This is great. I’m pretty sure I can make it up with your notes. I’ll report back once I finish 
2 Likes
…WAIT EXCUSE ME XDDDDDD
I thought that we’ve had like a winter of a century with 50 centimeters here xddd
i really appreciate the grindset anyway ^^
love how you insert the subliminal political messages between the japanese studying, reminded me of the new technology connections video, especially the last 30 minutes xddd
4 Likes
Lol this is from deep in the mountains of central Tohoku. My house only has 20-30cm.
It’s a result of many things, one of which being the frustration that I am outside of the country and can’t really do anything. Like I can still vote and I did vote against this, but I am absolutely horrified by the state of my own country. It reminds me of The Hiding Place.
My American friends don’t really want to talk about it or do anything and Mr. Engineer doesn’t really get it, which is understandable. I just want somewhere to talk about the issues which ends up being here.
I’ll watch the video when I get the chance, at work if I can sneak it lol. I know that channel has good and interesting topics.
6 Likes
January 30th and February 1st
1 lesson and 100 reviews
appeased the owl
Jingo by Terry Pratchett
While most of my weekend was spent being a kotatsu snail glued to my phone watching the national strike and other videos, I did actually do some Wanikani over the weekend. Gotta start habits at some point.
On Sunday I decided to go into the city for some shopping. My cheap snow boots have holes in them now and after glue and three types of tape unsuccessfully fixing them, it was time for new boots. I got some nicer ones that hopefully hold up. Like technically I can keep wearing the boots with holes because the holes are more of a problem with rain, but I’m just getting really tired of wet socks.
I was on a mission to find a milk frother to see if I like it. Supposedly a variety of 100 yen shops have them but after checking four unsuccessfully I ragequit and walked to the electronics store next to the shoe shop lol. I’ve been obsessed with the idea of a coffee machine after using the one at my friend’s house in the US. I found one that uses instant coffee, which is interesing, and solves the economic and ecological problem of cup type coffee machines. Decided this is going to be my N2 passing celebration. It does cost more than the refund I will get from the JET Programme for passing, but at least it is heavily subsidized.
Trying to get the coffee in was a bit of a learning curve and I definitely got instant coffee all over the kitchen and floor. As my dad always says, read through the instructions in their entirity before starting. I did not do that lol. At least my mistake smells good hahaha.
The machine is…okay? It’s a lot louder than I expected, but I think that is in part due to the counter it’s on being metal and a little wobbly, so the rattling just gets amplified. I remember someone holding a decibel meter up to it in one of the reviews I watched, guess that should have been a warning. This one has several functions like black coffee, capichino, ice coffee, and plain hot water. It kinda has a hot plastic smell which isn’t great but hopefully that goes away…? So far I do enjoy it, it’s not as good as my friend’s coffee machine, but that’s obvious when I got something that is 1/10th the price. You can use an app to adjust the settings so I think playing around with that will help. So far it works well and is fun.
While I was in town a friend gave me some yarn from a new hobby attempt. She didn’t ask me to but I think it would be nice to make stuff for her out of the yarn and give it back. Not entirely sure what she was hoping to make from the yarn, but hopefully I can make something she enjoys. She did mention liking my fuck hat, so she’s getting one or two of those.
I would attach a picture but none of them want to load. I have made…several lol.
12 Likes
February 2nd
17 lessons and 269 reviews
appeased the owl
2035 words
Despite there being 234 reviews waiting for me in the next 24 hours, I did get to zero zero again and it will stay that way until the end of the workday. Perhaps I should do some more this evening because there is another 100 just today 
.
One thing that is looming for me is decluttering. I have hoarder tendencies and while they have gotten better, my house is still way messier than the average person. Ideally my new place will be neat but if I can’t manage that in my current house I’m not going to magically be able to do it in a new dwelling. I got to a pretty good place last spring, but a couple months later my friend complained my house was too messy, so I really don’t know what I am doing wrong here 
. Clearly I am blind to it. There is no trash or dirty dishes, just stuff, mostly on the floor. Supposedly getting more storage/organizers would fix this but I am somewhat skeptical of more things making my house neater. The other problem is I’M on the floor, so all my stuff ends up there too. Kotatsu is on the floor, floor sofa is on the floor, futon is on the floor, I’m just on the floor all the time. It feels like I have discovered another dimension.
