Thank you for being with us for so long! 
Come to think of it, my account is turning a decade this year as well 
Ah…TIME
it plays a long game, and before you know itいつの間にか, it defeats us all…
TIL 憧れる can mean “To long for”, “To yearn for” and “To be attracted by”.
I THOUGHT IT ONLY MEANT “TO ADMIRE” AND I HAVE BEEN USING IT. (So I have been speaking Japanese conversationally for the past… shall we say 15 years or so. But I have been fairly illiterate for that whole time too.)
Thank god my memory is so bad I can’t remember any specific use cases to be horribly embarrassed by.
Oh no! This made me laugh. Hopefully you haven’t told anyone that you yearn for them lately! 
Your handwritten kanji are so neat by the way, I’m quite jealous!
Writing quickly is the key to being able to decipher other people’s handwriting LoL 
Years ago, I ended up copying out the better part of Kiki’s Delivery Service from Vertical writing in the paper copy of my book to Horizontal writing on scratch paper, so I could more legibly write in my translation notes in English…
I got to where I could copy out 1 page from the bunko book in 10 minutes onto 1 page of 8.5 X 11 copy paper!
Nb, laughing about quizzical looks trailing in the wake of a conversation where you 憧れ’d something…
Thank you!!
Luckily it really does mean “to admire” but you know, how could I have known it was “admire… yearningly”
Woah, nice!! That’s speedy.
Hopefully whatever context of the conversations saved me from coming across as “I yearn for” hahaha… it really does also mean “admire”!
I MADE IT TO LEVEL 30, Woo!!! Nearly half way there!!
貧(poor) very very important Kanji here. Soon I’ll learn 貧乏(poor) 
With all this kanji practice recently
- I read Kinou Nani Tabeta volume 25, and I felt myself being able to read more easily than before
- I read (and translated) the last chapter of Famiresu Iko.
Truly, it’s starting to pay off! Maybe I’ll be totally able to read manga volumes by the end of this year!
Congrats, nice going!! 
Thank you!!
Unrelated sorta-study update but.
I went to the Super Junior concert in Saitama today, and I could basically understand all the spoken Japanese! by the translator!
By the members themselves sometimes I couldn’t 
And sometimes I could read the Japanese subs before the next sentence 
2026, let’s aim to be literate!
is it just me
拡張
Ahahahaha the hint for the reading is so funny
Of course, just to be dirty, the people who made up this word decided to use a kanji that read as かく. Dirty old monks that could see the future and speak English, ugh.
My new pens arrived!! I bought a pack of 8 so there are 8 different colours to write with ahhhh it feels so good to write with a new pen!
Old pens lose their stiffness and it becomes really hard to get line variation so all your Kanji end up blocky and fat 
But a new pen lets you really get sharp lines!