October 4th!
Today I read a chapter of Teasing Master Takagi-san. It was a cute chapter about building snowmen.
I was going to read a chapter of Mitsuboshi Colors too, but I’ve had a busy week (even though its only Tuesday 
) so I decided not to push myself to do too much tonight.
October 4 
(actually 
)
化身, 63-65%
Didn’t make much progress today. This section of the story was mainly about the bubble economy and its aftermath, and how people, and specifically the narrator, were still struggling financially - which was an important reason why they hesitated getting a pet in the first place. I’m starting to think the horror will turn out to be much more mundane than I had imagined - maybe the bird will lead them to bankruptcy and eventually homelessness in order to keep him warm and fed? 
Today I read one fourth of chapter 11 of the Monobeno visual novel.
Also the next 8 pages of the Shin Kanzen Master Reading N1 book.
October 4 home post link🏡
Today, I read 北風と太陽, or The North Wind and the Sun (on Wasabi, link in home post). I read all 5 lessons of this N4 story. I read the Japanese text first, then tried to translate it into English, and then compared my translation to their English translation. I understood most of the Japanese and could fill in the gaps with context clues.
The North Wind and the Sun are arguing about who is stronger. They decide to settle their argument by seeing who can make this man take off his cloak the fastest. The North Wind goes first and blows strong wind at the man. However, the man simply goes, “Oh, it’s cold,” and puts on another cloak. So the North Wind really failed to make the man take off his cloak (the guy put on a whole other cloak lol!). Then, the Sun shines some hot sunshine towards the man, and he takes one of his cloaks off. The Sun shines even harder, and the man takes his other cloak off. So the Sun wins, and the moral of the story is to not show off your power like the North Wind did, but to use your brain and use your power while considering the feelings of the people, which is what the Sun did. Overall, pretty interesting story.
10月03日
10月04日
Started Genshin finally. Going well, I’m able to mine vocabulary cards although not as fast as with ルーパーズ but it’s alright, I’m having fun. Nothing much has happened in the game yet, I’m at the very beginning, but I’m hyped 
. There’s a ton of reading to do, I hope it doesn’t get too overwhelming, but lately I’m very happy with where my understanding of Japanese while playing games has gotten so hopefully it’s not too bad.
I’ll resume my JP playthrough of FFXIV soon ish, there are so many games to play and I want to play them all at the same time D: . I never finished Chrono Trigger and I was at what looked like the very end . I have a history of casually quitting games even at the end, woops. I will finish it for sure, though.
Day 4: October 4th
What did I read?: 夜の名前を呼んで
How much did I read?: 24 pages
How long did it take me?: 25 min
Crying over the man with star-colored hair, Day 3 
I honestly cannot convey how much I adore him, I was so looking forward to reading this today after work because I knew I’d get to see him and his cute face.
He is literally so sweet, I actually cannot 
Mira got a letter from her parents, who are apparently very far away from where they are now. They sent her a little pressed flower, one of her favorite flowers from her homeland. A sunspot flower. Which - adorable But the whole thing kind of makes her sad, which Rei immediately notices because the sky starts to go dark outside while he’s watering the flowers. He brings her flowers from the garden, already adorable, and then he sees the pressed flower and like, talks to her about it, and then just…casually magics up a little terrarium view of the flower’s “memories,” which include her home, the fields around it, and her parents’ thoughts as they were picking out the flower for her. Which- BYE MY HEART
This pic does not even do this beautiful 2-page spread justice, I just couldn’t take a good picture of it without hurting the spine of the book 
THEN THEY PREPARE A RETURN GIFT OF PRESSED FLOWERS FROM THEIR OWN GARDEN AND SEND IT TO HER PARENTS I’M-
Best manga, 10/10
Quick update for my accountability – I made it through 2500 characters of Flowers today. A success considering I spent hours today in a doctor’s office (nothing serious, just very annoying problems sorta preventing me from doing what I want) and I’m taking some short term medication now, though no real negative effects noticed just yet. After the VN wanted to throw things like a brief summary of the history of old Bible translations at me, I was out of energy. Hoping for more reading tomorrow but I can say I didn’t fail 
2022-10-05T01:34:00Z
It turns out that I shouldn’t have changed my routine so abruptly. I got out of the habit of reading manga and then I got distracted. So now I have a 2-day gap in this challenge. 
