@eefara
I love the idea of making an advent for yourself with things to enjoy! Something I should remember to do for me next year… 
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Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 01 
One stroke kanji: 乙
The latter; duplicate; strange; witty
Kun: おと-; きのと
On: オツ; イツ
This one was a bit difficult because I kept wanting to write a Z, also have a tendency to curve lines more than need be and make them curlier.
Looks like we all chose the same one today!
Though it seems like it was this or 一, so not much choice
For this challenge I’m going to be writing the kanji on top of the kanji in a grid, then with just the grid, then without a grid and finally with a fancy brush and try to write it a bit more stylised.
It’s great to see all the other little fun things everyone else is doing!
頑張って！
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I updated my day 1 post with my translation attempt for the first day! If anyone has any suggestions for improvements, please let me know!
After I get off work I’ll be updating my post with pictures of my writing practice and stuff. 
Edit: added pics as well!
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Calendar Translation
“changing season” would be 季節の移り変わり, methinks… plus, if it were that, how would you connect the window?
Therefore I think
そして - and then (or the like)
季節は - the season
移り変わり窓 - I feel like this means something like “window of change”, i.e. like a time interval or something?
の向こう - beyond
の最後の一葉 - the last leaf
が… - something unsaid about the leaf, I guess “it falls” or something, maybe?
or something?
Happy to learn more about this! 
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You’re right, that’s a は, not a の. 
I need to sleep on it, I think.
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Dec 1 
Kanji Writing
Writing
Don’t mind the smudges, the first pen I tried using did not work the best on this paper. I tried a couple of different pens before settling on a brush pen. Some of them kind of turned out looking like a curly て
Some words using this kanji. I tried varying the width of the lines as I was writing but just ended up making some real thick.
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I’d like to try hunting down a brush pen of some sort. They look like fun to write with. 
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First day, first short story! 慈悲 by 岡本かの子. 6 pages. I listened along with this 朗読.
A learned word: 臨機応変 - playing something by ear
Also 「
I had to go this a bit slowly to make sense of it, it’s an essay rather than a story. I think the first take away point is basically the author conveying the meaning behind the English phrase you must be cruel to be kind. The second point is what you consider to be compassion or kindness may not be so from the perspective of the one you’re acting upon. It may be false assumptions, or you may just be satisfying your own ego.
Spoilered in case anyone wants to try their hand at it first 
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They’re a lot of fun, definitely a little harder to control than other pens though.
just realized this is the perfect challenge to test out all my pens 
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Dec 2
Kanji in Ascending Stroke Order
Strokes:2
又
Kun: また
(On: ユウ)
Words of the day: 猫又 (mythical two-tailed monster cat), 又無い (unique, matchless, unparalleled)
It was hard choosing a two-stroke kanji, they were all either too common or too uncommon (I wanted to go for 乃、but there are virtually no words containing it. So 猫又 won! 
Here’s a video of Japanese Calligrapher Takumi writing it (1.03 mark):
And here it is in several variations. I’d never be able to read the cursive (草書体):
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Day 1
Back to home post
I got sick yesterday so I’m lagging behind. Day 2 later in the day.
This was fun, though you can definitely see how much I struggled with that kanji.
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December 2
Kanji writing
Origami
Song
Onomatopoeia
Grammar
Mystery book reading
Origami
It came out horrible, I know. I can’t do precise folds to save my life, and this needs to be super precise. Oh well, it still works as advertised.
Grammar
Nをよそに= ignoring/disregarding sth, being untroubled by sth
Onomatopoeia
あたふた in a hurry, hastily (to describe waving of the hand in denial)
I want to apologize to everyone about the choice of origami. It’s fiddly and annoying and takes ages. It is however fun after construction, perfect for relieving the stress that making this origami caused in the first place. 
(I decided to remove the grammar task. I read a lot yesterday, yet I didn’t come across any grammar I thought worth looking up. (If found one today so I added it back for now. I also went back and added one for yesterday…) I may also remove Onomatopoeia, although I do come across way too many instances of it. I’m keeping it for now and I’ll see how it goes.)
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僕も”慈悲”読みました、とてもいい話ですね。慈悲とは、人に様々な事を与えること、それが原則と言っているが、原則はあくまで原則で、実際には何を、いつ、どの程度など、相手の状況を考えて与えることが本当の慈悲ではないかと言っているような話だと僕は解釈しました。
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Oh, I love the previous post/next post tabs you’ve got. The format’s really cute!
Advent Calendar, Day 2
(Day 1)
Winter Song
Kanji Vocab + Writing
Calendar Translation
Kanji
For my kanji today, I decided to go with 九!
I was trying to make sure I didn’t have too much curve on the second stroke.
