Oh, please don’t make the posts shorter!
Just keep them just right depending on the variety of discoveries.
Especially didn’t scrimp on PAX East
because
I’ve never been to one
And my video gaming friends
always love a good PAX conference
geez where do you GET your ENERGY from?!
i stg ur my #1 fan, i shall remember this praise forever (until i forget, which might be tomorrow) 
I think mostly listening to my body, whenever I’m getting really tired and I just can’t move on, I look for a park, or a cafe, or a bench, and I sit down and I do the activity of observing other people or observing my phone (xddd) until it feels like it’s time to move on.
But I’m also additionally influenced by the fact that even when I’m in Germany, I work out every single day and I might be addicted to the physical activity at this point, which is both a blessing and a curse here in America, because, warning, negative rant…
So okay, I do burn this 3000+ calories a day with physical activity, when I do that in Europe, I just allow for myself to eat and drink anything, I stuff myself with anything that I can find.
So yesterday I took a large signature coffee from Dunkin. I didn’t even finish it, but even then, it was a HUGE MISTAKE.
I woke up today in the state of something similar to sugar-crash, sugar-coma, that weird state, where both my mind was hazy and my body felt incredibly swollen, and it took me a bit to connect the dots xddd
I decided to have a lighter breakfast tomorrow because I needed to detox myself and I still felt as if I’ve eaten too much. So I went to a deli, bought the following set of items:
(POLAND MENTIONED BTW!)
I assumed they would serve the role of a light breakfast really well, until I flipped the bottle of LEMONADE around, and then I had a moment of clarity and realized that everything in the picture above, the “light breakfast”, is most likely something around 250% daily recommended amount of sugars for adults. What the frick.
…as soon as I saw the label, I took a single sip of the lemonade, ate the fruits and packed the rest of the things to my backpack, and I still am not done with those four items, because I know that it’d just extend my sugar-crash and make it even more potent.
It doesn’t help that my stomach feels swollen all the time, I imagine it’s leftover sugars from the 5000kcal diet I’m consuming without even realizing, so later today I attempted to do another Detox…
I went to Nando’s and had half a chicken, a huge amount of protein as opposed to sugars, and went with the spiciest sauces they had to purge my tongue of the salty and sugary flavors that are everywhere. And it did work, as in, the sugarity/saltiness was replaced with spicyness, but I’m like 90% sure there was too much salt and too much sugar in the hot sauces anyway, because eating them still made me feel really sweet and really salty. WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THE FOOD HERE FOR FRICKS SAKE XDDDD
Although food here already is really expensive, I really have a feeling that unless you go for the “organic” or “healthy” label, food here both tastes and has nutritional values that feel below the cheap food in Europe, and it’s something I simply can’t understand and I have 5 more days to keep listening to my body to attempt to understand what it needs
My idea for tomorrow after 16 hours of intermittent fasting im introducing only because i’m so swollen, is to find an ORGANIC, HEALTHY breakfast place here in DC and attempt to find a breakfast meal with a decent amount of fiber, maybe egg benedict or avocado toast (but healthy) or something? I’m sure I’ll figure something out xddd
HOW DO YOU MANAGE YOUR DIETS IN AMERICA??? It’s a genuine question xdd
WUUUU IM LEVEL 35 ON WANIKANI :DDDDD
good pace good pace me likey C:
Ahh, finished the story about The Neighbor, I don’t imagine that Satori Reader would have R-rated stories, so I was just a tiny bit disappointed by how wholesome it ended out, I was already preparing myself for a slasher story or something xddd
But nah, it was sweet C:
Bunpro is constantly ramping up the difficulty, only two days of lessons to do and then I’m bootcamping honorifics.
Also, tomorrow on WaniKani will be really hard, ehhhh. Hoping for some good burns though!
Life: BALTIMORE!
The city of, hmm, you know what, prior to coming to Maryland, I didn’t even know what Baltimore was known for. And I still don’t think I know xdd
It definitely looks industrial and maybe slowly leaning corporate in the newer sections, I can see they’re trying to redevelop it to look HIP and MODERN, though I’ve heard that it comes with mixed results ^^
Today oscillated between rain showers and really nice sunshine, so have a mixture of both sun and cloudiness in the pics. When the good weather came, used it both to shoot pics with my phone and with my poor quality camera around the city, got less than half of the pics to go!