(I couldn’t figure out what emoji to use.) I chose オトメン(乙男) 2 to read this challenge. I read the first volume in my first challenge and I’ve just realised that it’s quite appropriate for this anniversary challenge. (Though maybe I should’ve saved it for December so it would be a true anniversary but there’s no need to go that far, right?)
October 4 Home Post
Finished up volume 2 of ブルーロック! It’s an absolutely wild time, I’m having a lot of fun with it 
good thing I have several more volumes!
Read 7 pages of 青ブタ during lunch. Was reading pretty slow on purpose because my day is kind of dragging. Haven’t played Danganronpa in a couple days and Nier comes on Friday. No way am I gonna finish in time, but still would like to finish V3 before jumping into Nier. Idk, I am pretty out of it today but I am putting in the effort I can. I mostly just want to watch JoJo right now, but can’t do that at work, so T-T I will probably do that at home.
My brain was all over the place today, so I got a little bit done of a bunch of different things.
クールドジ男子 vol 5 is releasing on the 21st!! Now I gotta hurry up and finish a bunch of books so I don’t feel guilty buying it then/soon after (I’m thinking probably November). SPY×FAMILY vol 10 also released today, but since it’s turned out that I’m pretty much reading it with the club (or at least, reading no further than the volume they’re currently on), that’s not a priority right now.
Today I read a 14-page DJ on twitter that a person who liked my own post for Yuni’s birthday drew for his birthday last year (four days late, I know, but I rarely go on twitter). Also, this text exchange between Mima and Souma done to promote the クールドジ男子 anime. I could actually more or less keep up with the texts as they came in! I was a bit slow, but not so much so that I had to pause the video.
I also got curious as to what the word in Japanese for “neurotypical” is and turned to Wikipedia. (I remembered about Aoki wearing his earbuds with the cord inside his shirt in ep 12, and since that makes my sensory issues act up just looking at it, I went, “さすがneurotypicals,” and then, “Okay, how would I say that completely in Japanese?”) Well, that still doesn’t mean I actually know how to express it, but eh, it’s just inside my head so really I’m content with it being half JP, half ENG.
定型発達 (ていけいはったつ) typical development; TD. As the title of the page, this appears to be the most common and/or most official term. It mostly corresponds to the English term “neurotypical.”
神経学的定型 (しんけいがくてきていけい) “neurology” + “-al” + “typical” = neurotypical; NT.
自閉 (じへい)、自閉症 (じへいしょう) autism
自閉症スペクトラム障害 (じへいしょうスペクトラムしょうがい) Autism Spectrum Disorder; ASD. And, of course, without the 障害 it’s just “the autism spectrum.”
自閉コミュニティ (じへいコミュニティ) the autistic community
神経学的多様 (しんけいがくてきたよう) neurodivergent; ND
神経学的非定型 (しんけいがくてきひていけい) neuro-atypical
I watched the first ep of 不幸くんはキスするしかない! on Viki, and though I watched it with JP subs (and had to pause a bunch of times to keep up…), for ep 3 it says “JA 64%” and from ep 4 onwards it says “EN 100%” so it seems I’ll be having to switch to ENG subs soon. Anyways, it seemed a bit over the top, but it was amusing, so I liked it.
I also read 3 pages of Stage of the Ground, leaving off on pg 21. Phew, going into this not knowing any JP baseball terms (and barely knowing any ENG ones either, for that matter) was rough. I had to break out Google Translate to make sense of one string of it: “五打数四安打五打点,” which apparently means “4 hits in 5 at-bats with 5 RBIs.” At least I understand that much in English, but that long string in Japanese was intimidating. I feel like volleyball uses more English terms (or will use the JP term but will also use the ENG term for it) while baseball uses more Japanese terms (and rarely also uses the ENG term).
The MC Yukito’s father runs an okama bar, so I wonder if there’ll be any queer themes beyond that… Hinota ofc does BL, that’s how I discovered them, but I don’t know anything about Aoyama Sagu. Granted, it is a sports novel, but I’m pretty sure it’s a sports drama, which are more character-driven, so there could be some. (On that note, I saw today someone imply that 2.43 is a BL? Uh, not any more than any other sports anime is lmao. Like, is it gay? Yeah. Canonically so? lol)
意味合い (いみあい) [noun] implication; nuance; connotation
嫌気がさす (いやけがさす) [expression, サ五] to be tired of; to be sick of; to get fed up with
妙ちくりん (みょうちくりん) [slang, な-adj.] weird; odd
愛想を尽かす (あいそをつかす) [expression, サ五] to be disgusted with; to run out of patience; to fall out of love
忸怩たる思い (じくじたるおもい) [formal/literary, expression, noun] feelings of strong embarrassment over one’s own actions. I was just thinking I’d never actually seen an adjective take たる (except once in an old book in DQ), but it turns out it’s an expression.
