After 2373 days (6.5 years) of letting life get the better of me, I’ve finally done it.
I just leveled up to 22.
It’s not that I was always on hiatus during those six and a half years, but whenever I did find the motivation to come back to do some reviews, it would be discouraging because I would invariably fail to remember the level 21 kanji that I was supposed to have learned. Not to mention that it would normally be accompanied by a 1000+ review pile that, even if I did power through, would be right back to see me in a few days. Throughout all of that, I never turned on vacation mode cause that would’ve required admitting to myself that I was taking a break from Japanese learning.
Despite those issues, I didn’t completely abandon Japanese language learning during that time. My listening ability has improved quite a bit, primarily due to consistently listening to audio dramas without translations. I noticed myself occasionally picking up on unknown words or phrases that I’d hear a lot, and I’d either figure out what it meant via context or (only when absolutely necessary) look it up in a dictionary.
I also recently got back from another trip to Japan, and I’ll say that amped up my motivation in more ways than just Japanese learning.
To be completely honest, I had fallen into a rut. However, spending another three weeks in Japan as well as deciding to take another break from video games have been huge factors in getting me to give WaniKani and other things my all again.
Quick flashback to the start of 2017. I did a cold-turkey 90-day gaming fast—where I uninstalled all my video games, boxed up my systems, stopped watching Twitch, and systematically corrected my YouTube feed to no longer show me anything video game related. That ended up doing wonders for my self-concept and my other goals that I’d been wanting to pursue at the time.
After that was over, at some point, I ended up getting into a couple gacha games as well as regularly watching livestreams on Twitch, and up until not too long ago, I could feel them consuming my motivation. So before I began the recent vacation, I decided that it would also serve as the start of a new 90-day (or more) video game fast.
The results so far speak for themselves. However, I know that it’s not going to get any easier, especially because Japanese wasn’t the only thing I’d been avoiding. So I’m going to have to work hard to manage my other goals, priorities, and motivation if I want to avoid another huge gap. That said, I feel at least a little bit more confidence in myself this time, and I think I can attribute much of that to my latest experience in Japan.
In conclusion, I had no intention of making this this long, lol.
おわり
