awesome…haha…
Congratulations!!!
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Poorly. But everywhere. <laugh>
I’m amazed at hearing you guys struggle with 掲示 since 掲示板 shows up shortly after it’s introduced and it’s so concrete and easy to visualize. It’s the conceptual ones that give me grief.
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Congrats on hitting level 60! 
I think getting to level 60 in a little bit less than 2 years is still super fast. 
And I hope with having reached this achievement you can find something even better to try now on your way to japanese pro! 
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The irony: 掲示板, zero issues. It went out of my queue with only one mistake, as I recall. 掲示 hung around for at least another few months or so. I have no idea why that is. I chalk it up to 掲示板 being spoken in a lot of the JRPGs I play (with English subtitles so far. I’m not confident enough yet for something of that degree in Japanese), and so it just stuck to my brain easier. Crazy what the mind does sometimes. 
Well, I’ll keep a watch out everywhere then! 
Thank you so much! 
I definitely want to be doing more reading, and start to formalize my grammar studies a bit more. Plus the tutor I mentioned in the OP. I look forward to continuing to see you in the Ayumu club! 
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Ah, this is from the time when Jobs was also the chief of Pixar. Good old days, miss him and them so much sometimes.
Big congratulations @anon99047008
and thank you for the mention!
Here is the cheesecake!
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You’re probably right most of the time, but while I haven’t finished WK yet, it’s fun to be an outlier! I sit and do all my reviews at once in the morning to get them out of the way. The thing that’ll really scare people is that includes Anki right after. 
Hasn’t bothered me so badly, after ~250 days.
ANYWAY CONGRATS! Book club friend! I… say while already getting lost in my personal reading projects and forgetting every book club for weeks oops. Was super pleased when I saw it was you who had made this topic. I’m really happy for you; you seem to be doing great on progressing in actual practical reading ability, too.
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おめでとうございます MrGeneric さん！
今後ともよろしくお願いいたします。あなたはケーキを食べることができます
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Congratulations! 
I have enjoyed our interactions in the book clubs so much - our grammar detective work in Takagi-san was my favourite part of reading! I’m very glad to see you with the golden badge (how far we’ve come!) and hope to see you around a lot in the future too!
I identify with this a 100%. I started on a whim too (many years ago, with many stops and starts), but the love never went away, and now somehow most of my free time is devoted to Japanese and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Follow your whims is great advice. You never know where they will lead you.
Here’s your cake :
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Congratulations! You should be proud of this accomplishment (:
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Congrats
I spent like a day writing and rewriting my 60 post. You always find out you have more to say than you thought.
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Well, I keep running out of likes, so I’ll need to keep returning here as I get my likes back to like everybody’s replies. I’m very grateful for the outpouring of congratulations and support. This is a truly wonderful community, the best on the internet for sure!
I am really impressed that you can sit down and do that many reviews at once, and then follow it up with Anki right after. It was hard to convince myself to do reviews early on when I had to do them in large groups because my focus would want to wander after a while. When I list the schedule like I did above, it makes it sound like I’m Spartan and rigid and dedicated…but my secret is that I’m really just lazy and found it easier to do several smaller batches of reviews through the day 
Thank you for the congratulations! I’ve always enjoyed chatting with you in the book clubs even if sometimes that’s few and far between 
,and I look forward to continuing to do so! At your pace, it won’t be much longer until you have your own level 60 post to write, eh? As for practical reading ability, I have a bit of catching up to do in that department. My “want to read” list still far exceeds my “ability to read” list, but I’ll get there!
ありがとうございます！こちらこそ、よろしくお願いします！
Ahaha! I love it! Thank you very much! 
Thank you! I feel the same way! That grammar detective work was definitely a major catalyst for my learning, and I really do appreciate it! I’m sure we will see each other a lot! I plan on getting into more of the higher-level book clubs now, especially since the next pick in the BBC is a light novel with 夜カフェ having won the vote! Gives me the perfect excuse to join, since those are my next target for more reading!
That cake is perfect! 大好きだよ！I’m especially fond of the cracker/cookie? in the upper right that says 高木さんめ. 
