I think it achieved what A Silent Voice was trying to do. Itโs a lucid treatment of the vicissitudes of childhood, the way that the vulnerability of the child manifests harm, and itโs so level-headed about how that harm can be addressed over the years without vindication or retribution.
Now Iโm most of the way thru Inside Mari, which is the most interesting Oshimi Iโve read so far. Iโm a little nervous at my current stopping point about what is to come next, but I think that whatever happens, Oshimi has managed inadvertently but with full brilliance to capture the devices of transmisogyny in the earlier volumes. Itโs not just a story about Mari and Isao, but the coercion both are subjected to by the particular individuals in their lives and the norms broadly imposed on them from without. Paratextually, Oshimi expresses an intense form of transfatalism that leaks into the text. Iโve been linked a video essay Iโm eager to watch once Iโve finished reading and I know Iโm gonna have things to say by the finish.
Advent of Code has been a rabbit hole of fun. I didnโt realize how the scoring worked the first day, but since understanding that solving problems first gives more points, Iโve made sure to get working right at midnight every night. I think my competitive streak never runs out.
For Next Weekโฆ 
Iโm keeping my listening goals loosened to โjustโ an hour a day. Advent of Code ends this week, after which I might be able to resume my previous pace.
POTW 
On the morning January 7th this year I was driving my girlfriend up to the Getty Museum in the hills overlooking Santa Monica. I noticed a strangely dense cloud in that direction and commented that it looked like smoke, but didnโt think much of it. By the time weโd parked, made it through the line at the front, and taken the tram up to the museum itself, the cloud had become a plume of smoke rising from behind the mountains in the west, carried by intense winds we could feel in the open areas of the pavilion. Within a few hours, the smoke was blotting out the Sun.