My digital version of ‘closing the book to see if my bookmark moved’ is ‘closing the book to see if the percentage went up’ 
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October 28
I just want to get this off my chest.
I'm low on time right now because:
- I still need daily treatment for the illness that reared it’s ugly head rather spectacularly in August 2024(?) (
I threw up from pain in the foyer while trying to get to the car to go to the emergency room) - I was quasi-coerced (more my ex-co-worker’s fault than my boss’) to increase my responsibilities at work starting January 2025 and now I have to work 5 days a week, which was a thing I really never wanted to do on account of my poor health.
My luck in life is astonishing 
. (But no, really, I have wonderful people, wonderful dogs, and a wonderful home in my life. Astonishingly wonderful. 
) Anyway, getting back to my point, the thing I’m trying to get off my chest is that I have all these study plans that I CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT!
Things I want to do for studying (in no particular order):
- Follow ADOJG and Quartet study group resources (currently saved in OP) to fill gaps in knowledge and progress
- Propose ガイコツ書店員 本田さん | L32 to IMC and lead club
- Sign up for group lesson teaching コンビニ人間 | L29 with the teacher I like
- Use Nihongo Jam podcast for listening, vocabulary, shadowing, speaking practice
- See my favorite tutor again
- Read とんこつQ&A | L26 (one of the lowest natively level literary books I’ve ever encountered)
- Finish 日本の歴史マンガ and get offshoot club up and running
- Watch Love Is Blind Japan (at least the intro episodes) with Japanese subs for conversation/shadowing practice
- Continue watching anime w/o subs starting from lowest level, currently https://learnnatively.com/season/cf7714659f/
- Write kanji as furigana in all of 都道府県のおはなし 低学年 おはなしドリル | L19
That’s not even a completely exhaustive list, cause I have other ideas, such as following @mitrac’s example with news articles (which I am still trying to write a response to in their study log, btw), and naturally no matter what else I do I plan to continue to try to work my way through my physical and Harta backlog. And probably continue doing speed run clubs. I’m a lost cause. 
By the way, Japanese broke my brain. This is me trying to write 'mitrac'
- “mitrac” no, no, too plain
- “mitrac-san” too formal
- “mitrac-chan” too childish
- “mitrac-senpai?” we are more 同級生 tho
- “mitrac” sigh, I guess that’s my only option …
Apropos nothing, but
Join the speedrun club, folks!
Some musings on Zen Buddhism
Thich Nhat Hanh writes meditations for all kinds of things. Driving meditation, Washing the Dishes meditation. Yesterday I came up with my own: Thanking the Grocery Store Clerk meditation. You can’t do it very slowly, because cashiers have to keep moving, but you look them in the eyes and smile while being mindful of how good it feels to look someone in the eye and smile genuinely and thankfully. (This meditation is a great reason to skip the self checkout option. Who will you smile at if there is only a machine there? I guess you could smile at the machine, but it’s so much nicer to do with a human.)
This meditation reminds me of my interconnectedness with even people I don’t know. We’re working together to make our world how it is, and when you do this meditation the world (in that moment) is more connected and more full of love. As a person who also works retail, I’m confident this manner of engaging with the person who is at work makes their day a little bit better, too.
Not sure how well I explained that, but there it is.
Other things
Kanji - been keeping reviews around 25/day or lower
Exercise - nothing whatsoever, but i’m not giving up
Music - haven’t played because i had a sore throat last week. sore throat and flute don’t mix.
Spanish - read a picture book at work yesterday (La intérprete / The Interpreter | L20??)
I like this. I’ve started doing it too. 
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Very nice! 
Hehehe… exactly what I say to myself every single day 
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(While my study plans are probably similarly overflowing if I tried to write them all out) this is so much! This would be something close to a full course load if you were taking university classes. Plus you’re working!! While it can be eazy to wonder where you’re going to find the time, I think it’s also useful to just appreciate how much you’ve planned for yourself to do. When you can’t make it on a regular basis, maybe some of it wants to shift to “next semester” 
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And you are an astonishingly wonderful person yourself! 
I’m very sorry about your health problems though – may the Great Cat of Health return to you ASAP! 
