The last days, I have finally getting some reading in - read one chapter in like two days. Now I am already like 110 pages in, which seems insane. I still sometimes run into passages where I miss waaay to many words, but occasionally I will be able to read two pages without much of a problem, which is amazing. Hopefully I will be able to keep this up a bit better the coming week. Maybe I need to set up some fixed time for this, but I don’t know where to take that time from 
What I have entirely been neglecting for the last two weeks is grammar. I had been doing very little anyway, but I would like to finish my reviewing of Tae Kims. There are a couple of grammar points, for which I just want to remind myself of what the rule were. Then I probably gotta find some new grammar resource. I still have no idea what I want to use. I don’t want to add another SRS, so it won’t be bunpro, but I probably should use something with more practice. Most likely I would actually benefit a lot from classes, but that is just not possible right now. I have the occasional I-Talki lesson, but I just do conversation practice, because my speaking is terrible - I just never remember words and grammar. So I need to force myself to just use the language more. In that direction, obviously I also ignored writing practice and my monologuing sessions more often than not recently, so I will try to find a couple of minutes more regularly.
Otherwise I finally finished my last application on Friday, so now I just need to pray that I get selected for something
Very quick check-in - I was sick for most of the week, so not much happened at all. When I did manage to clear my reviews, I mainly dumped my accuracy, so gotta fix that now. Hoping everyone else had a more productive week!
Another quick drop in. I levelled up today, which surprised me, but I guess I have just been keeping up the 10 lessons, once I was not totally sick anymore.
About being sick - most of last week I was still quite down, so I had barely any energy to study, so just survival mode, WK and Anki basically. Starting monday I finally found some energy to do the entire variety of things (listening, reading, shadowing, etc.) again, but given that I am still very stressed with work I struggle to get consistency into it.
This stress also tanks my WK accuracy right now, I just squeeze review sessions into small time windows and am not as focused as I would like to be.
Not really much I can do about that for now, just get through some of the work I need to get done and then things will free up more!
Alright, time to give an update…
Recently, I have honestly been not too consistent with everything, as evident by the absolute lack of any posts here.
Life is still busy, while I expected to get into a slightly less stressful phase, it did absolutely not happen. To be fair, I did not stay at the office extremely late, but things are still stressful mentally. Which is why I have been looking a lot for mental outlets (sports, outings), however also ended up waaay to often just watching (not really even entertaining) videos or something like that. So dunno, revenge procrastination or something, lately even messing up my sleep schedule.
WK has been the absolute worst period recently, my accuracy dropping below 85% regularly, at which point the reviews build and the accuracy does not get better. I am just honestly not really focused when doing reviews/lessons, so that accuracy is a pretty easily explainable consquence.
Anki has been a similar story, but less extreme I believe. Since I do it before going to work, I am not that mentally distracted already. I don’t track accuracy there, but it has not been building to horrible extents, even though I added some more words.
Listening (and shadowing) was mostly consistent till this week. This week I did not do my regular walk home once, so this messed with the structure. I was out swimming, meeting people and whatever every evening. Before that I was feeling quite good about this though. I feel like I maybe need to finally make the jump to native content, but then it changes from something I can do with low concentration to something I need to be extremely concentrated on. If anyone has good strategies here, I’d be happy to listen
Reading was not as regular as I would wish, but I did do some progress. I think I just need to do it more
Speaking was blessed by a very lucky coincidence. I was at a language exchange event the week before last, where I actually ran into a japanese person. And since we got along great and she does not know any german yet, we ended up talking on Japanese a lot. And even met again, where I showed her the city and thus was able to speak japanese for an entire day. Honestly, speaking just needs practice and confidence now probably. But knowing I can talk for an entire day was a pretty big confidence boost
Writing was entirely neglected lately 
Grammar is still stuck a bit in Limbo. Since I finished Tae Kim, I have been reviewing some chapters, but probably need a new resource to force myself to confront myself with more I have actually been playing around with setting up a “teacher” in Gemini, which worked surprisingly well, so I want to try that a bit more. But also having a book I can just go to is probably necessary. I am thinking of getting Tobira and the Workbook (repetition to move things to active memory would be very relevant), but have not decided yet.
For now my main goal is to just be a bit more consistent with my habits again. The next weeks will likely still be stressful - a conference talk is upcoming and I need to finish some projects basically any way possible. I would like to just make sure that I do a bit of listening/reading/writing everyday, even if it’s just 5 minutes. I am managing this perfectly well with my sports etc., so I just need to do it I guess fixing my sleeping habits is the foundation, but then these things come up!
I will try to log a bit more regularly, I’ll see if I can find a suitable timeslot.
Wishing all of you a nice weekend!
Soo, in order to keep up with my good resolution to log a bit more regularly, some update regarding this weekend.