I wish I could give it a heart right this second. Two more hours and then I’ll have another handful of likes…
Dear WaniKani, regarding the number of likes I have:
Thank you so much! It looks like you are fairly close to the same! 頑張ってくださいね！ I’ll be looking forward to your own post!
Thank you very much! That’s definitely the truth. The post turned out much longer than I initially expected, and honestly, I still feel like there is more I could add as I think about it, especially since I did, at one point, intend to talk more about what I plan to do next. Thankfully, the little discussions with folks in the comments here seems to be covering anything I could want to add, so I figure it’s fine to leave those thoughts there instead of rambling on in the main post! 
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Huge congratulations
Reaching level 60 is a massive achievement, and doing it in <2years is impressive!
Thank you for running it! This club was the the one where I really felt myself make the shift from “deciphering” to “reading”, and I’m thankful to you for making that possible
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Wow! What a reply. just got back on this morning, let me read through and reply lol
Thank you so much for the congratulations!
It’s truly my pleasure to run the club! Between you, me, and the entire internet (given that this is a public forum), it was mild selfishness that led to me running it. I could feel the same progress that you describe regarding the switch from “deciphering” to “reading,” and I was eager to carry that on after the club originally ended to try and extend that feeling! I’ll be eternally grateful to @Phryne (who really should have gotten a mention earlier!) and all the folks at the Absolute Beginner’s Book Club for picking some truly excellent manga to learn with!
Honestly, between Ayumu and Takagi-san, I should probably send 山本先生 a card and some fan mail thanking him for writing such accessible and enjoyable manga for learners!
Also…still another hour until more likes 
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This is really helpful, thank you! It helps when another ( albeit mure experienced) person give me tips. I’m trying to get my body in rhythm and study every day, I’ve just built bad habits of only studying at work, because I have lots of time ther.e lol
Good luck to your future studies, and again thank you for the knowledge!
I’m glad you found it helpful! It honestly feels a bit odd being called “more experienced”. While it’s technically true, I still feel like a baby when it comes to learning Japanese, but I guess I’m now nearly two years in and doing a decent bit of reading, so somehow that’s no longer the case. Jeez, time sure has flown! Best of luck to you, as well! You got this!
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Lol. I bet the last two years went by really quick, huh?
I’m looking forward to being able to pick up a book/manga and be able to understand most of whats happening. I’m currently aiming to be at at least level 30 by the end of the year, but in order to do that I’m going to have to seriously pick up the pace lol
I appreciate the kind words.
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I feel you. I’m lazy too about most things, just have a strangely strong desire here. I had one very bad false start at Japanese where I did almost nothing many years ago, so unlike the way you tentatively started, I pretty much made myself get absolutely certain I could stick with this before I started this time. And I’m more bugged by having a thing hanging over me through the day so knocking the reviews out early, even if anki is a bit of a drag by the end, means I know I’ve done what I need.
Hopefully soon I’ll take the time to catch up on Ayumu at least, don’t want to actually drop out; I do miss you all 
And yeah, at least thus far, the plan is to stick it out all the way through WK. Though since I’m able to read (to some degree, heh) and already drowning myself in SRS, I don’t think I’ll speed up the fast levels at all, so it’ll still be a while into this year before I join you at 60.
Hope your cheesecake is good!
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Well, I got some more likes… But only 2. 足りないなぁぁ！
Just noticed as I went back to like posts, that I somehow missed responding to this post! Thank you for the cheesecake (wow, if you want to see a stellar example of bizarre grammar mistakes for a native to make, check out the edit history for this phrase…) and the congratulations, but thank you even more for the conversations in the Sentence thread!
It didn’t feel like it at the time, but looking back, they certainly did!
Picking up a manga is always great, and I would always advocate for input sooner over later, but I understand that some folks don’t like the level of ambiguity, or the looking up and deciphering that early reading inevitably is. I think waiting until level 10 (like you mentioned in your original post) is a great idea to make those initial ugly lumps a little more manageable to take!
Well, like I said, I admire the tenacity and persistence it takes to be able to do it! Well done!
I certainly hope to see you in there soon!
ありがとう！おいしかったです！
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