So I was looking through Google Maps when I suddenly found…
…omg xddd
Of course I needed to see it, but the results have been… disappointing? I was hoping for a little more from that place, they didn’t even have a plaque, they didn’t have a monument or anything, I feel ripped off xdddd
Here’s the greatest street in America, seems like!
After that, my energy levels were wonky, so I did one of my sedimentary bucket list goals of coming to America, going to see a movie in an American cinema xddd
The biggest difference compared to the European experience was the reclining (and warmed up) seats, and also that there was significantly more (100% more!!!) Michael B. Jordan on the screen than in the movies I saw in Europe, I saw Sinners xdd ^^
Also, obligatory library plug, they have such a pretty library in Baltimore C:
I think Baltimore didn’t end up clicking with me, I went uptown and downtown and uptown in the downtown a few times and it didn’t resonate with me as strongly as any of the previous cities, but hey, I might or might not be more picky, I might or might not be more tired ^^
Then, yeah, took Amtrak to Washington and the metro station here looks super cool, it’s like sci-fi-ish, cyberpunkish, very well maintained either way, I’m a fan ^^
All right, DC tomorrow, tomorrow’s update might be from Boston, final day of sightseeing towards the south on this trip, let’s go~~~
See you tomorrow! C:
unfortunately the genuine answer is that we live in a black hole that you’ve unfortunately stumbled into by asking this question. easiest response is that if you have lots of money then you can pay for healthy food options. or can have access to wider-ranging better food options by paying lots of money to live in an expensive city. and if you don’t have money then you simply suffer with that horrible sugary feeling until you develop some sort of debilitating disease and die. you think you’re experiencing sugary/unhealthy food in the richer areas like Boston, DC, Baltimore? imagine how much worse it is in somewhere like rural Nebraska 
the cheapest methods of producing food, using fillers/sugar/oils, are harmful to our bodies, but the food industry gets to make big profits if they do things that way. and then healthcare makes more of a profit by charging us extreme amounts of money when we’re sick, so it’s in healthcare’s favor that our food is bad for us and hurts our bodies. should the government step in? well, they probably would if those profits didn’t also funnel to our representatives. so the food industry, healthcare system, and government all handshake-emoji each other because the profit margin across the board is insanely high. america is a third-world country shrouded by a layer of shiny plastic, etc 
anyway, for my diet i like to eat tofu and sometimes i skip meals
I actually bought and ate an entire bag of pure sugar in the form of Cotton Candy at the circus tonight
And then your sugar rant :3
I do consume more sugar than I ought to
But mostly, we cook our own food and don’t add much sugar or salt
It’s actually a little surprising to me to see your body’s reaction to the foods being so extreme from many of your calories being from straight sugar even though you regularly blast through so many calories daily. The sugar substitutes get me, too. Bleah!.. I’ll take it unsweetened, please!
But you’ve certainly hit on the crux of a huge cycle of interconnected problems in the US.
So perceptive!
I hope you didn’t actually flash any residents the finger…I hear you can get ushered to the border and kicked out for such things these days
Sounds like Baltimore is the same as St. Louis at the moment…a perfectly good, once thriving city that got abandoned by the upper and middle classes
Also, I had to look up what the AL meant on the street sign… It’s “Scrabble Alley”!
A bit late, but I’m here regardless!
Languages: Huff, tough day on WaniKani. Luckikly, that was a ton of burns, so that part went smooth, but because of the current trip, I’m not focusing much on the words that are new lessons, so the burns and englighteneds went really fast, Apprentice 3->4, not so much xddd
Some of the words don’t really stick without context, that’s something that should make me consider consuming more native level content, but it shall not be today 
Bunpro: tomorrow finishing the N4 grammar, I’ll hang out in the honorific limbo for a bit because >:[[[[
I might give myself something like 2 weeks, similar to the last time, to lower the amount of ghosts that would be coming my way and allow myself to fail if i don’t get things immediately.
Satori Reader: 三途の川, feels meandering and uses a few interesting grammatical constructions, but today didn’t really feel like engaging in Japanese fiction much, so I’ll wait for a bit longer.
Xenoblade X: I’ve taken the training wheels off (finished the campaign I still remembered in English) and now I’m in a completely uncharted territory, I understand the context from messages, but the details about the mythology behind science developments are just flying over my head. I still feel pretty good about continuing the game in German/Japanese though, and there was one cool post-game set piece already, so there’s hoping ^^
Also:
THAT WAS EXACTLY ME WITH XENOBLADE X POST-GAME STUFF, GRRR
I WENT SO LONG UNSPOILED AND THEN I JUST GOT SPOILED 
But still, there’s gotta be more than one plot twist to the game, so we’re still going strong ^^
Life: Washington DC! What a day trip, lots of thinking material definitely.
