Aw thank you! This style developed out of my writing a blog for my very first study abroad and somewhat maintaining one in my early days working here, plus a lot of emails. Living in Japan I don’t do much speaking of English but I do a lot of thinking in it so sometimes something funny comes out of the rock tumbler/overexcited beehive that is my brain.
Everyone I know who went to grad school hated it lol. Supposedly Japanese grad school is easier, though.
Dang my car just beeps at me. I think I’d say even nastier things back to it if it dared speak to me 
grad school
They took away our computer programs and calculators to make us do everything from scratch and now AGI is peeking in the sitting room windows like, “lemme in g i just wanna be a facsimile of your dead relatives 8].” Looking back on it feels like reading Lovecraft or watching Twin Peaks. But grad school pulverizing my last hope the social machine has an inspired or even intended orientation was one of the best things that happened to me because I finally had to work ernestly to construct meaning in my life instead of taking it for granted.
I am definitely saying nastier things but what’s extra funny is this new car has a drive recorder and a mic right on the steering wheel. So, if the mechanics ever decide to watch some footage, they get to hear me swearing profusely at the car in English lol
132 reviews and 5 lessons
appeased the owl
talking to Mr. Engineer
looked at a grammar textbook lol
Last night I made the 400km drive from my prefecture to Mr. Engineer’s prefecture (this is what happens when you decide to game the system on dating apps lol). It’s nice to be in civilization and reunited with my one true love…Seicomart. The apple juice is to die for and the giant onigiri and roasted potatoes are the best thing ever when it comes to conbini food. Unfortunately the Ibaraki Seicomarts don’t have latte machines but the ones in Hokkaido shoot steam which is hilarious.
One thing I’m trying to work on for the sake of my partner is speaking more Japanese in public. When in public I prefer to use English because then less people can understand me than if I speak Japanese, making it a somewhat secret communication device even if in crowded places. Going back to the US where now everyone understands me is quite uncomfortable actually . Because I pretty much never shut up people hear me talking to Mr. Engineer in English then assume he is also a foreigner, poor man keeps getting spoons instead of chopsticks at the conbini. Just today in Costco the cashier asked me a question in Japanese and when I pointed like “ask him” she asked him in English lol. Apparently this never happened before so I guess my foreignness is just so pervasive it affects him too.
My wanikani reviews were done as quickly as possible while Mr. Engineer washed dishes. He also looked at my grammar book and couldn’t explain it either, so I guess that makes two of us confused. Apparently the chapter uses a lot of grammar commonly used in idioms? Also the book lumps together grammar that sounds very similar which means you have to parse out which one means which thing based on the ending of the verb or a single letter, which is really hard! Like I get why they did it but damn this is confusing. Maybe I just need to do one grammar point from several pages instead of one page at a time so at least they look different.
My grad school entrance exam is coming up and I am nervous . The first part of the exam is an English exam, so not too worried about that, but the second part I have to analyze DNA using some online databanks, one of which is maintained by the NIH and you don’t need to know what is happening in my country right now but just know it means there is nobody there to maintain the servers. Not sure if it’s user error or just the servers being down, but hopefully I can practice more before the test. When I tried the practice test I did royally mess up the experiment set up section so hopefully my professor doesn’t think I’m stupid. As a side note, the admissions office sent me an email in addition to the snail mail test slip and instructions. The email contained a picture of the test building, which is nice, but the snail mail version had pretty extensive instructions and maps too. Not sure if this VIP email service is because they really want me to attend their university or if they think I’m dumb. When living in a foreign country people do frequently assume you are dumb because there are a lot of country specific things you have no idea about and coming in with sub-adult language level doesn’t help your case. People tend to forget that at least in Japan, most work visas have a college degree requirement. Having a college degree doesn’t make you smart but it does mean you had to pass a lot of tests. It’s very frustrating to be treated like you are extremely stupid and makes me think of all the immigrants I met growing up and how differently I see them now. My whole life is just that Gloria quote from Modern Family “do you even know how smart I am in Spanish(English)?!”
