I’m sorry you’re having a hard time right now. I’d like to tell you to continue trying to find happiness in small things, but I know that won’t always be possible. If you ever need to disappear for a while and take some time for yourself, we’ll always be waiting here, and I’m always happy to see you.
Your cat looks like this → 
hooooootdoooog 
you’re always so lovely!
Sorry to hear about the … I don’t even know the right words, just the difficult thing you’re dealing with right now. Hopefully the time together is well remembered and not the last!
君たちの優しい言葉を感謝して、ありがとうみんな。
苦し先月の間に、イギリスに行かなきゃで仕事にいえなくて、私の同僚も優しかった。いながら、私のためにもっと働いた。私のせいで会社員は足りなくて、難しかったはずだ。同僚は素晴らしい人だと思う。今日は新しいイギリスのパースポートをもらうといい。だけどパースポートがサインが必要で、郵便屋さんを待つために、それでもっともっと年休を使った! 悪い感じ！Everyone is being so so kind and I feel so bad inconveniencing people but I’m so grateful for their kindness.
Got my reviews down to 0 this morning and had calls with my friends abroad xx nice day xx
今日は特別な忙しい日だった〜
毎回一つを終わったら、ボッスは他のタスカを置いた。いつもデスクに歩き帰る時、大きいな紙の積みは私をデスクの上に待ってるみたい。疲れた！
でも、家に帰ったら、美味しく簡単な晩ごはんを食べて、ボイフレンドと日について話して、ノートで感じを日記した。そしたら、ここで30分日本語勉強した。今の方がストレスがなし。
Words I looked up:
Might wake up early tomorrow and try and do some Russian or Bunpro deciding on how I’m feeling :> けど今、ベッド行き！
こんばんは！ 
先週末は バレンタインデーなので、ボーイフレンドのために本気じゃないプレゼントを作った。去年の バレンタインプレゼントは肉できている花ブーケだった。
彼と違って私はベジタリアンだから、こういうギフトを作ることが特別な行動だ。大体、手で肉を触るのが好きじゅないんだ。それで、年に一回のプレゼントだ！今年は去年のブーケと違ってものを作ってみたかった。そのために、ミートフェイスは生まれた！
彼氏の顔の肉できている絵を作ってみたので。。。ちょっと怖いねハハ。顔は鳥肉と豚肉で、ヒゲと髪はナッツだ。でもさ、去年と同じで彼氏はこのプレゼントが大好きだった！「うまい！」と言って、嬉しい！
Words I looked up:
I HOPE EVERYONE HAD A LOVELY VALENTINES DAY WHETHER IN RELATIONSHIPS OR NOT 
Something I love love loved while living in Japan was seeing all my students giving each other 友チョコ and it being a general day of love, not just romantic! So I wish all my friends here a belated happy valentine’s and a general PSA to go raid the local supermarket for discounted chocolate lol :>
今日は短い日記しかを書きたくない。普通な仕事日を働いて、ボーイフレンドと晩ごはんを出て、スマオでネットフリックスを見ながらジムで2マイルを走った。特別なことなし！
A little update on this 
training is going well! After every long run, my bf will excitedly say how “that run was the longest he’s ever run!!!” in both time and distance. The other day we did a 10km even! I’m super proud of him and it feels really cool sharing one of my hobbies with him. Not to mention…
I had been feeling down about how little running I did last year comparative to other years ~ according to my app, I averaged 10.5 miles a month. But this year, it’s looking closer to a 14 miles a month average (and February’s not even done yet!) So I’m feeling very positive about that! 
I feel like I’ve done a good job at solidifying my habits of Japanese and running for the year ahead and creating a good foundation. Eventually I do want to get back into my handwritten translation of mangas I read, but I anticipate that will come in a few months.
Ultimately my biggest goal and challenge for this year though is properly beginning Russian. I find it suuuuuuuuper intimidating and, quite frankly, am not drawn to it. I have enough incentive (with it being my partner’s first language), but not enough personal curiosity and excitement (which I think are pretty important tenants in sustaining language learning, let alone beginning the journey!). So it’s all very well for me to say, I need to just militantly do half an hour of Russian a day until the habit sticks, but I think I should try and find a way to become more interested in the first place! I do love Russian fairy tales, so maybe that’s a start? 
Hope everyone’s having a good start to their week xox
今日は昼休みの間に、日本に住んでいる友達に手紙を書き始めた 
。書きながら、外にピックニックベンチに座って、今年の最初の暖かい日を頼んだ。私はゼヒ夏の子だよ 
。それで、皮に日の暑さを感じることを待てない。冬は長すぎ！！とにかく、明日手紙を書き続く。Do you guys ever write physical letters? One of my best friends is from Germany, so when we were teenagers we wrote one another hundreds of long brooding letters hahah. When I told this friend from Japan about this, he was jealous and demanded we become pen pals when I moved to the states hehe and here we are! 
In other news, I’m switching roles at work starting tomorrow to become cross-trained and I’ll need to get to work 40(!!) minutes earlier in the morning :< sleepy sleepy days here we come … I might try and use it to my advantage and try going to a coffee shop before work to do language practice like I was doing late last year, but who knows! I’m sure it’ll be trial and error!