I do realize that going through different American cities, even though two of my favorite things to be seeing here are the libraries and Chinatowns, I’ve never shown pictures of a Chinatown, and Washington doesn’t have the biggest one, but it does have a pretty one, so catch some pics C:
I went to a kaiten sushi today, very much in the spirit of the one I’ve gone to in Tokyo, though the prices were a bit higher ^^
I decided to treat myself though and had all sorts of different flavors and ingredients, so here’s some things I liked:
They really tried to make it cutesy and personify different things, like:
Also, they lied to me, where is the Christmas tree???
And I didn’t have a dream sorry I slept too sound tonight but if any of you had a dream then we can always make some space for you please there you go C:
But this is enough light topics for today, because I went to DC to also learn something about politics and about myself, so in case you’re allergic to leftist politics rants, from this point on, this post is becoming heavily political, feel free to tell me how cute the robot is and see you back tomorrow C:
Aaaanyway. xdddd
Washington is the city where politics are made, and of course I knew about this, and I really wanted to participate in its politics. I was really lucky to have encountered a march within like five minutes of leaving my hotel ^^
Admittedly though, it wasn’t very big, but for the Palestinian cause.
The people on megaphones were able to summon the senator out of his office, they handed him a leaflet and started repeating “thank you senator” on the megaphone, which would be fairly wholesome, if not for the fact that the messages here are a little less “end genocide” and a little more… other sorts of call-to-actiony xdddd
I tried hiding the angles of the flags that were a bit more controversial, so the causes are still palatable ^^
I have not encountered much activism pro-Ukraine, but there was this flag at least
And right in front of the White House, there was this guy advocating for every cause at the same time xddd
…but I realized that when you become an activist for this many causes, eventually you will stumble upon one that might be controversial or unpopular and it’ll leave a sour taste in people’s mouths.
The one the guy personally lost me with was the anti-vaxx part, where it’s a matter where a person I know suffered long covid because somebody not vaccinated spread the virus on them, and it’s like, ehhh, come on. Freedom, heck yeah.
I’m a politician, an elected official, with another election for the Works Council coming next week. There’s a really good chance I’m winning another term for the seat in the Council in the elections, so of course I was looking for inspiration, and what to believe in and so on.
That definitely I’m aware of, but hearing it from you helped me to add two and two together and understand why there are so many posters saying stuff like “you can keep living with diabetes” or posters with geriatric surgery ads, oh well.
If I’m supposed to be tight about politics, and not become an activist that misses the mark by being into everything, I think I have a good idea of a few politics ideas I would like to focus on, I don’t know if this forum is the right place to meander about them though ^^
But definitely, climate justice, ceasefireS now, trans rights, regulate generative AI, strengthen labor law protections ^^
The most popular blend of “progressive” politics in the US is being a liberal, which is a movement I found to be significantly flawed and I don’t really get behind a lot of their ideas.
The problem is that, due to the overton window being so narrow, between democrats and republicans, some of my ideas are not widely represented in the political space, and there’s no better representation of that than The National Museum of American History. I could see it try very strongly to cater towards liberals and most of the ideas seemed very pro-democracy, very liberal… but what is this???
That reminds me of a few other people I admire that don’t necessarily fit into the overton window, and here’s one example, Judy Garland.
Another two that didn’t have it as simple are Greta Thunberg (and I’m even more behind her now that media dropped her and they don’t talk about her anymore!) and Zooey Zephyr, my idea of a politician I would like to become ^^
In front of the White House, there was a group of people holding a poster that I didn’t take a photo of, but it had “Biden forgot about us” on it, and then Biden was striked out and Trump was written over it.
I decided to stop and chat with them, and they’ve told me that their cause related to migration was not tackled by either Biden or Trump, and that the current Gazan conflict is another example of no matter who you vote for, everyone is in favor of the wrong thing. Overton window once again.
That leaves people disheartened, and makes them distrust the system. Germany was lucky enough that the election the last time seemed still pretty democratic - conservative party took over, yes, but it took over on democratic rules and it needed to establish a big tent coalition in order to maintain it, so progressive issues will still be discussed.