However I would like to note people are generally really nice and recognize that while my language may be deficient, still got a good brain in there and with some slightly simplified Japanese I can figure it out. Japan has changed a lot for the better in the last 10 years and despite what you hear online, pretty much everyone I meet is positive about immigrants.
It’s very frustrating to be treated like you are extremely stupid and makes me think of all the immigrants I met growing up
I remember it, not the exact moment but the feeling when I realized my Colombian friend was really really smart she was just struggling against this barrier you describe. Years later our friendship has matured and her English is perfect, she reads Borges in English, and works a complex and language-intense job in risk management. It’s sad because many of those people who measure you incorrectly (like I initially did my friend) may not get to see you mature and appreciate the reality. But when I look back there were also a lot of signs. I think as you say people are very kind, but I hope those paying attention see your signs. I think smart people will/do.
120 ish reviews
appeased the owl
7 episodes of anime
read product reviews on Japanese amazon, great entertainment
Normally I’m not an anime person but I wanted to watch something with Mr. Engineer and Way of the Househusband seemed like a good choice. Watched with the original Japanese voice actors and even Japanese subtitles, since I watched the anime a couple times back in 2022. At this point I could understand most of it.
Lately the thought of “nobody shares the same media anymore” is bouncing around my head significantly so I asked Mr. Engineer what he watched as a kid. Apparently he really loved an anime called “Major” so we watched a few episodes of that. No subtitles were available but it was fairly understandable, with the ability to ask questions when I got confused. It’s interesting and I can see why he liked the anime but good gracious the main character is self centered lol. To be fair he is a junior high student, which do tend to be self centered, but he is so self centered the other characters are calling him out on it. Hopefully later in the season he can be less selfish.
As for normal life, this weekend we went apple picking. Had no idea Japan had apple picking, but we drove past so many apple orchards on our way to the one we planned to go to. In Japan people always cut and typically peel their apples, so my biting directly into the apple was a bit surprising for the Japanese patrons lol. Also turns out Mr. Engineer is too much of a city boy to know how to pick apples, so I taught him my farm child apple picking technique. As a kid it was always my job to climb the trees to get the apples at the top and also to pick as fast as possible, so this experience was extremely different. All the trees were so weighed down with apples I felt bad for them. The weight of the apples could snap the tree branches, so people need to get out there and pick more. However picking all the apples is against the business model so unfortunately the apple trees just have to do their best. Also went to the “dragon god large suspension bridge.” It was not as big as the name would imply.
. On that first date he asked me “do you want to see the equations I use at work?” which is the nerdiest thing ever but I’m also a huge nerd so obviously the answer was yes 
. So, here’s to one year of two nerds hanging out.
that thought went in a completely different direction than I thought it would, because in my circle of influence all my friends are in the same social media bubble and we see the same content the moment it drops ^^
But when it comes to media as a kid, I have a feeling kids in Europe had it a bit easier since all the European media was shown in many European countries, like Asterix, The Little Mole or Smurfs ^^
waiting for a shoujo manga to start with that hook now 
your story of hanging out with mr. engineer is so cute aaaaa 
Woulda hooked me too
Congrats on your first dateiversary!
Actually, my social media is at least fairly attuned to what my friends also see because that is how it is designed after all, but what I mean is more long form content.
For example, back in high school it felt like everyone knew of the YouTube channels of Markiplier, JackSepticEye, Game Grumps, Crash Course, Khan Academy, Rhett and Link, stuff like that. These days, it is rare to watch the same videos as anyone else you know or maybe even know the creators they watch. Another one is podcasts. Like recently I was in the car with a new ALT in my area and asked her if she wanted to listen to the Freakonomics podcast, and she had no clue what I was talking about. It is a podcast that has run for over ten years and plays on National Public Radio stations and I actually got back into it due to a British guy bringing it up in his podcast, so it isn’t necessarily an American only thing (they cover a lot of international issues and have guests from all over the world, but it is US based). Another one is books. These days I am working my way through Terry Pratchett’s books. He is one of the greats when it comes to writers but I am struggling to find people around me who have read his books outside of my sister, since we have similar tastes in books for obvious reasons lol. I really want someone to discuss the books or Freakonomics podcasts with but it is really hard to find anyone who has either already read them or is interested in watching/reading something someone recommends to them. The same goes for me, if someone sends me a YouTube video to watch, to be honest I don’t really want to watch it. People are so used to hyper-specific content now we have lost our ability to focus on things that aren’t aligned with our specific interests. Or maybe that is just adulthood because we get to pick our own lives now?
