October 8
Read some more 狼と香辛料 (24% → 27%).
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Oct 9
かがみの孤城 51 → 52%
Three pages today. There was a lot of easy dialogue so I was able to read faster than usual. It’s getting late so I’m stopping here… progressing one percent each day is a manageable pace for now.
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On October the 9th I’ve read (so far):
- 稲むらの火 – にほんごたどく
- 正直五兵衛 – にほんごたどく
- 弾丸をボールに – にほんごたどく
- Played some more 二ノ国。
P. S. Originally, I put Tadoku readers in a details section, because at that time I was reading Grade 1 readers, which are very short. But now that I’m reading the longer and more difficult Grade 3 readers, it takes more time to read them, so I end up reading much fewer of them, and it’s no longer necessary to put them in a separate section.
P. P. S. Speaking of Tadoku, I noticed that some of the readers seem to be a bit misgraded. Like, you might find a reader that seems to be higher / lower grade than the one it’s labeled as. I guess, there are a lot of border cases, so it’s not always easy to grade them 
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First week of the challenge! I’ve managed to read something everyday, with that varying somewhat between a good few hours at the weekend and an average of between an hour/an hour and a half on weekdays. Thursday this week I was exhausted and only managed 20 minutes before falling asleep 
What have I read?
Non-book club reads: This week I finished off ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる (somewhat before expected as it turned out that the last 30ish percent of the e-book was adverts/teasers for other books). My natively review is here: https://learnnatively.com/review/504cfb2ed8/
I started and finished the second volume of 本好き, and am now about half way through volume 3. I’ve been finding this generally a pretty good level for me so have been switching back and forth between listening to the audiobook on its own and listening while reading. Starting to get to a section with more unknown vocab though so might need to switch more towards reading for a bit 
I also tried to read the first Violet evergarden light novel and the first page and a half took me half an hour with 25 words looked up. Seems like it might still be too hard 
Book club reads: Have also read a few chapters of カラフル and a chapter of 海辺のカフカ. I am now a few weeks behind カフカ book club - need to catch up!
Reading speed update: average 36 p/h for 本好き 2&3, 16 p/h カフカ, 3 p/h () Violet Evergarden. (Stats for 仕事やめてくる messed up due to so much of the book being ads)
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October 6-9 
(actually 
)
化身, 70-75%
I kept reading every day these last few days, but only at a snail’s pace. Concentration has been extremely low - this had nothing to do with the story, or with Japanese, and everything to do with other aspects of my life. So in 4 days I read about the amount I would normally have read in one. And that’s okay.
Storywise, we’re still in non-horror territory. I’ll spoiler my rough summaries from now on, but there’s nothing very spoilery that’s happened yet. The narrator may have been complaining about wife and daughter doting on the parrot, but apparently he just felt a bit left out. So he started waking up the parrot after he was done with work, and speak to him late at night, when the others were asleep. The parrot listens attentively, but while he’s chatty most of the day, never utters a word, just listens. Then one day, when the narrator is very conflicted about a family decision that needs to be taken, the parrot speaks a single word in a voice very different to his regular voice. This turns out to be good advice. So far the bird hasn’t spoken again at those late night talk sessions, but I now expect him to again offer advice at a pivotal moment. Will it again be a good one?
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20221009 - 吾輩は狸である progress: 46.27% 
Only time for a paragraph or so today, but master’s friend continues his story (while still being interrupted, then a couple’s argument breaks out).
Japanese found under the leaves
Meowords
辟易「へきえき」ー To be fed up with; to be tired of
朦朧「もうそう」ー Dim; hazy; vague
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October 9
Home Post
Orange 
Read all of chapter 6 (I went ahead and finished chapter 5 yesterday after I posted) of Orange. Now I can’t quite understand why I haven’t read this for like 2 months. I got out of the habit and then stayed out of the habit I guess. Really enjoying the story and these two chapters were a bit easier to read.
However, I probably won’t be able to keep this speed up. Thursday my brother arrives and I’ll have to help him change my heating system, although I’ll probably mostly hand him tools. I’m not really handy myself. As far as I know, he usually does these install by himself, so he shouldn’t need me, except we have a limited time schedule so that plays in.
I’ll also be in charge of food I suppose. At least there I feel capable.
Anyway, my point is that Thursday-Saturday I don’t expect to have much time for myself. I’ll do my WK reviews (and no lessons), but beyond that I’m not gonna feel obligated to keep the reading up.
Also I am now T-8 days until the cuteness surprise I teased last challenge. I think I can even beat @windupbird for delivering cuteness. And that is some kind of achievement, isn’t it?