I want for people to trust in the system, but the current system fails them, and, ehh, I wish we were living in a different world ^^
Picrel xdddddd
The activist guy from above had some high school kids from what seemed to be an unsupervised school trip gather in a circle around him and start talking to him, and a few of them were wearing The Red Hats, and the guy was really calm and was trying to entertain their ideas and bend them, but I turned my attention towards the other half. It was mostly girls, trans and non-binary people from the same excursion, and I tried to explain some of the ideas the guy was fighting for for them, I made a short intro about myself and it seemed to me as if a thread of connection was built between me and them??? Especially after dropping my LGBT flags xddd
Two things. I really want to grow up to become an auntie that can connect with Gen Alpha kids and go like “skibidi bapbapbap yesyes” and nobody can tell anything is off. Second, I have a feeling I have it much easier to talk to women, trans and non-binary people than to lads: so most of the time I don’t even try.
It’s alienating, but I don’t want to waste my energy on people that aren’t even interested in entertaining with my ideas, so I don’t entertain with them… actively causing the political divide to grow even wider and wider. This is a structural problem I’m contributing to, that will become worse with time.
But I was really happy to be able to educate people on politics today, and for them to be genuinely interested in the causes I was in, I told them about Europe, war in Ukraine, war in Gaza, manosphere, and left them with a few resources, so they could look up more about it ^^
And so do I. I’ve been stuck for the longest time not knowing where my life could take me, and what other options do I have for myself. Looking at all of the amazing buildings though, I get reminded of the fact that I actually wouldn’t mind just being associated with something like the European Commission, as either a software engineer or just, a secretary, a notekeeper, a creator of social programs, building possibilities for people to spread out their wings and to build a system people would want to be a part of. It’d be so cool to give back to the EU!
I know I most likely won’t act on that, but knowing that there is an idea for a job I don’t hate in my head made me feel warm and cozy, even though it most likely is a delusion regardless. 2035. ^^
So I’m in Boston now and eee, it’s 2:20 in the morning xddd
I’m meeting my ex-colleague turned friend tomorrow in a restaurant, she became a waitress in Yume wo Katare as she’s trying to spin her own business, so I’ll try to chat her for a bit and rant about my East Coast tour for a bit ^^
For now though, SLEEP and I’ll give yall a report from PAX EAST tomorrow C:
Time + cooking from raw ingredients
-OR- as @taiyousea said money for higher quality
But even cooking from fresh when I go back it’s so hard, even health conscious family members buy so much junk or want to eat out 'as an exception ’ all the time and I’m like, don’t you read the ingredients on what you put in your bodies???
And omg when will humanity learn food is not just about calories in / calories out. This idea is poison. Even if you’re burning it all, eating loads of added sugar is terrible. Skinny people get diabetes at the same rate in America as overweight people.
Whew, it’s the Far From Home Arc day you’ve all been waiting for… the day of…
me finishing N4 on Bunpro, yay me 
Now it’s time to keep getting myself to fail honorifics questions over and over again xdddd
Will restart with N2 in a while ^^
WaniKani: realized that I’m positioned not to lose any pace at all when I return back to Germany, I will have one review block in the morning and not in the evening, but then the timing despite the changes to the timezone will be perfectly back to before the trip, minus the one day I saved through flying over to Boston ^^
Sad that 疲 didn’t stick with me, I think it came back again, this time I forgot the reading, not the meaning, so it’s ひ; I keep forgetting it because I know this kanji mostly as 疲れちゃったよ〜~~ xddd
Bunpro: In addition to honorifics, at the end of N3 there were a few grammars that I only answered correctly because I knew what was being expected of me at a given time, but now that there are so many synonyms and some grammars that require precise answers to questions that sound imprecise in my head, I go like ”From such a perspective", 点から, and Bunpro is like “NOOO ITS ACTUALLY 点から考えると 
” and I go like “I know, ehhh, failing this one” xdd
I’m not very good at precision in any language, including English, including Polish, so as you might have noticed in my posts above, I make very simple mistakes in very simple phrasal verbs and idioms because I couldn’t be bothered to exert myself to say them correctly, I expect the reader to do the job for me, I’m sorry xddd
And that is a really big difficulty in me learning either German or Japanese, it’s time to switch to Spanish instead xdddd
Satori Reader: 三途 GOOD xddd
I read double the amount of stories today because I was like “oh shoot, stuff is going down”, but that’s probably another not R-rated story that will end up with a happy end, so please, before that one comes, add another plot twist to it so that I can at least go like 
as I listen to it xddd
Life: PAX EAST YAAAY
I imagine that this is the one everyone was waiting for ^^
I got the two-day badges with a lanyard, it’s nice that they still have physical cards, I should have mine from MCM London somewhere still ^^
In Germany they mostly do wrist straps instead.