Living a very international life now has shown me what American media makes it out of the US and what does not. My biggest shocker was that America’s most famous Christmas movies; Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman; are pretty much completely unknown overseas, or at least in Japan, but Home Alone is the wildly popular Christmas movie. I mean like it is good but there are other classics in my opinion . What others have told me is they are impressed by the houses and yeah that is actually what American houses look like, but in nice neighborhoods I may add.
Another example of this is Disney is EXTREMELY popular in Japan but none of the classic TV shows made it over. I asked Mr. Engineer if he had ever seen High School Musical, Wizards of Waverly Place (Selena Gomez), or Hannah Montana(Miley Cyrus) and he had no idea what I was talking about. Phineas and Ferb is one of the most well known TV shows Disney ever made, but nobody here has heard of it. Interestingly, an ALT from Puerto Rico (technically a US territory but key point here is the dominant language is Spanish) said a big part of him learning English was watching Phineas and Ferb. I met a ski resort worker here in Japan from India and he said Phineas and Ferb was really popular in India as well due to the Indian-American character in the show.
Some of Japan’s most famous anime of all time such as Dragon Ball, Naruto, and Pokemon even played on American TV but America’s best kids show ever made is pretty much unknown in Japan. Avatar the Last Airbender is popular in other countries as evidenced on the Olympic stage by this Dutch windsurfer giving himself the airbender arrow and these Mexican artistic swimmers have the moon and water spirits on their swimsuits. Luckily for me the art teacher at my school knew the show and drew an amazing Toph for my English board about the series but considering how no students read the board idk how much it did lol.
Now this could all just be because I’m a huge nerd but Khan Academy was basically the first online classroom system and look where we are now. People will also call someone who is a master of anything an (object)-bender in reference to the magic system in Avatar the Last Airbender. Many Americans who were children within Phineas and Ferb’s 8 year run know the name of the plastic bit on the end of a shoelace is called an “aglet” because there was a song about it in the show. Thanks to the author Rick Riordan people started to guess the correct origin of my name (mythology), because his books were just that popular with kids in my generation. What media is so popular these days a whole generation learns something? Maybe I need to go ask a child?
My rant here is extremely American media focused but I am also curious what were huge media movements in other countries, like what fantastic media am I missing? The point here is more I feel like we lost that sort of “book club” aspect of life that I feel like people had back in the 2000’s and 2010’s because media was more public and less specific. Don’t get me wrong I love social media, but now I am wondering what we lost along the way.
My apologies for the long response and existential crisis, I totally thought about this the whole 6 hour drive back home today (when I wasn’t listening to Freakonomics podcasts that is) lol. I feel like I watched a Hank Green video about this recently but cannot find it. If I do, I will link it because he explains this stuff better than me.
I’m definitely nowhere near the level of your friend and probably will not ever get to that level, but people do realize I understand more than they think. For example, every time I needed to sign something or hear an announcement other teachers used to grab an English teacher to translate. I started responding before the teachers could translate or if the English teacher was tasked with telling me, I would ask to be handed the print out because my reading is better than my listening. People tend to think “Japanese is such a hard language so foreigners can’t read it and can only speak,” so they were completely missing what is actually my strongest skill, meaning they severely underestimated what I can manage on my own. The English teacher noticed this pretty quickly and started telling people “just ask her!” and not coming as translator, which resulted in my coworkers realizing I can in fact understand them and all the things I need to sign at work.
