Have you ever seen a hotdog eating cake? (level 60 post)

I did indeed hit level 60 early this month, and am about to guru the last of the level 60 lessons. But this post isn’t just about my progress in Japanese. If you’ve seen my study log recently then you already know this, but for those that don’t, I made a lot of major lifestyle changes this year, mainly starting online school, meditating, going to the gym, and managing my mental illnesses.

The reason I was able to do all of that was because of this community. I don’t have any role models in my life. I have a lot of anti-role models, people that I don’t want to be, but in my family, friends, and work, there’s really no one that I can look up to. All of my role models, are here in this community. I’ve watched you all get your degrees, stop smoking, learn new instruments, and everyone’s common goal: learning Japanese. The more time I spent with everyone here, the more I wanted to start improving myself.

Thanks to everyone’s influence, I’ve reached several milestones in the last few months, including:

  • I just passed my fourth final exam this morning, thereby completing my first set of classes. I’m now 18% done with my degree.
  • All of my exercises at the gym have increased in weight by 200-300%. I’m stronger, more confident, have more energy, and can breathe easier.
  • I stopped hanging out with my terrible friend group. These were people that did hard drugs and were going nowhere in life, and wanted to drag me down with them.
  • I stopped smoking weed. Alcohol is next.

There are a handful of people that have been especially influential in my journey:

@taiyousea aka crazy textbook lady, for getting a Master’s degree while learning Japanese every day. When I was worried about whether I could continue studying Japanese while pursuing a degree and working, I thought about you, and how happy you were and proud we were when you finished your program.

@mitrac for tracking all your progress and compiling your pretty graphs, and practicing your cello. We can feel how much fun you’re having with your cello, and the more you talk about it, the more I want to play my ukulele again.

@trunklayer for quitting tobacco. When my brother came back into my life and offered me his vape again, I didn’t think about the chain-smokers in my family, nor the people that tried to quit and failed. Instead I thought of you and your unbroken streak, and declined weed for the first time in my life. I haven’t smoked or otherwise consumed since.

@raindrops for sharing a single brain cell with me for packing up and moving across the world. You make me think that maybe moving to a new country isn’t impossible. Wherever you are out in corn-and-tornado-land, I hope you’re still continuing to learn Japanese, and that you’ll drop in on us once in a while.

@akashelia the way you help everyone in the mokuro thread is admirable, I’m impressed by your knowledge and patience, and you were one of the big reasons I chose a degree in computer science.

@soggyboy for all the clubs you run and participate in. Back in spring when I was getting ready to host two clubs simultaneously, I thought about all the clubs you host in a year, and realized two isn’t that intimidating after all. Also for running the Casual Quartet Study Group, you guys feel like my younger siblings.

@dunlewy for learning a new language at your age. (Sorry, you must be tired of hearing that) After your struggles in the spring readathon, I was so happy to see you surpass eight hours last weekend!

Special thanks to soggy and mitrac for yapping on everyone’s study logs so that no one feels lonely!

What’s next for me

  • Read one million words. I’m at ~250k right now. Sometimes the books I read have a jpdb deck that tells me their word count, but many books don’t. In this case, I calculate an approximate word count using the character count, with a ratio of ~2.5 characters per word for ~level 25, and ~2.25 for ~level 30.
  • Turn off subtitles for good
  • Leave Wanikani (The website, not the forums) I always knew I didn’t want to wait around to burn everything, but I didn’t want to stop right after level 60 either. I wanted to get those least level 60 items to a somewhat high srs level, but what was a good stopping point? Well I decided, just a few hours ago, that after three years, today will be the last day I do a review on Wanikani.
  • Finish my degree
  • Get nice arms and shoulders. Strong enough to pick people up.[1]

Do I have any advice?

I started writing this post a year ago, and throughout that time I changed this section a lot, writing new things and deleting some stuff. But the final thing I’ve settled on is this: don’t let anyone tell you you’re doing it wrong. There aren’t very many wrong ways to learn a language. The only one I can think of is if you’re speaking and writing without getting corrected, and in this digital world it’s easy to find native speakers to talk with. If you learned one word today, if you wrote one sentence today, if you did ten reviews today, that’s progress. We will all get there, in our own time, and in our own way.

Now as for the question in the title, in case you haven’t, then you will this weekend, when I finally get my three year old cake!

Sent from my iPad




  1. ↩︎

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Congratulations!

My recommendation is to start with lifting children and work your way up to adult sized humans /jk

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Oooohhh that will work, I have a five year old cousin to practice with!

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Congratulations! On the Japanese learning, the exercise habits and on dropping weed, as all are challenging! I’m sure you’ll be able to achieve the same success in your degree with the results you’ve achieved in the other areas!