When I went down the escalator to the main hall, I was like, WHOAAA, SO MANY PEOPLE
But where PAX is relatively small in absolute size, it makes up for it with the brand recognition. I’m surrounded with American nerd culture everywhere, be it Bluesky or Discords and so on, and people from the internet that are in America only were there in person.
Stuff like Genki (the accessory manufacturer for handhelds), Limited Run (publishers of games with a limited time contract for the publishing rights, so when the stock is gone, it’s gone forever), Fangamer (one of my absolute favorite merchandising platforms out there, they have a ton of great partners, like developers of Undertale, Hollow Knight, Balatro, Katamari, Persona games, etc. etc.).
Seeing them all come in person and being able to make a jab at the Genki team about them being sued by Nintendo for leaking the Switch 2 models before the official release, bash Limited Run games for the fact that the games I wanted to buy from them were being sold out before I was able to preorder and I can never get them again was fun in a way ^^
Despite it all though, I bought the physical copy of In Stars And Time from LRG:
I also told them about people making Pokemon ROM hacks into actual GBA cartridges, and, yup, of course they knew xdd
Also, me and my friends have been extremely brainrotten by Balatro last year, so of course I had to buy a deck of cards from Balatro from Fangamer, I wish they made more jokers, but that can be a creative challenge for me: bust out the photo printer and start printing my own custom joker cards and then simulate all the calculations in my head ^^
In terms of cosplay, I was completely flabbergasted by the fact there was absolutely zero anime cosplay at this convention at all. I was literally the only person wearing a Haruhi cosplay.
A few people recognized the anime, a few people took a picture of me, and I tried to do some theater kid sassy poses, but luckily, I managed to see a few game cosplayers at least, here’s Viscera Cleanup Detail for example (amazing cosplay btw!)
In terms of anime things though, they had a few arts to buy in glass, a few pins, and those mouse mats from Frieren, p cool???
The specialty of PAX East definitely is pins though, and there have been a metric friiiiiiickton of pins everywhere.
Oh and they had a zone where you could frick over your friends in board games, I unironically lying to my friends and I unironically love being lied to, I played some werewolf with randoms 
xddd
Also, soundtracks, they had a toooon of vinyls around the hall, the ratio of vinyls to CDs was something like 20:1, but I only have a CD player and not a record player, so sadly, neither of those is flying to Berlin with me
, the book club starts tomorrow and I definitely do not feel ready yet Somehow one of the companies making vinyls was able to get a trade deal going with Atlus to press a vinyl with Persona 1+2 soundtracks, and I was like “DOES ATLUS EVEN RECOGNIZE THOSE GAMES EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE? WTF???”
Prices for some of the retro games are absolutely wild.
I didn’t get any clothes yet, but, you know, the Bidoof ones sound ever tempting xdd
And yeah, smashed some randoms in Tekken 8 with the President of the Republic of Poland, she’s such an adorable dork C:
Also, board games, I didn’t feel like them today though, but there are a few stalls selling them:
An area to chill down and play wholesome games in quiet without other people:
And, yyy, scientific dissertations of Discord brainrot modes of establishing relationships with people xddd
It’s so cute how it tries to quantify unquantifiable things and uses the least funny memes to convey the message xdd
And afterwards, as promised, went to Yume wo Katare to meet up with the waitress for a shio ramen, and let me tell you, IT WAS 塩 AS FRICK xdddd
Since @nerdqueen666 didn’t recommend it to me in the Boston recommendations, sending one back at you, say hi to the waitress, she’s really good at Japanese as well, might say a few words to her ^^
Something something, American food rant ^^
But the whole aura around the ramen place was really sweet, they had exactly one position in the menu and the whole schtick was to ask people to overshare their dreams in the hopes that they come true.
So this is the part of the post where I get overshary: I’m not a dreamer. I’m scared of dreams, because what if they come true, and I’ll have to deal with the consequences of “oh frick, I wished for this” xdd
I also suffer from a bad case of things-simply-always-work-out-in-the-end-for-me-regardless, which makes it hard to Dream, because in order to do so, you have to fail and try again and fail and try again and fa…you know the drill. But I told them of the dream of working for inclusion in EU administration/politics one day when I grow up, and you know, I’d be incredibly scared if the dream were to come true: hit to a salary, hit to my working hours, hit to my career prospects…
…but wouldn’t it just be cool though. 