I was visiting my family for a family event, so I was kinda busy. Yesterday I spent most of the day just walking around town and picking up some things for friends. Honestly, since the weather was great, I was reminded again why I love this city so much. While I don’t plan on returning in the near future, there is certainly part of me that wants to go back
I had two very short japanese encounters actually, which was fun. I randomly heard two people talking japanese on the train and then complimented one guy on his outfit (also working towards my aspiration to become a bit more outgoing), though I quickly ran of afterwards 
. Later I stumbled upon a japanese supermarket, which I did not know existed, so I shortly talked to the cashier, though somehow I think she just realized midway through the payment process that I was talking japanese .
Apart from that, I did spend a little time reading yesterday and also went through most of my planned activities (only writing is still entirely off, will try that once I am back home).
Today was the family event, so I actually only managed Anki and some WK reviews. I don’t think I have the mental capacity to do anything else at 9pm now, so I will more likely just go to bed and do some more things during my train ride tomorrow.
So, now I am back to work and again pretty stressed
I have managed listening and shadowing again, which is nice, though reading has kinda fallen through. WK accuracy is still awful. Just now, I was starting a session, getting through ~40 reviews with 97% and then just failed like 5 reviews in a row. Way to crash my motivation .
I managed to find a used Tobira online, so I will (probably) be able to get that and see how I can slot that into my grammar practice. Probably will also try and get the workbook.
I have been thinking if I also want to add Kanji writing in this step, but honestly most likely that is not something I will consistently find time for, so maybe I should rather keep my focus on the things that are currently already falling through.
The last days followed pretty much the same pattern: I get my basic things done (Anki, WK, Listening, Shadowing), but anything else is not really fitting in. Hope to at least get reading done again, that would kinda be essential for progress. Also, I really need to do something about WK accuracy, because I am just doing horribly right now. I also don’t think I am doing the lessons in a properly focussed way, so all the recent items are just very loosely memorized if at all. Maybe this is also the effect of having definetly moved beyond any point I was at before, but I felt like I did not know any items from prior runs for at least 20 levels, so I don’t really believe that’s the reason.
I had another chance to practice my speaking though, which is very helpful and will have a couple more these coming days. This is quite the humbling experience honestly, both from a listening and expression point of view conversation with a native speaker is just an entirely different beast. But I am having fun and it is also quite encouraging, that I can do it at all.
Next week I will give a practice talk for my conference talk to my research group. While this all is stuff I have talked about before, compiling the newest results, preparing suitable graphics and optimizing for the audience is still bascially going to take the entire days before that. The last time I gave such a talk, my practice talk (and the conference talk - for different reasons) were kind of a mess, so I really want to prepare a good talk this time around. Also since I am nearing the end of my degree, this is also going to be one of the most relevant networking situations, as I need more academic contacts to increase my chances of landing a Post-Doc position.
At the same time I am really stressed about finalizing the remainder of my results, I really want to submit a draft asap, because that would make graduating significantly more smooth.
So, on the weekend I ended up being quite busy, so I even failed doing some of my daily tasks, but with the slight compensation of actually getting to talk some japanese. While missing the day of Anki will still hurt me for now, since I don’t get through the entire stack in the morning, it should be ok within a few days.
I still have not been reading at all, which is a bit sad, maybe I will be able to fit it in towards the end of the week.
Life’s still busy. On Wednesday I will have my practice talk, so these days I am really trying to finalize the presentation. Normally I just quickly do some slides and improvise, but this one takes some more effort and I am still compiling some of the results simultaneously.
On Wednesday I finally gave my conference practice talk! Feedback overall was positive and my professor - who is generally really picky about this - seemed to be quite happy with my slide style this time. Afterwards it always seems terrible, because everyone points out tiny things on every slide (which is the point of these meetings), but I then had like 30 points to fix on my slides xD. Nonetheless, quite happy with how this went and now I can look forward to the conference in June!
Starting from today I am on vacation, currently riding the train to my families place. Will spend time with them this weekend and have some additional plans next week. On Tuesday I will be at the TWICE concert, which I am really looking forward to! Afterwards I will also spend a day in Düsseldorf, which has the largest japanese community in Germany, so I will try to eat as much stuff there as possible xD
While having vacation might seem like I have some time to study, I might also have already planned out most of my time .
Recent studying was still not so good. Till Wednesday I was focused on my presentation and then I met a friend Wednesday evening, so I did not practice either. I did however get my hands on a copy of Tobira, so I will try and see how I like that for studying. I realized I still have some major gaps in my grammar (and even more problems with active usage of grammar), so I will try to fill up some of those holes. Hopefully I will also get some reading in the next days 
Soo, the weekend (and extra holiday) are nearing their end, so the family time is kinda over I had a lot of fun this weekend, but also managed to keep at least anki and WK alive. Today and yesterday I also got in some reading, with listening and shadowing today. So overall, quite solid I guess. Looking forward to the next days, though studying while travelling will most likely not be on point
Soo, my trip to Köln and Düsseldorf is over and was amazing!