I think that’s everyone we were comparing our 0/0 challenge posts to a few months ago that has hit level 60 now :slight_smile:

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Congratulations!

It’s awesome to hear how you’ve improved your life, and how dedicated you are to learning Japanese while so much else is going on. I pray you find some good people to hang around with, and that they lead you down the right path.

Keep going strong!:flexed_biceps:

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yay!!! congrats!!!

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Congratulations !

It’s a pleasure to see you acknowledge all these positive changes in your life; no matter what comes to you next you already demonstrated to yourself that you could muster the strength to go though it.

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congrats!!! :tada:

so happy for you but also very disappointed …

I came to see a picture of a hotdog eating a chocolate bacon cake… :chocolate_bar: :bacon: :shortcake:

we’ve been lied to… much sadness :rofl:

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Congratulations! It’s so great that Wanikani gave you a motivation for improving the parts of your life outside Japanese learning as well, I am quite impressed :face_holding_back_tears:

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CONGRATULATIONS!!

You’re such a lovely and positive presence on the forums. I’m really impressed by all the positive life changes you’ve been making, and reading about how inspired you are by the community here got me a little misty eyed :face_holding_back_tears: I can’t wait to see what you do next, and I’m sure you’ll kill it with your degree just like you have with your Japanese progress!!

:person_standing: Mom says it’s my turn to learn Japanese

:trophy: :hotdog: HOTDOG SAIKOU :hotdog: :trophy:

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oops replied to soggy by accident, ignore above!

Congratulations hotdog!!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you have a non-positive interaction on here, so thank you for being you. And well done on finally leaving the WK nest! Looking forward to seeing you continue to smash goals in both Japanese and your personal life from here on out.

Waiting for cake…

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Than k you! I really don’t get tired of hearing this. I just don’t think I’m all that special for doing it. My Dad learned to work computers at 80.

I am very impressed with all you have been able to overcome in your life. You are a very strong person, physically and emotionally!

I don’t have a picture, but my very hot dog (here in the South) has eaten angel food cake. No chocco for pups! And she LOVES bacon, too.

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OmGOODNESS the BIGGEST of congratulations :clap::tada::sob::pink_heart::heart::bird: it’s crazy I was literally thinking about the forums just yesterday and then you posted this!!! what a world !!! I loved reading your blog all throughout your progress :sparkles::star: and I hope u do stay here for a bit (if not we’ll have to add each other on discord or something!)

Such a cute lvl 60 post, well done again hot dog san !!! You rock :flexed_biceps:

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Wowow @hotdogsuplex summoned raindrops back to the forums!

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Thanks everyone, all your messages make me so happy :face_holding_back_tears:

@shuly the cake is coming, I promise! Sadly it won’t be chocolate bacon, but I’ll let you know I did have a Lucky Charms cake years ago.

@raindrops OMG you’re here! I missed you! I was so excited to see a notification from you!

Goal achieved :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

I’ve definitely had one or two a while ago, until I realized why are you getting so worked up over this person. They’re not worth it.
fc18aa57b00700bef7112ddac85fa274

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ohhh neato…

for whatever reason reminded me, a friend wanted a nutter butter cheesecake…which didn’t exist…so I made one

thinking lucky charms cheesecake could be fun!!!

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Great work, and congratulations!

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I was wondering when you would post a level 60 post and as I haven’t been very thorough at checking the forums lately, I even thought that maybe I’d missed it and to go check the Level 60 category.
Well I wouldn’t have been able to miss it after all, as you tagged me :grin: thanks for that, I’m very touched!
Super wholesome post, it’s really nice to see concrete examples of what this community can do and how we can bring the best out of each other. Super inspiring to see you making all these changes and to have watched you on that journey of learning Japanese! And really cool that you have taken it upon yourself to host the Listen Every Day challenge too :flexed_biceps: it is so useful to so many!
Keep on going @hotdogsuplex !! :hotdog: :rocket:

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Congratulations! :tada:
This is a very important milestone on your Japanese Journey!
May you reach many more milestones and achieve many more victories both in Japanese and in other aspects of your life!

Speaking of which, your refusal of weed is a truly great victory and I’m very happy that my non-tobacco streak helped you! And in turn this victory of yours helps me get even more motivated to keep my streak!

I totally agree that this is a meowgnificent commeownity! And you are an impurrtant meowmber of it too!
So, let’s all keep doing our best and keep supporting each other!

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Absolute rockstar these are some brilliant achievements and it’s inspiring to hear about your Japanese journey as well as your personal achievements. Fantastic.

:raising_hands: amazing. Now GIVE US CAKE.

Must have been dust in the eye. I think I got a little bit in mine while I was reading too.

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