Now I’ll proceed to do absolutely nothing to make that dream come true, Mr. Jesus, do what you must ^^
Speaking of Mr. Jesus, there’s an American pope now, congrats to Leo XIV ^^
So, that’s the PAX East update Day 1! I’ll be there back tomorrow, but holy heck, the temperature is set to decrease by 12 Celsius (~20F) tomorrow alone, tHATS ALREADY A COAT TERRITORY AND I DIDNT BRING ANY COATS TO AMERICA xddd
I’ll freeze tomorrow yall C:
Let me know what are your areas you’re more interested or curious about and I might dig into them more tomorrow~
Take care and see you tomorrow!
Okay, a tablet of melatonin popped in, waking up in 7 hours from the moment of starting to write this log, let’s see when I start zoning off ^^
Also tomorrow’s post will be earlier than usual, we’re getting back to the European timezone from tomorrow on
I wonder how tired am I going to be ^^
Tomorrow’s lessons on WaniKani will be so funny, I won’t be able to do the reviews at a regular time, so I’ll only do something like 68 reviews and then hop off for the day ^^
Today’s reviews on WaniKani because I saw a couple of words that made me go "wait, I’ve seen this one before, I wonder what could it be… 詳細… maybe… しょうさい？？？ Burned.
…HUH??? xdd
So I’m already hitting burns on words that I’m not overly confident on, uh oh xddd
Bunpro: Yep, allowed to fail a few honorifics, a few more experts, going fine ^^
Satori Reader: There was a huge thematic whiplash in today’s stories for 三途 and I don’t know how I feel about it, I liked when the story was talking about the car accident, now it feels a little muted, but I’ll still be Satori Reading more tomorrow ^^
Fata Morgana: I adore this game, I found it really neat that I was able to understand the whole context behind the sentences on the screen, even though some of the words were wonky, but I know the really difficult vocabulary is only about to begin, so sscare xddd
Life: PAX EAST DAY 2! But before on that, I went to the Chinatown in Boston, wanted to see it at least once before I left ^^
And hey, they’re Taiwan themed, look at how cute the flag hanging from the gate was C:
I had some Taiwanese pastry and a bubble tea: I still haven’t found a close match to the jasmine tea that I like to get in Berlin, but this was really nice to eat, would recommend C:
Today’s weather was completely wacky, Very Quiet Hill 2 Remastered or something ^^
Right after taking this picture, it started POURING and it didn’t let go for the rest of the day. Actually, one of my USB cables doesn’t charge anymore, my phone is at 13% battery and it doesn’t want to charge with any phone because of moisture and my powerbank just shows a big fat 0% and does nothing, so there’s a bit of crisis management I’ll have to be doing tomorrow ^^
But I made it to PAX East, day 2!
Today I didn’t really want to do that much, because the convention is really small. I spoke to Dan Olson from Folding Ideas and thanked him for his videos, saw this cosplayer advertizing the best meme from the best MMO game out there (xddd)
And participated in a mini scavenger hunt at Genki booth to get this super cool Switch 2 themed cartridge holder that I definitely will be using much C:
I got a Steam key for Tunic from a gachapon, great game btw, might play it eventually xddd
And some glass duckies and an axolotl, how cute C:
I found THE EXACT SAME cosplayers as yesterday, today in Danganronpa outfits though ^^ xddd
One thing that stood out to me both yesterday and today was how little Japanese things there were at the convention, almost everything was NTSC English and the best you can count for in terms of imports were the Asian English games for the Switch:
Also, Demon Turf, some of my friends are involved in the development of that game, so I sat down and chatted with the lead developer, Fabraz, and also gave him one of the Taiwanese pastries because he was hungry and it was his birthday (xddddd)
I wanted to bail out from PAX earlier, but because of the heavy rainstorm, I stayed for as long as I could, but managed to make it to where my friend from yesterday was doing volunteering work preparing and handing out gyros as a volunteering activity at a Virgin Mary Orthodox church in Somerville C:
Today we finally had time to chat and her business is slowly taking over, I hope that we’ll stay in touch over Discord and she’s going to PAX tomorrow, so flooded her with the recommendations too C:
I’m really envious of the life path of less life security she’s chosen, even though life security is amazing, but ehhh xdd
Either way, another instax picture taken together, I’ll put it on my wardrobe when I get back to Berlin, aaand melatonin is starting to take over xddd
I’ll try to maintain long-distance friendship with her over Discord, but it’s always really awkward when you are friends IRL and then suddenly you have to start being online-only friends, so fingers crfossed 
Tomorrow, SECRET MYSTERIOUS LOCATION, it’s a plane layover I made long on purpose to go to the city and sightsee around, I haven’t revealed it yet, but it’s pretty thematically apt and will wrap up the Far From Home arc nicely ^^
Look forward to that one!