90s kid here. I don’t think that’s entirely true. There’s still shows and movies that it feels like everyone watches in the same way that we did with broadcast TV. Once cable came around, there was enough original programming that you weren’t guaranteed to have seen everything. And if you missed it, you wouldn’t be able to see it again until reruns. Maybe it was different when there were 4 channels, but the time when everyone watched all the same TV shows is at least 3 generations ago now.
Even now things break through and still become an everyone has seen thus. Like Kpop Demon Hunters is approaching that level these days, even though it’s a kids movie a lot of people I know (even without kids) have seen it.
If you ever go to YouTube when you’re not signed in and see what it thinks the average person wants.. that was the vibe of shows that “everyone” watched. It meant very little diversity, lots of dumbed down contents, and very tropey story telling. I would much rather have my hyper specific media than go back to the days when a lot of what you watched wasn’t actually that good, it was just what was on.
411 reviews and 14 lessons
appeased the owl
practiced with WebGestalt and DAVID
The 4th was mostly spent doing some last minute shopping and driving home (and threatening to kidnap Mr. Engineer from his bosses), so not much studying got done. I didn’t even appease the owl, oh no! However I did make it home in time for English club, which probably isn’t the kids playing games after school you are imagining because the average age is in fact 73. Americans especially don’t spend much time with the elderly so this has definitely been a learning experience for me. What I do have to say is many of the elderly are just as competitive as my junior high kids and will say even more outrageous things because they have stopped caring what others think lol. One of my favorites was when I gave them a dice activity to ask who what where when why how questions and the crazy questions/answers started rolling in.
“How old are you?” “Do you have a gun?” “How many cars do you have?” “Five, so two less than before!” “How many days are in a week?” “Eight.” “What beer do you like?”
(the beer thing is also kind of a meme at this point because I put beer as an option into every game we have that needs nouns/objects. Can’t do this with the kiddos obviously but it is funny af with adults)
Didn’t have many classes today so decided to knock out all the reviews I have.
Only to be greeted with this when I went back to the dashboard.
Zero zero really is a rare thing for me these days.
Today the big excitement at work is they are cutting down a ginko tree in the parking lot. I asked a coworker if they were cutting down one tree or multiple and he said 「いっちょう」 at which point I asked why tree isn’t 一本, and he said it is, like the evergreen trees are 一本, but alas the tree we cut down is still いっちょう. From what I could gather this is because of the type of tree/because it is a wider tree. He said sakura trees are ちょう but this is a ginko tree so maybe sakura and ginko trees are ちょう and other trees are 本? The number of different ways you need to count stuff in this language is lowkey absurd hahaha.
My grad school entrance exam is TOMORROW!!! AAAAAHHHHH!!!
Like it is literally an English test so not particularly worried about that, but the oral exam has me worried. Pretty sure it will be with the professor, who I met before. I did lowkey spectacularly fail the test setup question of his lab specific test practice exam but hopefully I can manage this time around and he is feeling generous? He told me 「この際ですしあなたの本気を見せつけてください」and I’m not sure if this is encouraging or anxiety inducing lol.
I feel bad for all the other students who are going to show up for the entrance exam they probably studied very hard for and will be all “oh what school do you go to?” and all my response will be is “uh, actually I teach English…” The irony is not lost on me lol. Understandably I have a huge advantage but am not the best student so I hope all the other students get the results they deserve and hope I pass despite my lax approach to studying.
As I sit at work I hear 「熊目撃情報」over and over again as bears are spotted around the city (well, obviously “city” considering the number of bear sightings). Thankfully I have yet to see a bear with my own eyeballs here but have had a lot of bear sightings in my settlement as well as a bear spotted on the school security cameras. This spring I also definitely found some bear poop on school grounds but I didn’t want to get forbidden from taking my lunch break walks like is currently the case so I just kept my mouth shut and went with whatever the official school rules were, which yes at times banned me from walking. When a place has too many bear sightings they call the hunters and set a bear trap, then when the bear is caught the hunters “take care of it” and, incidentally, some people from English club cut up the bear and distribute it to whichever settlement is closest. Because of this I have eaten bear before, but bear meat isn’t a staple anymore. If you ever want to start a fight in English club though, just ask what the best cooking method for bear is and everyone will fight about what way is best.