I went to the TWICE concert on Tuesday evening and had the time of my life! Already looking for some more tickets, but neither are my favourite groups playing in Germany, nor does my wallet think it is a great idea, but I guess I’ll try to get Le Sserafim tickets for October!
Since I don’t know if I am still going to be in Germany next year (hopefully not), I also cannot really plan a lot in advance
After the concert I absolutely wanted to check out Little Tokyo in Düsseldorf, so I stayed there for two days eating tons of food xD
My favourite actually ended up being the cold Soba - given the temperature this might just have been the perfect meal.
I also checked out the bookshops and picked up some books! I also wanted to get manga, but at 15-20€ a book, for (in my experience) only like 1 or 2 hours of reading time, I could not convince myself
Studying went as expected. I kept up reviews in Anki and WK, but did not do any lessons since last weekend. I will pick it up again now, that I have access to my Laptop and can do proper reviews.
I did some reading during these days, which is good, but nothing regarding listening etc. I did have some very short conversations in restaurants, but given my looks (as german as possible), I had to speak two or three sentences in japanese, before the staff would talk to me in japanese instead of german
Now I am going to have a slow weekend, before it’s back to work and time for the conference preparation!
Sooo, time for another update, which is basically that last week went horribly
I was not really focused at all, meaning I barely made any progress at work (and to top it off, the progress I made was identifying a pretty massive error in my workflow 
)
In regards to studying I kept up with the basics - WK, Anki, Listening for most days, but did not go beyond that at all. Since I was generally not motivated at all, having this leak into studying was likely not unexpected.
Right now I am at the airport - going to the UK for my conference today. This means the next week is expected to be just survival mode for studying and then I’ll have to see how to get back into more productive habits once I am back home.
Soo, I realized again, that at conferences, not even survival mode is really possible Having to be at a pickup point at 8 and afterwork social obligations basically meant I failed to do any reviews for the conference days. Still not through the Anki backlog, but WK is finally looking ok again, I feel like I might have also found a strategy to work with more focus on the reviews, I’ll see if I can improve my accuracy in the coming days.
Reading was a struggle, I did have a couple of moments, where I read a bit during the vacation around the conference, but it’s still not a routine again. Listening etc. fell to the side completely. This week I started to pick it up again.
I found a massive problem in my research, so probably the next weeks I will spend long hours in the lab. Also, given that I want to graduate this summer, I really need to finalize some work.
Not really a coherent post, but maybe I’ll find some time for that soon
The current heatwave is pretty good at draining my energy, so that’s my excuse for not having an update for some time
Recently I have fortunately been able to pick up a bit more studying again. My WK accuracy for the last week sits at 88%, which is less than I would like, but a significantly more sustainable state than the ~83% it was for the weeks before. I try to not do 100 reviews at once, but rather wrap up after half and add another session and deliberately try to slow down when I feel I am getting frustrated by a couple failed cards.
I also was able to get some reading in again finally. The main thing I am spending time on is ほしのこえ, which honestly was a massive bait. I bought it in Düsseldorf, under the impression, that since it has furigana for all kanji, it is likely an easier read. Well, that might be the case, but it’s still not an easy read for me.
Also I started looking into tobira a bit, when I had time. I am still in the first unit, so no strong opinions yet. The texts are not really challenging, though the 敬語 usage in dialogues is something where I found a significant deficiency in my knowledge state. Many of the exercises are pretty classroom oriented, so I can’t really do those, though my main goal was anyway to use this for grammar. I was honestly suprised by how much of the first grammar package I did not know really well. Once I have time I will start with the grammar practice book as well, so hopefully that will help in that aspect.
While my japanese studies went a bit better, my research is really a struggle right now. I really only need to finalize things, run some experiments and analyze results, but there are so many small details that just hold me up for unnecessarily long periods of time.
Big positive news first
At the beginning of the week I received the confirmation that I passed the document screening stage of one of the fellowships I applied to and have been invited to an interview! This is one step further than I made it last year, so very happy about that It’s also right now the only thing that makes actually going to Japan seem more realistic. Hopefully this will give me the necessary pressure to finish up my research quickly Regarding this, there was another setback, as my results looked bad and my supervised asked me do to some additional analysis
Studying has been going ok. I have been reading some days, listening most days and WK is ok (apart from today). I have been doing some practice with Tobira, which highlighted, that I just freestyle most grammar into approximately correct, but sometimes absolutely wrong constructs. I probably need more output practice, but this also the kind of practice I need to push myself hardest to do. And then I feel like I tend to just use the things that work already anyway. Well, that was my short rant, hopefully I’l be able to bring positive news in some of the next posts
Hey, congrats on the progress for your fellowship!