After the secret, mysterious location, I’m taking a plane to Berlin and I should have the whole Sunday to recover from the jetlag ^^
So that was my Boston and PAX East day #2! See you tomorrow yall ^^
Hehe that’s funny that it’s your favorite drink, Jasmine tea is an important part of the plot in the mystery book we are reading right now with the ABC! Makes me want to try it now!
Ambitious 
I think you might need a whole week to recover… But who knows, I could be wrong, you seem so full of energy all the time
Have a great trip back!!
So what you’re saying is… Bidoof is the 犯人?
I’ve also started drinking Jasmine Tea for the first time after reading this book 
Haha it has started a trend. Did you like it??
Maybe not as much as 嶌 but it’s really good! Only had bottled but it’s better than most of the cold vending machine-type 麦茶 and 緑茶 over here.
嶌 also drinks it from a bottle usually so you got the full experience, nice! You should post a pic over in the club
How was there a なんてBidoof T-shirtがありましたか?! squee!!!
That was surprising about the national Polish game booth. I thought PAX East was a huge game producer’s conference!
Absolutely totally SHOCKED that SO few participants cosplayed! *blink!*
I love how people can meet BFFs at such events. It’s surprising how often that actually translates to actual ongoing friendships/meetups…
I played Fata Morgana over an hour last night (only to finish getting through the game intro 
) so your Boston photo was a 気分 for me
I can’t wait to see your secret layover
I’m hoping it’s Reykjavik (I’ve never been, and need the quirky yet so so relevant Bidoof-写真)
When I was in Kinokuniya in New York, I wanted to grab myself something completely out of the left field that would interest me and wouldn’t be out of my level, and I found this book on the media literacy ^^
I bought it because I was curious in terms of what are the netiquette rules in Japan and where people post their things, but of course, with most of those purchases it’s hard to find time to read them, and by the time you want to read something in Japanese, you’ve already found something else instead.
Which is where this flight was great, I was able to open it and start reading it ^^
The structure of this book is composed out of three parts, a magazine-ish article on a specific topic, infographics explaining specific phenomena and a manga that exemplifies what people are going through, pics below C:
I find it really cool, though on the flight right next to me there was this pair of people that were talking really loud, and there was a woman with a resting flat, frustrated tone that was making me feel angry just listening to her, so I put on my noise-cancelling headphones and started reading The House in Fata Morgana instead xdd
I still have the longer flight to go, even though I’ll probably try to sleep over that, I’ll see how my energy levels fluctuate with learning Japanese on the other flight ^^
Life:
MONTRÉAL. Yeah, that’s the secret location xddd
I actually wanted to visit the city on the way to America, but changed my mind because of the story of [German tourists being detained into detention centers](German Tourists Deported From US for Not Booking Hotel - Newsweek on the immigration into the USA, Dublin has a pre-clearance deal with American TSA, so even if they were to turn me around in Dublin, well, I’d be in a civilized country instead, so that’s a win-win scenario. But I miss not having seen Reykjavik, so sighh ;___;
There’s this weird hazy idea of Canada in my head from early 2000s or something, maybe it never existed in the first place, but Turning Red taps into the exact same consciousness, so it must have come from somewhere ^^
That’s also part of the reason why my Study Log has a Canadian flag in it ^^
The idea that I had was a second-generation Asian experience of being in the most prosperous country and region at that time and knowing they have endless possibilities ahead of them in life, and the marriage of Canadian and Asian cultures under an organic umbrella of diversity. Well that past probably no longer exists, if it ever did, so I can only go like ahhhh ;_; <3 xd
I had the soundtrack of Professor Layton: Azran Legacy on my headphones the whole time which made me go like “Man, I miss when Canada.” even though I’ve never experienced Canada 20 years ago, it definitely did bring the idea of a closure to my mind ^^
Also, because of Layton, I found an archeological museum called Redpath there, that had an amazing giant Japanese Crab inside of it C:
And additionally, there is more French than English in some of the places in Montréal, in Paris, I was making fun of people only speaking French and not wanting to engage in English, even though they did, but here in Montréal I’m like “please speak French.”