Literally as I was writing this a coworker told me that a bear ate someone’s dog last night 
. やばー. Like I have heard of people getting eaten by bears but this is a first time for a dog. A bear also broke into the house of someone in the city recently. Upon hearing this, my coworkers told me “if you hear knocking at night, don’t open the door” like damn you don’t need to tell me twice!
Made it to zero zero, but at what cost…
Guess I can do more reviews after my test (and collecting 御朱印) tomorrow.
EDIT: I would also like to say I am extremely honored to be given a shoutout in the GolyBidoof level 60 post . I hope you guys like my ramblings while I try to figure out what to do with my life.
いっちょうのいちょう? It fits nicely sound-wise
Good luck with your exam!
It’s also entirely possible I misunderstood his answer, but I did ask how many so hopefully I’m not just imagining things lol.
Thank you, I am more nervous than expected, clearly (for reference, it is past 2am JST right now lol).
wait WHAT xdddd
I’m still a little behind this study log, but this is a crazy amount of reviews to be done, even if it’s across two days xddd
damn that’s always the language that gives me the most difficulties frfr
what if they invent another tense in english to keep track of and it goes something like “it would have had been doned” or something and we both didn’t study for it
Good luck on the grad school exam! ^^
if you stay consistent with the SRSing, it should even out with time, but the catching up part is dreadful and one of the reasons i’m really scared of stopping at any time
who needs sleep anyway
i definitely do enjoy them and im trying to poke and encourage other people to share theirs as well, its like a new manga chapter that drops every day im telling you
Not only is it in one day, but across one work day. Can get an incredible amount done when bored out of your skull at a desk for 6 hours XD. I think my max in one day is over 600.
It was less of an “English test” and more of a reading comprehension test. The exam was two science news articles then three questions about each one. Reading two pages of science news in a second language would definitely be hard, but English is my first language and I already spend 4 years studying science at the college level so I breezed through it. In total I think I read each passage 5 times. I also filled every bit of space available for the writing questions. Obviously an English teacher isn’t going to struggle on an English test, but because of this I had to make sure to 100% get everything right, as I tend to miss small details. Also with the test only being 7 questions, every question counts for a lot.
My other struggle with English these days is that the only English I use is either reading out of a textbook or with friends, so my English has gotten incredibly slangy. In an attempt to improve my English clarity I have read 20 books so far this year, but I definitely had to watch my wording on the essay question.
It’s been insane like this for over a year so…idk. My friend who already completed level 60 and passed N1 told me to “make sure to do 100 reviews a day,” but my daily average is 234 reviews a day…
Essentially, language is not my strong suit and I have to REALLY try to get it into my brain. That plus a couple long breaks, blasting through the lower levels really fast, and often skipping weekend reviews got me into this. I just appreciate always having something to do at work now lol.
not to make this a suffering olympics but yeah, been there, done that
hope you’re holding out in there ^^
Best of luck! I’m a hardcore lurker in logs, but you’ve got this!
4 Lessons and 118 Reviews
Appeased the owl
10 pages of Harry Potter
Grad school entrance exam
It was an early morning since I had to get to the university in time for the test. Originally the plan was to drive down the night before but temperatures have dropped significantly lately and I risked being unable to sleep due to the cold so sleeping at home and getting up early seemed like the best option. Hitting the road by 7:15am is not my favorite and despite coffee I was still so sleepy 
. Luckily for me this legendary song came on over my new and improved speakers. Rocking out in your car to this legendary song at 7:20am is definitely a mood, but hopefully none of my coworkers saw me. I did see a couple of them commuting to work actually lol.