Somehow I managed to get into a flow state with writing and wrote quite a bit about how much I hated my first year in Japan hahahaha. Reading this article about how writing doesn’t really need to be connected or planned or what you expect really inspired me. Considering how dark of a place I was in, don’t plan to spend too much time on it and instead get into the more funny and exciting second year. I have a lot of funny anecdotes that my mom will request me to tell at dinner parties.
I watched about half of the video GolyBidoof recommended and got one row of fucks done. Each row has four fucks in it, so does that mean I knit at a rate of one fuck per hour or four fucks per hour? Now I really want an electric car, especially becasue my current car has a miniscule 20L gas tank and isn’t very fuel efficient, I feel like I’m getting gas every two seconds
The opinion of the people is requested. Do I knit at:
- One fuck per hour
- Four fucks per hour
0
voters
9 Likes
February 3rd
257 reviews +90 extra practice
appeased the owl
235
EMAILS
Actually staying on top of my reviews, that hasn’t happened in a while.
Remember how I got new boots this weekend? Well, they are coming in clutch because the road sprinklers were on full blast this morning. What are road sprinklers you ask? They are spouts in the road that pump water/onsen water onto the road to make ice speed bumps melt the snow. Problem is, not all roads have good drainage especially with all the snow and ice plus no sidewalks so you find yourself in a situation of “do I walk through the giant puddle or do I walk in the middle of the road?” Now I can plow on in confidence. I am not sure if the upper part is waterproof but if not, Mr. Engineer can teach me how to use the magical waterproof spray.
Yesterday I got a letter in my mailbox telling me I may have a leak at my house. This isn’t the first time this has happened, in fact every time I touch the water access for my house something goes wrong. My supervisor (also effectively my landlord?) called me and said the water company guy was coming back and to “listen carefully” because she couldn’t be there lol. The guy fixed it for me so I asked what went wrong and he said I 中途半端(thank you Wanikani) opened it so it leaked and I need to open it all the way. Well whaddaya know last year the guy said DON’T open it all the way or else it leaks all over. In my experience, opening it all the way makes the meter spin like crazy and leak but if I only open it a little it leaks out of the shutoff. Every time I try to touch it the whole access box gets filled with ice cold water and I’ve been given opposite advice. I’m so done with this 水道 hahaha.
On the bright side, this guy was very happy with me that I was careful and the leak wasn’t due to a frozen pipe, just stupidity and confusion.
GOOD LORD THE EMAILS. This is better N2 studying than any of the actual studying I did. I need to find an apartment among other things so I need to write emails to people asking for info. On the bright side I did find the correct office at my university to contact (thanks to my professor friend, nothing has a logical name at this school I swear) but the possibility of finding an apartment that allows both foreigners and cats is slim to none according to the coordinator. It looks like Mr. Engineer is going to have to be my guarantor if I want any chance at getting a place. So, uh, I guess our relationship is getting paperwork serious now!
My ふるさと納税 rice arrived. With rice prices these days, recieving rice for paying your taxes is a pretty sweet deal. Today I got 10kg and I forget how much I ordered from the other place XD. Also yes, I put googly eyes on my rice box (and various other things in my house).
Update on the coffee machine, there is an integrated app that allows for customization! Well, however much customization you can get while using instant coffee. This is definitely an improvement though, can make smaller coffees and therefore have more drinks. I also get points every time I use my coffee machine? That’s pretty funny.
ETA: today was Setsubun so kids are supposed to throw beans at demons. Because the 9th grade is run by two twenty something men the teachers decided to dress up to surprise the 9th graders. One wore three demon masks at once and the other put on a rubber horse head. Turning around in the office and seeing your coworker in a hoodie and rubber horse head is absolutely hilarious.