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Haha, yes, this is almost all definitely next semester stuff. 
I’ve thought to myself many times (with regards to items on this list) “we’ll revisit that in January” … I work in retail and we’re already gearing up for Christmas (writing our Christmas lists hehe) so it’s gonna stay busy til probably 4pm on Christmas eve. But!, I started a fun sidequest! The idea is to make time every day/whenever I can to read a new picture book in Spanish at work. Today’s book: Cómo decirle hola a una lombriz: Primera guía al aire libre (How to Say Hello to a Worm: A First Guide to Outside, Spanish Edition) | L16?? I’m pretty happy with how this sidequest does double duty at furthering my study goals and helping me not overwork myself.
Aww!! 
Thank you!
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Thinking of you and sending many hugs and much healing for you. I know what it’s like for that kind of thing to slow you down and eat up time. Just so you know, I’m fighting your corner and hoping for the best
Hard relate. I love your list!! I’m either thinking, yep on the list (or something similar!) I love @shitsurei 's semesters idea
Laughing so hard because I go through that now but also omg 
that thought process is so endearing
I love how you explained it, and it’s such a good example of how relatable Thich Nhat Hahn is. I don’t think most people realise (at least, it took me a long while to piece it together) he was a big part of bringing meditation to the west. His relatable instruction helped mindfulness enter mainstream and he was a strong influence on John Kabat-Zinn, founder of MBSR and that in turn is the foundation of much of the research on mindfulness and health.
It’s always fun to discover who is the real deal and not just good at SEO
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November 3
October summary on Bookmeter
10月の読書メーター
読んだ本の数：6
読んだページ数：984
ナイス数：0
花野井くんと恋の病(3) (デザートコミックス)
読了日：10月31日 著者：森野 萌
花野井くんと恋の病(2) (デザートコミックス)
読了日：10月26日 著者：森野 萌
乙嫁語り 1巻 (青騎士コミックス)
読了日：10月23日 著者：森 薫
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 (6) (電撃コミックスNEXT)
読了日：10月22日 著者：カツヲ
舞妓さんちのまかないさん (16) (少年サンデーコミックススペシャル)
読了日：10月15日 著者：小山 愛子
自転車屋さんの高橋くん 1 (torch comics)
読了日：10月09日 著者：松虫 あられ
読書メーター
Long story short, 6 volumes read!
Kanji - had to pause on adding kanji in order to keep reviews in check
Exercise - 3.5 mile hike this weekend!
Music - I have been playing in the backyard for my dogs. I’m not sure if they listen to the music at all, but they like for me to be outside while they’re outside sniffing around and digging holes and stuff. And I love watching them dig holes. They’re so cute about it!
Spanish - read a picture book every day at work last week
I feel exhausted today, though. It’s hard even to think about finishing writing forum comments, like my response to @mitrac’s German learning lore (!) or communicate my appreciation for @GolyBidoof’s enthusiasm about the 花野井くんと恋の病 club.
I feel like I need to find some way to force my brain into hibernation.
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Thank you so much 
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November 10
Kanji - resumed adding kanji, keeping reviews at or below 25/day, closing in on 1700!
Exercise - short weekend hike and ABHIIT workout, also did yoga three days in the last week. every muscle in my body is sore today.
Writing JP - started chatting on the discord just a lill’
Zen Buddhism - not so much reading, but when my partner was down this morning I was outside sweeping the leaves off the patio. there were so many though, I started sweeping them into a leaf pile in the middle of the patio just for fun. then I went and asked if he wanted to do mindfulness with me. brought him out to the patio, held hands, then jumped into the leaf pile together. he said good job hehe. – oh, also. I think that mindfulness of noticing and fully experiencing small joys is like a muscle that gets stronger the more you practice. need to keep practicing.
Brain Hibernation - I remembered that crafting is good for the brains. I worked on knitting a sock and de-logo-ing a thrifted t-shirt (sewing). sometimes I forget just the simplest things. then it’s a huge relief when I remember
Over the last week I’ve been reading through comments on Malinkal’s 50 novels post. Some good ideas are surfacing.
- I think I will restart tracking reading, but only timed novel-reading sessions.