Today was my entrance exam. The questions were harder than the practice test (didn’t tell you where to look in the reading section) but less questions, only 7 questions total. It would have been pretty hard for me if it was a second language but considering I already have a 4 year degree in science from an English speaking country I breezed right through but edited all my writing hard. Props to all the other students in my room with their suits and dictionaries, I hope they did well. Because I was in total JLPT mode I brought a bunch of pencils and managed to knock a couple off my desk toward the end of the test which was embarrassing lol. One of the proctors picked one up for me but one was still lost somewhere down there and the girl in front of me gave it to me at the end of the test. She was so cute and sweet omg . We spoke to each other in Japanese, which should be both of our second languages, so that’s always fun (from my understanding I was in the foreigners room). Like of course we both know English considering we just took an English test but most likely she lives in Japan too so it is the usual speaking language. Getting to the point in my Japanese where it becomes the common language between me and someone else is so cool. I saw my international student friends doing that all the time with English so it is really fun when I get a chance to do it too. It is next level hard but it’s important I think.
I was so worried about the oral exam but my professor decided to not even give me a test! Previously he gave me a past exam for practice so I did all the analysis and sent it to him, and despite getting one of the questions very wrong he decided it was good enough to count. It was a surprise, but a good surprise. Because I was nervous I arrived at his lab early and just sat by the vending machines in my suit reading a book. He was surprised to see me hahahaha.
It has been very easy to get accepted into this lab which is kinda surprising to me. The professor has basically been recruiting me more than testing me. He has a lot of international students in his lab, which is one of the reasons I emailed him in the first place, but he is being way more lenient with me I feel. Turns out he had 30 students ask to join his lab this year, so it’s more competitive than I thought. I will be one of five new students in the spring, but the only student not from Asia. Actually, I will be the first North American in the history of the department. This really surprises me. When I was in college I remember finding a lot of good research papers out of Japan, especially in biochemistry (which is what I studied). When I asked some of my friends they said of course I should go to an American grad school because they are the best in the world and well known. Even a random public university like the one I attended would be more accepted than a better school in another country, simply because it is an American university. It seems to be that unless you go to one of the big well known schools like Tokyo University, a degree from Japan is considered useless/untrustworthy. However, I take issue with this. Research is research right? If I publish a paper in the US or Japan, it’s the same journals checking my paper to decide if it is worth publishing right? Do real life professionals refuse to cite papers from non-American universities? I don’t think so. Many Americans go to grad school in Europe because it is cheaper and fun, do people make comments about their degrees being untrustworthy? Kinda smells like colonialism/racism to me. If it is a good lab that does good research, what difference should it make what country it is in? I actually found this lab from reading research papers from more well known schools, so clearly even not famous schools can do good research. Anywho, rant over.
Because I finished early, was in the city, and already took the whole day off work, I decided to “hit the town” a little and collect some 御朱印(ごしゅいん). What is 御朱印 you ask? It is a shrine signature, however temples have them too and you can even get 御城印(ごじょういん） from castles or 御翔印（ごしょういん） from airports. Anyway, I digress, essentially I got bubble tea then went about collecting them from shrines that are usually hard to get to. The bottom row I got after the test, the top row are from this weekend. These are just two of the 15 books I have, so I have close to 300 御朱印 in total.
Pictures of various shrines with beautiful fall colors
Driving around here is so pretty I wish more people knew that
This shrine has statues you can make wishes on and how easily the statue turns tells you how easily your wish will come true. I wished for my feet to stop hurting. The statue was incredibly hard to turn, the hardest of any time I’ve tried looooool. Their sign also cracks me up.
This is all I managed after getting home, which I am actually shocked by. I expected to rage quit after like 30 but I guess today’s words were pretty understandable. Did rage quit, though lol.
i know that now thank you 
a-absolutely zero pressure, nothing to worry about ^^
i think there is a culture/language barrier and there absolutely is a trend of reports being respected more if they come from american universities than the foreign one, but everything depends on the subject of the research:
xdddgood luck on your temple stamp card, cuuute C:
channeling energy to get your feet to stop hurting then~~~