12 Likes
February 4th
32 lessons and 269 reviews +143 extra practice
Fell asleep, appeased owl at 2am
Finally
Rambling about the journey and goals
The title of the study log has changed because I both got into grad school and passed the N2, so I achieved the things I wanted to do. For now I am in limbo, passed all the stuff I needed but definitely FAR from where I want to be. Graduate school will probably give me clearer goals of what I want out of my Japanese studies but for now I’m still waiting on all the paperwork. Supposedly the university offers Japanese classes so hopefully I can get into those and finally work on my grammar. Trying to learn out of textbooks and Bunpro only led to getting a 0% or 20% on any quiz so this may be something I simply cannot learn on my own.
The obvious next step would be to start studying for the N1, however I don’t think I will be ready to take it anytime soon and may not ever want to take it. Considering it took me 9 years to learn the first 1200 kanji it may not be realistic? Originally my goal was N2 because that used to be the benchmark for getting a job in Japan but now N1 seems to be more common. The N2 does still offer visa and scholarship benefits meaning my work is paying off in more than just an intrinsic sense of completion, which is pretty fantastic. Is this where I need to be though? Absolutely not. Even in the conversation telling my coworker about passing I got confused what he was asking me . My low but passing score puts me at a B1 on the CEFR scale, which is presumably well below what you would expect out of a college student or adult trying to do adult things.
Back when I moved to Japan, everything I saw online pointed to people living in Japan going up one JLPT level a year. Just study consistently and live in Japan, the levels will go right up. Pass N2 or N1 from zero by the end of your time on JET. That has not been my expereince at all. Very few people in my day to day life speak English so anything functional was entirely in Japanese and while I didn’t study intensely I did stay on top of it and studied myself from an N4 level to passing the N3 in about one year. My life did get significantly better after that first year and most communication came without trouble. I read my first book in Japanese, my second book in Japanese, and felt like I was making some real progress. During this time a friend told me “there is an ocean between N3 and N2” and the shellshock myself and everyone else I have seen take the N2 for the first time feels really solidified this statement. It felt and still feels like I am running and running but getting nowhere, as if trying to ride a unicycle on ice, getting enough traction to move forward sometimes but most of the time just spinning my wheels. Back when I first started Japanese I ended up doing first semester Japanese three times, passing the class but then failing the placement exam of the next school, so from the beginning it has been a slow process for me. Back then I was hit with “if you really wanted to learn Japanese you would know it by now” and “you just want to learn Japanese to date Japanese men!” Both of those things are wrong in my opinion however they did weigh on me. What is wrong with me that I can’t make any progress?
I think what a lot of people fail to realize is Japanese is about as far as you can get from English language-wise, a 5* on a 1-5 scale of difficulty (lol). Also the people who talk the most about languages are the ones who it comes easily to, like my sister. The loudest voices are the ones who have achieved something, who have something to show for it, and who study so much it borders on insanity. These people are the Shinkansens of language learners, hurtling through vast plains and valleys of language learning with relative ease. People like me are the local trains, slow and rickety, puttering along from stop to stop. But, given enough time and determination, both get you to Tokyo.
This is just a long way of saying passing the N2 is not what I expected it to be and that’s okay. This is very much a “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know” situation. Progress was slow but I’m very glad I never gave up.
Back when I started this log in October I was at 236,923 total reviews and now I am at 262,566 total reviews. It has been 95 days since then, which puts the average at 270 reviews a day but I took two weeks off for vacation which puts the actual average at 317 reviews per day. Holy moly that’s a lot.
I would say hard work pays off, but vocabulary and grammar was my lowest score on the N2 and I only went up three levels so not sure this counts 
The people have spoken and apparently I knit at 4 fucks per hour.
I didn’t have enough of the blue yarn to make a full hat so I decided to do stripes and I kind of love it.
Now that I have a coffee machine that means I can experiment with fancy (well, “fancy”) drinks. Fancy coffee machine friend sent me a recipe yesterday for a brown sugar shaken drink so I decided to give that a shot. However, I don’t have many containers with lids so I ended up using an old instant coffee container I found lying around. It was quite good actually.
My coffee machine gives me points when I use it so I decided to see what I can buy with those points. Clearly the points are aimed at the raffle items because you only get 10 points per coffee and this is the cheapest actual item. Only have to make 5000 coffees to get it XD.
14 Likes
Which means you average out four people who don’t give a single fuck. 
Congratulations on level 30, halfway to the WK finish line.