スルースキル [colloquialism, noun] ability to ignore bad things happening to one; power not to get upset or worked up (by ignoring something)
softlyraining’s spooky book stack 
October 4th:
とつくにの少女１(50% → 62%)
Folks! I am VERY concerned for this darling child! She foolishly decided to sneak off with an umbrella to look for her aunt because it’s raining and she’s worried for her well being. That’s lovely and all, but UNFORTUNATELY the soldiers see her and this little nugget decides to ask if they can help find her aunt. They are NOT interested in doing that; instead, they try to SHOOT HER WITH AN ARROW! 
I suppose earlier in the chapter suggested they’d do just that (and when I say “suggested,” I mean there’s a page with a single large speech bubble that says, “殺せ” all nice and bold and in-your-face).
We also see what せんせ has been working on, and I’m of two minds. It appears to be a letter, though it’s not addressed to anyone in particular. The word 娘 appears, and…does that mean シーヴァ is his actual daughter, or she’s like a daughter to him, so he’s using that word? I’m kind of inclined to say she’s his actual daughter, but I’m open to being completely incorrect.
I would’ve read more, but I’m behind on my homework. 
I might only get to read a little bit tomorrow, but hopefully I’ll finish my work with plenty of reading time to spare. 
That is the biggest mood. I’ve thought about playing the ova audio only while at work a few times
If I could have headphones on, omg… game over. I would probably level up in my japanese like nobody’s business. But alas, I cant T-T
Ah bummer 
October 4th (Home Post Link)
Finished volume 4 of よつばと！ (chapters 26 and 27) today! 4/15 down! They really do seem to be going faster and faster. I was feeling pretty tired when I sat down to read today thinking I’d only do one chapter, but before I knew it I’d finished the volume! I realized that I was misreading 失恋 as 失礼 yesterday when it came up again in the よつばしんぶん today. Even more poor 風香ちゃん, よつば simply cannot be trusted to keep information in confidence. Another good word of note today: 土手. Couldn’t quite piece that one together; the context made me think it was a riverbank, but the kanji meanings felt strange for the word to mean that. Wondering what the difference between that and a 岸辺 is, but not worrying too much about it.
A long day on the road again tomorrow, so may have to skip a day if it’s too busy but we’ll see.
Ouch! It’s been a long time since I’ve watched anime with Japanese subs, and I didn’t realize how much progress I’d made on that front in terms of comprehension – so that was a nice surprise.
Oct 5
かがみの孤城 45% → 47%
Another four pages today! I kept getting distracted so it took me longer than it should have.
October 3
Home Post
I didn’t read yesterday. I was so stressed and overwhelmed from mid afternoon and all evening… I barely got anything done. It kinda feels like a miracle that I feel pretty good in that department this morning. Although I’m tired af. Went to bed late, but the sleep I did get seems to have been solid.
On October the 5th I’ve read (so far):
Huge thanks to @edelstein さん for recommending this channel!
ベトナムの生春巻き – にほんごたどく
ピーターラビットのお話 – にほんごたどく
ベンジャミンバニーのお話 – にほんごたどく
デカりんご – にほんごたどく
日本の城 – にほんごたどく
これは何でしょう？ – にほんごたどく
チワワの花すけ～帽子とマフラー – にほんごたどく
シュモーハウス – にほんごたどく
かぼちゃん日本の秋へ – にほんごたどく
柴犬ディナちゃん、秋の京都へ行く！ – にほんごたどく
北海道 – にほんごたどく
お母さんヘンシン – にほんごたどく
明日は遠足 – にほんごたどく
ヴィトリアレジア ブラジル先住民のお話から – にほんごたどく
丸メガネ寮母さん – にほんごたどく
怠け者のフウアン – にほんごたどく
わたしとともだちのほしちゃんとねこのどのちゃん – にほんごたどく
ようこそ別府へ – にほんごたどく – there are several more readers about Beppu on Tadoku. If their goal was to make people want to visit Beppu – then in my case, they’ve succeeded. Thanks to those readers, Beppu is the first on my list of places I’d like to visit in Japan 