- When I start (or restart) reading a novel I will calculate a plan for how long to take on it and how many average pages per day that requires (considering 2 weeks as an ideal timeframe, but recognizing that may not always be possible. may need to break some novels up into parts that I tackle individually and switch off between hard and easy novels).
- Embrace “high baseline and maximizing the peaks” mentality.
- Record “words this book has taught me” while recording time and pages - as a way to help me retain more vocabulary between books.
So, with all that in mind, yesterday and today I did timed reading sessions of 時間割男子 2 消えないで、カンジくん! | L22. Goal is ten pages per day to finish within two weeks.
Words I saw during these two sessions that I learned from 時間割男子: 徹夜、寿命
Maybe/hopefully in the future I will do something fancier for the words-learned section.
I have finished no books in the last week.
Thanks all you internet frens for keeping me company and being super smarties and just being you in general. 
Ninja dust!
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Oh, you’re continuing this series too! I’m listening to the audiobooks.
I got this word on WK recently and I was like, psshhhh, I know this so well from textbook boys
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I still need textbook boy updates. 
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I haven’t finished listening to book 5 yet
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November 15
Seven days of reading completed!
| date | title | time | pages | pace (minutes/page) | vocabulary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 9 | 時間割男子 | 30.5 minutes | 7.5 | 4.1 (first day) | 徹夜 |
| Nov 10 | 時間割男子 | 34 minutes | 10.5 | 3.2 | 寿命 |
| Nov 11 | 時間割男子 | 32 minutes | 9 | 3.6 | 腹筋 |
| Nov 12 | 時間割男子 | 36 minutes | 9 | 4 (math hard) | 慣用句 |
| Nov 13 | 時間割男子 | 42 minutes | 16 | 2.6 | |
| Nov 14 | 時間割男子 | 32 minutes | 10 | 3.2 | |
| Nov 15 | 時間割男子 | untimed | 16 | n/a | 細菌, 繁殖 |
Yes! I liked the writing and the premise seems ideally suited to teaching a range of vocabulary that might not come up in my study materials (which is … mostly fantasy books) otherwise. Today I got 細菌 and 繁殖!
If I keep up this pace I should finish the book in less than a week!
Tsundoku update:
I checked in my emails and I have owned this book for over a year! (Even if only just.) So I can give myself two points for it. New score 
… 15!
Books read to achieve the milestone of having read half of my physically owned books! (I need to think of a better way to phrase that): 1/10
In other news … We met another neighbor today and learned that he is living here temporarily with his son waiting for a heart transplant (for his son). Not sure of any of the details because he speaks only Spanish and with a heavy … some kind of accent. So that’s pretty much lit a fire under me about rehabilitating my Spanish. I want to try to write a card for him and his son (I’m sure I can get my co-worker to check and make sure I didn’t make any horrible mistakes) and bake them some pumpkin bread or something.
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I just finished the book, so it is now time to share …
時間割男子 reading chart!
| date | time | pages | minutes/page | vocabulary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 9 | 30.5 | 7.5 | 4.1 (first day) | 徹夜 |
| Nov 10 | 34 | 10.5 | 3.2 | 寿命 |
| Nov 11 | 32 | 9 | 3.6 | 腹筋 |
| Nov 12 | 36 | 9 | 4 (math hard) | 慣用句 |
| Nov 13 | 42 | 16 | 2.6 | |
| Nov 14 | 32 | 10 | 3.2 | |
| Nov 15 | untimed | 16 | n/a | 細菌, 繁殖 |
| Nov 16 | 36 | 12.5 | 2.9 | 心拍、動揺、克服、恒例、欧米、とぎれとぎれ |
| Nov 17 | 29 | 8 | 3.6 | 晴天、精密、退場 |
| Nov 18 | untimed | 10 | n/a | 待機、体育座り、鼓動、前かがみ |
| Nov 19 | 44.5 | 20 | 2.2 | すかさず、てきぱき、脈打つ、顔を歪める、ごぼう、れんこん |
| Nov 20 | 35 | 15 | 2.3 | とめどなく、清々しい、言語道断、座右の銘、継続、心置きなく |
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Ooh, wait, I should do a chart about how my reading speed changed!