I’ve always wanted a language exchange pen pal! Not online, I want to send photos and pressed flowers and decorate my letters with stickers and stamps 
I will continue to sing the praises of the Japan Post Penpal Club. It took about 6 months for my application to go through, but I got so many letters (and I’m very far behind in writing some of them back 
), but everyone has sent me lovely letters, and I’ve gotten stickers and even some extra stationary (!!) in my letters.
yeeeees it is so nice and relaxing, going to a coffee shop with all your cute stationary goods, and leisurely taking your time to make something pretty and colourful and fun that you know your friend will love to open and read :3
It’s so funny too bc a lot of the friends I write letters for are also ones I text everyday so they’re already so aware of what’s going on in my life; but in a letter, you can go even deeper 
THIS IS THE FIRST I HAVE HEARD OF THIS. This is sooooooo cool ???
今日はネイルに新しいデザインを置くはずだったけど、私のネイルテックは遅かった！それで時間が足りなくて、現在のネイルを外してくれただけ。ちょっと残念と思う。でも実は、短いネイルまたを持つのがいい。I’m probably not going to see this tech again since I’ve only seen her twice and both times she’s been over 20 minutes late 
but the little flowers she did for me were super cute!
Words I looked up:
I read this before reading the part in Japanese and thought you meant like to take off like an airplane. I was thinking, wow, I’ve never heard it used that way… Ohhhhh to remove, of course 
全てのワニカニ復習をしたばかりで、今は日記を書くタイム！
職場で日中、いつもデスクで座ってるから、健康は悪くなった（例えば大体の体力！）。日常のステップトータルは一千ぐらいだけ。
それで、このを書き終わったら、外でちょっと散歩する。でも(!!), the Midwest did me dirty —- I was told no more snow hahahaha and yet
今日はまた雪を降っていて、すごく寒くて、たくさん服を着流にする。
I’ll bundle up for sure and try and get a couple thousand steps in! When I was teaching in Japan, I walked to my school for work every day, and then also was just on my feet for most of the day in class. Working an office job in the states is a complete 180, and it’s crazy how ache-y and fatigued my body gets from not moving ?? So, it’s super important for me to force myself to get out in the evenings if I haven’t moved that day.
Heya everyone :> This week has been okay, I’m adjusting to working an earlier schedule at work so it’s been a sleepy week for ya girl 
. But it’s been good: I’m doing my wanikani every day and I ran a 12km on Monday ~ 走るのが自信をあげて、強く感じる。実は今週は私の生理だから、そういう遠さを走ったのは偉かったと思う；全てのしたかったことはソーファにしか座らないんだった。ハハ! My partner and I are also (following the Russian Orthodox tradition) going vegan for Lent :o so I’m spending a lot more time cooking. Busy busy!
All that said, I think it’s long overdue for me to start incorporating DAILY Russian practice into my routine! Reading the comments on hotdogsuplex’s log about Pimsleur and speech repetition made me open up my Mango Languages app (similar concept) today. I was once again confronted with the fact that I really struggle even just repeating Russian ~ they’ll say the word for “today” and I forget it 10 seconds later. Part of me worries oh my god has doomscrolling for hours in a day and long-Covid turned my brain to mush and now I don’t have the capacity to learn anymore??? But I have to have faith that that’s not it lol 
. More likely, I think the sounds are just not familiar to me yet, so it’s still very unintuitive. I am hopeful that with enough brute exposure, hopefully it becomes easier…
So, here goes! To be frank, I have a lot on at the moment with my dad’s health troubles, so I’m starting the bar graciously low: it doesn’t matter how much I can do in a day, so long as I do SOME Russian. (And of course I’ll still be doing my daily wanikani :> and 日本語で日記 when I have time!
| 日 | ロシア語 | どうやって？ |
|---|---|---|
| 木 |  |
Mango app; 10 mins |
| 金 | |
Mango app; 20 mins |
| 土 | |
Mango app; 20 mins |
| 日 | ~ | ~ |
This is exactly what I’m going through too I just stare at my computer screen like
Let’s do our best fighting the brain mush 
You’re gonna smash your Russian goals, and your partner is gonna be so proud of you too 
I’m very late to the party… I just found this thread, welcome back 
so glad to see you 
All my best to you and your dad and family
@mitrac hello again !!!
let’s goooooo !!!
Did 173 wanikani reviews and 20 lessons :> 
Also did 20 minutes of Mango app for Russian during my lunch break and tried a different strategy today… Now when the speaker said something in Russian, I tried to break down the whole word into combinations of English words/famliar sounds. So for example,
English 
: “Today”
Russian 
: сегодня (pronounced like si-vod-nya)
BRUTE SOUNDS 
: sea + first part of вода (VODa, the Russian word for water) + nah
Mnemonic 
: Is the sea water ? Nah/nope (bc it’s actually salt water)
Now what does the ocean and salt water have to do with the word for “today”? Absolutely nothing hahah but the goal today was literally just to get to the point of being able to repeat the sounds. Only after doing that for 20 minutes did I make the connection that this is kinda similar to how wanikani teaches irregular readings. I’ve been studying Japanese for so long, I took for granted that there was definitely a time where I was depending on sometimes random/nonsense mnemonics to jam Japanese words in too haha.
The Mango app also happens to use flash cards and SRS in conjunction to speaking practice, so I’m excited to see where this gets me! このマンゴというアプリはワニカニのロシアバージョンですか？