Words:
- 119番 - It’s important to know your emergency numbers! This one is for fires and ambulances!
- 十中八九 (じっちゅうはっく) - in 8 or 9 cases out of 10; in all probability (四字熟語 alert!)
- 九生 (きゅうしょう) - referring to the nine lives of a cat
- 九九 (くく) - multiplication/times table
Calendar Translation
Pic in a separate div:
大失敗カラーです… (場所はあえて言うまい) 構図は割と好きですが…ヴィルトに絡み付いた鎖はブラッドが断ち切るという事で。ブラッドの服の陰影が細かくて厚塗りが大変でしたが上手く行った方です。やはりロングコート（？）は風になびくのが使命！天命！！万歳！＜ー酒飲んだ？
I really messed up on on the coloring… (I don’t want to talk about where they’re at.) I’m fairly happy with the composition…like how Blood’s going to cut through the chains winding around Wild. Getting the shadows on Blood’s clothing to both be fine and stand out was tough, but I think it went well. And of course, having his long coat (?) blowing in the wind is a must! A mandate from heaven!! Banzai! ← Was I drinking?
Line I’m pondering this time is “Getting the shadows on Blood’s clothing to both be fine and stand out was tough, but I think it went well.” Any feedback welcome!
Personal Advent Calendar
For my personal advent calendar:
- Tea: Peach
- Chocolate: White chocolate
- Game My choice for something from the Persona series. I’ll definitely be bopping to the P3 soundtrack today for sure and I’ve got my PSP on charge to play some Persona 2 (gonna try 罰, see how well my Japanese stacks up). Soon P3 and P4 will be on Switch; can’t wait for that. Would love to replay both fully!
- Pokemon Card pack: N/A. Next one will be Sunday.
Translation talk from day 1
季節は移り変わり窓 doesn’t seem to bring back anything relevant, doing a fresh search. So it’s either a specific concept that I’m searching for wrong, or the author (杉浦志保) was getting poetic or something?
Looking back over your thoughts, @NicoleIsEnough, I’m trying to decide how literal 窓 is supposed to be taken here, given that the theoretically sick boy is in a hospital. Maybe a little bit of both literal and symbolic? Maybe it should be read as the 窓 itself is 移り変わり; either symbolically as saying the scenery outside the window is changing, or literally in that the boy is changing windows he looks through as the season(s) pass(es).
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Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 02
Two stroke kanji: 刀
Sword; saber; knife
Kun: かたな; そり
On: トウ
Surprised that this one is an N1 kanji.
Seems my hand is still wanting to curve all the lines rather than make them nicely straight, also need to work on those little flicks at the end of some strokes. Without it a grid it’s hard to get each line in proportion with the other and not get wobbly.
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Today was ラムネ氏のこと by 坂口安吾. I was excited when I saw who wrote this because I’ve read another essay by this author before (悪妻論) and thought it was hilarious. This is the 朗読 I listened to which helped a lot with understanding the older writing.
Notes:
This essay was published in 1945 according to Aozora, but it feels like it was written in the 20s with the writing style
Ex:
すると三好が居ずまひを正して我々を見渡しながら、ラムネの玉を発明した人の名前は分つてゐるぜ、と言ひだした。
I had to go to a 古語辞典 to find out that 居ずまひ means 座り方
Real people mentioned:
- 小林秀雄 - Essayist. 1902-1983
- 島木健作 - Novelist. 1903-1945 (so young!)
- 三好達治 - Poet. 1900-1964.
New words:
殉教者 - martyr
酔い痴れる - to be trashed or to be intoxicated by something (not necessarily alcoholic)
長逗留 - to stay somewhere a long while
切支丹 - Christians (the ones first visiting Japan)
伴天連 - the Portuguese Christians (the ones first visiting Japan)
清姫 - Lady who fancied a monk, got rejected, and turned into a giant snake to kill him.
I feel like I lost the plot a bit with this one. I don’t really get what the dead mushroom expert and the villagers had to do with ラムネ氏 but it seems like the creator of Ramune is being held up as someone brilliant (possibly as a half-sarcastic joke)? Also confused with what the Portuguese missionaries translation of ‘love’, 愛, and 恋 have to do with anything…
I hope tomorrow is a short story and not another essay
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Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 2
December 2nd
Kanji writing
Kanji writing practice
I brought my pens and dotted notebook along to my day trip today. Feel free to make a game out of guessing the ones which were affected by the train slightly shaking every now and then.
This morning, I found a calligraphy pen that I had completely forgotten about. Bought it many years ago for a small assignment and thought that I could also do Kanji practise with it… ended up only using it like twice for a few Kanji in all these years which is rather pitiful. I should at least make more use of it by the means of this practice and hope that the ink is still intact and will be for a while.
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