3 Likes
February 5th
15 lessons and 191 reviews +42 extra practice
appeased the owl
Pretty high accuracy for how many reviews there were.
Doing some news reading because I can’t read a book without the English teacher getting mad at me and sheesh it is depressing. This article is arguing that Trump is very nearly a dictator, and I have to say I agree. It’s quite depressing. Like I believe that America is a great country full of great people and I am happy to have grown up there, so it is quite sad to see it essentially going down in flames. When I decided back in the summer to apply to Japanese graduate schools instead of American ones in light of the cuts to science funding, I didn’t think I would be avoiding government thugs invading my home city by the time I was admitted. I wouldn’t be an explicate target as a third generation US citizen but we are all descended from immigrants (unless you are Native American) and an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. Everyone deserves the American dream. Immigrants are a gift not a burden, and I sincerely want to share my country with anyone who wants to live there. Sharing is caring right?
The only American flag I am flying is an upside down one.
12 Likes
Your teacher sounds horrible because reading a book is basically studying, especially when desk warming. Whether a Japanese or English book, you are studying. I guess I need to count myself lucky in my schools then.
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Luckily I only have to deal with her once a week. Everyone else doesn’t care if I’m reading a book or on my phone or whatever, but she will interrupt me for “meetings” (dictating whatever she is doing at the time, my opinion is never wanted or listened to) if I’m doing something she doesn’t like. She’s also a horrible teacher. Like she has the kids write their speaking tests in Japanese, makes me help her translate them into English, then writes katakana above every word. Thankfully she did get in trouble for being a horrible teacher and screaming at the students and has a teaching coach now but it is quite frustrating that she is just now changing the things I told her were extremely counterproductive to learning nearly three years ago. For the first two years I had nightmares every day before teaching with her and at the end of that she grabbed me and got in my face for an activity not going well. Thankfully making an adult cry made her reevaluate her life choices and the teaching coach helped a lot too, but I still think she is a nasty person and can’t wait to block her as soon as I get to my car on the last day. Counting down the days, only five more left.
10 Likes
Compare yourself to the 10% not the 1%. How many student learning Japanese ever reach N2 ?Your achievements are cool. To me Japanese was started 14 years ago and you’re the 新幹線.
6 Likes
I’d even suggest just comparing oneself to where they were when they started. Everyone has different circumstances and abilities and so the only comparison that’s truly valid is where we started vs. where we are. If where we are is where we want to be, that’s awesome, if it’s not yet there it should still be closer than where we started from so that’s awesome too.
5 Likes
February 6th
15 lessons and 250 reviews
appeased the owl when I woke up
Jingo by Terry Pratchett
14 pages of Harry Potter
The HIGH for the weekend is zero, so I think I’ll be staying in and knitting. I finished the fuck hat I was making so time to move on to other projects. Trying to do some amigurumi but it’s hard
. Like I CAN crochet, but I’m definitely better at knitting. Learned to knit nearly 20 years ago and I guess I learned crochet when I was maybe 11 but I’ve done a lot more knitting. People say crochet is easier than knitting but I don’t necessarily agree. It is faster and you don’t need to worry about dropping stitches, but I feel like it is easy to lose track of things or the shapes just have a mind of their own. Stitches on a knitting needle are stuck where you put them and the shapes are a bit easier to control in my opinion.
Been getting too political I guess and my friends are tired of it lol. Well, I’ll just email my representatives because nothing is too political for them because they are politicians. Can’t stop now, still have stuff to vote on to keep ICE out of my state.
Apparently the Melt the ICE hat has raised $588,000 for mutual aid in Minnesota and red yarn is selling out nationwide. This isn’t only an American phenomenon, as people from 43 different countries around the world have purchased the pattern.
The Marauders Map being called “the stealth map” in the Japanese translation of Harry Potter is an absolute crime. It’s worse than “he who must not be named” being translated as “あの人,” “that guy.”
The snow is back and ended the day with coffee and cookie bars. I used to always bake just using measuring cups/spoons and thought people measuring by weight were pretentious, but now I am a convert XD. Maybe an entire college education of using scales in labs changed me.