For speed, down is good as it’s a measure of how many minutes each page took me. I find it interesting that when I read less I read slower! Probably a flow state thing.
I found it really helped to not force myself to time every single time I read, but it is sad that the charts are now missing parts.
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November 22, Saturday
Tsundoku
- 雨と君と(3) I have actually owned not as long as I thought! Not quite 2 years, so that’s 2 points.
- Hananoikun is digital, so doesn’t count.
- 時間割男子 is 1 point … New score … 18!
Books until I have read half of my owned books: 3/10*
*I realized there’s a stack of 10 ish books that I probably didn’t count … so I might actually need 15 in order to achieve this goal.
Tracked reading reflection
The experience was great! I definitely noticed improvement within the less-than-two weeks that it took me to finish the book. I could see this method helping with reading speed, stamina, and vocabulary retention far into the future.
For some reason I don’t feel motivated to start in on the next book, though. That might just be because I was running on fumes last night and haven’t had enough recovery time. (Sidenote: my new doctor says I actually do have an iron deficiency, whereas all my previous doctors have told me I don’t have an iron deficiency … Conspiracy? )
Buddhism
ICE finally came to my town. I was terrified at first. I couldn’t sleep. So I opened my Plum Village app (seriously cannot thank @mitrac enough for recommending it) and listened to a meditation on Accepting What Is.
During the meditation I started to realize that I was actively resisting feeling okay. Why? Because the branch of activist liberalism that I was raised in teaches us to feel guilty and ashamed of privilege. And I realized what a huge waste that is. When we could be drawing strength from our own safety and comfort, to make us better able to face the world and do our part to make changes to it.
To adapt the famous story, it’s as if we see someone else being hit with an arrow, so then we shoot ourselves with a second arrow when we were never wounded in the first place. Instead of shooting ourselves, we should run to the side of the person who was hit, and help them.
So that’s what I will try to do.
Spanish - A very broken but at least slightly successful conversation with our Spanish-speaking neighbors when we brought them a lasagna. Really hope they like lasagna because it was absolutely massive. They gave us muffins and iced teas in return.
Exercise - Another HIIT workout last weekend, then nothing all week, then shoveling mulch for an hour this morning (inspired by Physical 100!)
Music - nothing I feel so uninspired.
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Love your graphs in the last update 
iron thoughts
If it makes you feel better, I’ve been through this loop and what happens is most health systems for most vitamins have a wide range that captures 95% of the population. If that doesn’t seem relevant to declaring a healthy level you’re not alone, and hence various groups of doctors or health professionals make a more ideal range that is narrower. And then you can imagine they have different perspectives depending on if they are focused on immunology vs athletes vs cancer patients etc. So… if you’re at the low end of the widest range you can be told you’re normal until a specialist is like, uh, that’s pretty low you need more.
Well said 
I’m so glad you are finding the Plum Village app helpful. I love the Calm and Ease ones if you haven’t found those.
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I totally agree!
In fact, I’d say one should fight not against privileges, but for expanding those privileges so that eventually everyone would become privileged! 
As someone said “Don’t build the word where there are no rich – build the world where there are no poor!”
Also, in my experience, the thing about the sense of guilt is that those who actually deserve to feel it – never do, and those who do feel it – don’t deserve it…
You are a meowgnificent purrson, and if anyone says otherwise – I would purrsonally come to them and HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS at them! 
Anyway, best of luck with your studies and other cativities! 
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November 30, Sunday
replies
That makes sense. It’s interesting because it doesn’t feel as if that much has changed between now and then (with regards to my health overview) and the doctor who said I have a deficiency is a primary care physician, not any kind of specialist. 
Oh well.
Haha, thank you! I love the little angry cat gif. It’s too cute.
Curveball! Instead of starting either of the books that I was thinking of starting next, I read about the mystery series book club, decided I wanted to participate on two of the next three reads (luckily the one I don’t want to participate in is happening first) and started reading the murder mystery https://learnnatively.com/book/0ecf2504a4/ in order to prepare!