I wonder if people from Quebéc have a similar level of cultural/linguistic trauma as Irish people in Ireland, French hasn’t died yet, but English is taking over so fast ;___;
Either way, I’m writing from an airplane right now and my reception of my mobile internet is so bad, I’m struggling to upload any pictures ;_;
So, see you tomorrow, and in the better timezone ^^
We’ll see if I can sleep in here, if not, I’ll be crying really loud ;___; xddd
I in fact didn’t manage to sleep well on the plane xddddd
I’m drifting in and out of consciousness, but no more zero days must be done!
Ironically I feel like the more I feel uncomfortable with Japanese readings, the better my German becomes, because I’m not just dismissing the word immediately, I try to infer its meanings, so, hey ^^
Today’s WaniKani was reeeeeeally tough, and in order to reset the clock to the European timezone, I’ll have to do reviews when I wake up, and then we’re done, so I’ll be halfway through level 35 in 9-10ish hours ^^
Life: That’s a wrap to the Far From Home Arc then, I only arrived at home at 1pm and immediately wrapped myself with a blanket and allowed to drift off ^^
When some of my energy built up, I took a bike to the city for some of my favorite bubble tea 
Though, because of the American food I’ve been eating for a while, it didn’t taste as good as it usually does: it has significantly less sugar than the American beverages and bubble teas
I noticed that my favorite drink here, Paulaner Spezi, only comes with 9g of sugar per can in the sugary version (as opposed to 60g of that lemonade lmao) xddd
I couldn’t stomach more food so I had some edamame for a dinner and then went back home and introverted myself away for like, 3 hours, until the reviews were to be done ^^
Here’s a coloring model I got myself when I was in Brookline:
And here’s some Balatro jokers I decided to print for myself:
Tomorrow, work and Japanese clases again, I’ll also try to find a photo place somewhere to develop my analog film from America, though it might take a while until it’s done ^^
So, Far From Home Arc, officially over, time to study some more Japanese/German ^^
See you tomorrow!
Welcome home !
Ah I was wondering how you were handling that risk, clever solution. Does that mean you did the immigration in Dublin and skipped that in the US?
That’s exactly it, you arrive in the US as if you have had a domestic flight already.
I had a bad TSA experience in the past where I didn’t have the emails proving when I’m leaving on me and I had them in the checked in baggage, and they wouldn’t let me go to the luggage pickup, so I was in a room with four guard officials each holding an assault rifle and trying to explain as many details to make up for that fact, so TSA is not my absolute favorite experience. But, the Dublin one was really smooth and would very much recommend it for people on the fence, as for traveling to America around now though..........
We back to the Japanese lessons! I missed the group and my teacher, though as homework we’ve gotten a 発表 to create for the next week, so I’m legitimately thinking where to stick it in the calendar not to overextend myself too much xddd
Today’s reading material in the lessons was about Japan’s new naming laws, pretty cool ^^
We did ことがある and はずがない grammars today and, unsurprisingly, I was told that I produce sentences too sloppily and it takes too long for me to come up with the proper grammar
I don’t intend to do much about it, but I’m addicted to the -ば and -て grammars for everything, so I probably need to find a few substitutes for them ^^
Life though:
Tomorrow is Semifinal 1, so I don’t expect myself to do much Japanese beyond the usual reviews + the new German classes, and to do the reviews today, I’ve paused in the middle of the second CD, so there’s still a chance I haven’t found the best song of the song contest. That being said though, both German and Polish songs this year are absolute bangers ^^
Aside from those two, I think I’m a fan of the Estonian one, how it plays off overdone accents (something something, Italian)
and also JJ is WILD for singing this one:
he won’t win because Nemo is too fresh on people’s minds, but <exhales> xddd
And I’m sure by tomorrow I’ll have another five frontrunners in the race, so, stay tuned!
My friends from Book Swap sent me over a poster of an open air Eurovision event in Berlin on Saturday, I’m pretty interested ^^
Either way, German C1.1 course tomorrow and I’ll see how I do!
See you tomorrow! C:
Good luck on your German test, Bidoofさん!
がんばってください!