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Is that even possible?? 
either way, I am prepared to become destroyed by the cute
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Day 9, 9th of October
Didn’t do much reading except for textbook work. I don’t think I’ll be able to do much of anything this week due to anxiety. Alternatively, I might just do waaaay to much so I don’t have time to worry.
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Day 9: October 9th
What did I read?: 夜の名前を呼んで
How much did I read?: 34 pages
How long did it take me?: 38 min
Finished this volume today! We went back to nice happy times for the last chapter lol. This time, we learned more about the little shadow friends who have popped up sporadically in previous chapters (I have thus far failed to mention them but they’re pretty cute little guys)
This is the first page of the chapter and I’m telling you, I died, like everything about this page is so cute
Look at them in their little traveling cloaks And the way Rei bends down to greet them like a Disney prince making friends with the woodland creatures, I cannot
This chapter was basically the little shadow friends telling Mira how much they love her and how much she means to them in an attempt to cheer her up <3 I didn’t realize they had such a history together, so that was very sweet and heartwarming. Even though she’s been called a curse by others, they see her as a total blessing. 
I am eagerly awaiting the surprise
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Oct 9
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@Zakarius and @windupbird, some might consider it cheating. 
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October 9th!
Today I read Chapter 12 of Orange.
While this book continues to be a slightly difficult read for me, I find I’m looking up less and less vocabulary as I go and thats really encouraging.
Plus the story is just SO GOOD.
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10月06日
- 原神
10月07日
- 原神
10月09日
- ルーパーズ
Updating the last few days. Didn’t read yesterday, I needed the day off.
I’ll be brief, but it’s crazy the roller coaster that learning a new language can be, sigh. Either Japanese is a complete beast sometimes, or I’ve forgotten what learning a language feels like. Sometimes you feel great, you feel like you’re making great improvements and you can understand a lot. Then all of a sudden you have days when you feel the complete opposite, nothing makes sense, you still have a ton of vocabulary to learn to understand this language comfortably, and wonder where the heck is the work of the years you’ve put into this ;-; . And what’s crazy is that these two sides can alternate all the time, very frequently . Perhaps sometimes I try to bite much more than I can chew, and sometimes it feels disheartening, but others it feels amazing.
One day feeling amazing and understanding a lot; another day feeling terrible and struggling greatly, then repeat. I hope all the struggle pays off in the end . I keep learning new vocabulary and to a lesser extent new grammar, so that’s all that matters. It’s just a super long process and I’m too impatient at times. But overall I enjoy it, it just feels so uncomfortable and uncertain occasionally. I certainly don’t enjoy feeling stuck.
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Home
October 9
おじさまと猫7
37 - 73
I’m trying hard to finish these final 2 volumes off. I want to have them all ready before I take them to a BOOKOFF. I’m also adding Nyankes to the vols I’m trying to read as well. For these series that I don’t plan to keep up with or continue, I’m thinking “what’s the point of having physical copies of them?” I’m also worried about when I’ll eventually need to move, so I want to make things easier on future me.
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October 9 home post link🏡
Today, I read part 4 of ジャックと豆の木, in which Jack hides in the castle and gets away with stealing money from the man-eating giant. I did the thing where I listened to the recording and translated what I could understand (I could understand most of it!), then I looked at the Japanese script and read it out loud, and I finally compared my translation with the official English translation.
Unfortunately, I won’t have much time to read this week either. I’ll try to keep reading at least one part of a story on wasabi every day.
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On October the 10th I’ve read:
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Today was a bit unusual for me - no book reading, but a lot of N1 読解 practice. For a variety of reasons that can largely be summed up as “I’m sick of being asked” (in real life, not so much online) I’ve decided to take the JLPT, and the N1 so it’s a one-and-done thing. N1 reading practice material is a good deal more boring than my usual stuff. No one dies, no one cries, revenge is not served at any temperature. 
Anyways, I do usually get lots of fun reading in which speaking of the Mystery Book Club on Natively is voting again 
If you think you’d like to read along with me and some other stellar folks on the Natively forums feel free to vote now - we start reading the chosen book on October 31st!
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October 9th, no fancy formatting because mobile.
- Secret on Satori Reader (Chapters 1-3)
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Day 8:
Priority: 
ミニスカ宇宙海賊 1. They guessed at who was (electronically) attacking and decided to scare them off by counter-attacking, but they don’t know how and instead caused a blackout for the entire ship and the port it’s in.
Free choice: 
硝子の塔の殺人.
Other: 
魔王城でおやすみ 10 (and finished the volume). I enjoyed the wholesome resolution of タソガレ worrying his dad would think he wasn’t doing a good job as 魔王.
| O | C | T | w | e | e | k | 2 |
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| 日 | 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | |
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For week 3 my stretch goal is to finish a volume of 鋼の錬金術師.
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