I started tracking my reading sessions in a study log comment, which I then realized feels a little low-security … what if I were to accidentally hit the discard button on my phone?! Well anyway, I’ll post what I have done so far.
goal: (average over the course of the book) 14-28 pages / day
| date | time | pages | minutes/page | vocabulary | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 24 | 44 | 9 | 4.9 | 研修、申し込み、ワイシャツ | |
| Nov 24 | 41 | 7 | 5.8 | 刑事、警官、肯く | a little embarrassing I didn’t even know 刑事 before this chapter but you gotta start somewhere. pace was probably slow due to the mystery genre vocab. |
| Nov 24 | 17 | 4 | 4.25 | 合宿、ボストンバッグ | during lunch, lots of distractions. and now I can put my bookmark back where it was from the last time I tried to read this book. |
| Nov 25 | 21 | 4 | 5.2 | やむをえない、選挙、会釈、順調、陣取る、宴会、逮捕、負担、下手をすれば、当面、護送、ニヤリ、稲妻 | so many leeches in these 4 pages! |
| Nov 25 | ~10 | 2 | ~5 | 先天的、短大 | |
| Nov 26 | 30.5 | 7 | 4.4 | 熱烈、招待状、せっかち、始末 | My dog will not let me read in peace! Gotta take her out. She gets her stitches out today though, hopefully that means we can let her be free again (and finally get some peace and quiet again!)! |
| Nov 26 | 44 | 9 | 4.9 | さぞ、一段落、渋々、徹底、クラクション、次第に、狸寝入り、巻き添え、発砲、殺人鬼、冷酷、拳銃 | more mystery genre vocabulary ゲット！ |
| Nov 26 | 24.5 | 5 | 4.9 | 濁流、もろとも、えぐりとる、土砂、メリメリ、木立、地響き、撃ち合い、いでたち、銃声、グチをいう、うとうと、後部座席 | half as many pages but even more vocabulary than the last chapter some good nature words. storywise, things are heating up! |
| Nov 27 | 31 | 5 | 6.2 | 色白、順次、ごまをする、前もって、豆電球、唖然、勢揃い | it’s a holiday, so lots of family and chaos. I’ll have to be content with any number of pages I can read today and any pace at which I can read them. |
| Nov 27 | 21 | 3 | 7 | 女流、明朝、実費、香ばしい、タレント、ほっそり、いわく、舌足らず | |
| Nov 27 | 15 | 4 | 3.75 | 発信、どっぷり、湯舟、死相 | just wanted to finish the chapter at least! |
| Nov 28 | 27 | 5 | 5.4 | 警視庁、手配、無線、立ちすくむ、部下、発作、撃ち抜く、銃弾、火を噴く、ためらい、銃口、稲光、専念、念を押す、まどろみ | whenever the perspective switches to a police person there’s a huge flood of very basic police-y vocabulary that I’ve never encountered before this book. (also, I forgot to time the first page, so I just added 5 minutes for the first page, no idea if that’s accurate or not.) |
| Nov 28 | 22 | 7 | 3.1 | 引き立て役 | can you tell that this was not a police-perspective scene? |
| Nov 29 | 31 | 9 | 3.9 | 促す、催眠、呑気、身震い、どよめく、辛抱、むろん、おぶう、しんみり | the pace is a little slower than it looks like it should be because the “ninth” page I read only had two lines on it, so I didn’t count it when calculating the pace. |
| Nov 29 | 31.5 | 6 | 5.25 | 渦、カッパ、申し分ない、デフォルメ、舌を巻く、ひた隠し | |
| Nov 29 | 17 | 5 | 3.4 | かがめる、右に同じ、破片 | I can never remember the reading of 破片 … until now, maybe? |
| Nov 29 | 4 | 1 | 4 | ふさわしい | I really wanted to finish the chapter (and score a new highest daily page count) but my partner was watching something with words which made it frustratingly difficult to read, so I stopped after just one page. |
| Nov 30 | 58 | 18 | 3.4 | 一同、白状、凄まじい、仰天、うずくまる、ただごと、度胸、軒下、音を上げる、却って、神妙、カッカする、同調、野次る、潜む、勇敢、遺言状、防衛、渋々 | like, 16 of these pages were in one sitting without checking the clock! |
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How cool! I really like this format for taking reading notes you have a full overview, the notes about vocab are very useful and the notes are fun!
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