This is what it looks like when you stop WaniKani for a while and come back. Overwhelming:
March 2020. The pandemic began. We all went on lockdown and didn’t go anywhere. My two young children couldn’t go to school and the school last minute threw together the crappiest remote learning situation. I had to stop my work and focus on teaching them until the end of the school year. It was stressful. It took all day. It was terrible. Summer. Kids stuck at home and we couldn’t go anywhere interesting. Lockdown and things still closed down. New school year Fall 2020. Guess what, our local school wasn’t doing anything during the pandemic so we had to last minute homeschool. VERY last minute. It is stressful. It takes all day.
Meanwhile, March 2020 I stopped doing my lessons. Stopped focusing on Japanese and pretty much stopped focusing on everything really other than schooling my children. I was stressed and had no outlet. I kept saying that I would start getting back into it in a minute, but never did. Over and over again I would say that and so I never pushed the vacation button on WaniKani. I always thought any minute I would go back. I realize it had nothing to do with a lack of interest in Japanese, but more of a lack of interest in anything. People were so happy that they had so much time to do all the things they wanted to do and learn new crafts and here is me, doing even less than before and not learning or drawing or doing any of the things I liked to do. Why?
I was DEPRESSED. I realize aftarward that it was a long bout of depression. I’m sure I am not the only one that went through this during the lockdown and subsequent months to follow. This pandemic has changed a lot of things and has probably made a lot of people feel stressed or depressed at least one time or another during this whole thing. People either loved all the time or hated it. I guess that is just how it effected me.
Here I am now. October 2020. I finally decide to click that button and go to WaniKani. Then I’m depressed at what I see. A billion reviews and I also didn’t remember them. So now, I have to very slowly and patiently go through those reviews while scrolling through all the levels starting at 1 to see what I remember and what I don’t. If it is burned and I don’t remember it, guess what, it gets put back in circulation. It gets revived! Adds to my review pile, but what choice do I have? I’m here to learn, not here for numbers.
So now I am back to reading Japanese and watching Japanese with English subtitles and doing Wanikani. This is my chance to get back into something I love and get out of my depression. The Pandemic Depression. Maybe that is what I’ll call it…
For all you out there, I hope you kept it up. If not and you were depressed like me, I understand. Im not really sure what the point of this long rant is. Is it to say, “I’m back!”, or to say, "Here’s what happens if you take too long of a break. ", or that people were depressed during the pandemic? I have no idea. I do know that I AM back, I WAS depressed during the pandemic and I did take too long of a break. I’m back.
Is there anyone else out there who WASN’T moved with exhilaration and creativity and motivated to do so much during all their free time? People who became lonely and depressed? I’m just glad I’m back to Japanese.