11 Likes
忍びの地図 could also be a ninja map, that might be what it’s going for if it’s used for sneaking around. But yeah loosing the alliteration kind of sucks. あの人 and 例のあの人 are pretty bad though, don’t really convey the same fear of the name and that’s sort of a big theme of the books. The mirror of Erised translation was pretty cool though.
It’s fine to be political though, part of the reason these people want to arrest and kill protesters is that it has a chilling effect on the people who aren’t protesting (yet). Stay mad and stay safe.
7 Likes
Not sure, to be honest. Online it seems like everyone but in real life it is a smaller percentage. For example, out of the 15 or so ALTs that have come through my city, only two of us have actually made it to N2 level.
How about local express train? Or Monorail express train? I love the Monorail express train.
The problem is I literally have the best environment (besides I guess being enrolled in an all Japanese high school/college) and am still slow XD. I came to Japan with three years of Japanese classes, my coworkers do not speak English, and I have 3-7 hours a day just at work to study. While I obviously could study more, the other thing I realized is it literally just takes me longer to remember the words. Like my first year Japanese classmate who recommended Wanikani to me completed all 60 levels in under 200,000 reviews. I am well on my way to 300,000 and am not even in the 40’s yet. Have literal evidence that I am for some reason not good at this and someway somehow I still achieved my goals, which I think goes to show if you keep at something, you will get there eventually.
13 Likes
Just in case, a lot of people, me included, are using userscript extensions, there’s an entire subforum for them, but some of the ones I use for example allow for me to press a backspace and correct a word like when I see 銀 and I write きん and I’m like “frick”, i can press backspace and go to ぎん
I do overrely on cheating with it sometimes when I’m feeling worse though, but across 120 levels and all of the catching up afterwards, I’ve only used 164.839 reviews until today 
the amount of “fucks” an hour intensifies
4 Likes
I am aware of them and want to use them, but because I do most of my practice on work computers I can’t install anything. Also the keyboards don’t always pick up my keystrokes, so that is another problem. Maybe once I leave my job I can download them for my regular computer. For now what I do is I add custom user synonyms for words I get wrong a lot.
My accuracy has dropped a lot recently but reviews still going up a lot. I do around 1000 reviews a week, more these days. Sometimes I have to change up my techniques, like if I do a couple rounds of extra practice I can remember way faster down the line.
Guess I gotta knit faster!
6 Likes
It could be, but ninjas aren’t a thing in Western mythos generally. Personally I would prefer to keep things as original as possible because people can learn more about foreign cultures, but alas I am not a translator and don’t decide those things. The “that guy” translations are kind of hilarious to me, but alas that is what they went with. Many of the descriptions are wonderfully translated but a lot of the spells and names of things are not my favorite.
I think most people around me think of it as “well, it’s not my problem because it doesn’t affect me directly. Life is still normal.” Personally, I think Portland is up next because Trump just doesn’t like us lol. Many of my friends, family, and community back home are immigrants, so I worry about them. I live in Japan so I’m safe from this but it does bother me that I can’t do more. For now I’m just donating and emailing representatives (and knitting hats).
6 Likes
While trying to remain roughly clear of politics no matter how much I agree with you, Ron Funches at his show last weekend had a couple of funny chants he was workshopping, the one that stuck in my mind most was “No ICE is good ice, except the little crunchy kind from Sonic!” (Another was “ICE ICE Baby, why can’t you be nice nice baby?”)
It’s quite possible that one classmate you cited has stronger memory or is more fluid with redo scripts or any other number of things, or it’s possible that the classmate may be naturally gifted at languages or has some other reason for having it easier. Really, it doesn’t matter - you’re moving at the pace that fits your life and your available time; if it’s taking longer because you make mistakes then you’re learning. But even if you consider that literal evidence you are not “good at this” I disagree, it seems like extrapolating a lot out of one data point and certainly refuted by a myriad of other data points, not the least of which is the N2. You may not be optimally super-fast at it, but you’re learning the language and seem to be able to apply your knowledge so that’s pretty much the definition I’d use for good at it.
(But the last bit of that last sentence is the key: “if you keep at something, you will get there eventually.” - that may be even more important than being measurably “good”!)
6 Likes