I’m so happy I waited until today to read chapter 2-3 of 青ブタ11. That was such a long sub chapter! Really enjoyable but long x.x
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December 15th!
Today I read chapter 40 of Shadows House. It ended on a bit of a cliffhanger so I really want to find out what happens next!
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December 15
Home Post
Orange 
Info on olden times holiday traditions in Sweden 
Hello! 
I went away on a one week vacation, did you guys miss me? xD
I also ended up reading absolutely nothing. Had enough time to keep up with my WK reviews, but that was about it, outside vacation stuff. 
I went to London and had a good time. I bought a lot of tea and chocolate, so I’ll be aurally entertained for a long time. 
Today I got back to reading. Both reading a lot about historical Swedish Christmas traditions, super interesting. It is a book magazine (they literally call it that, not nearly as thick as Japanese manga magazines but still pretty thick), that writes about every day from December 1 to I think about 13 days after Christmas (you can’t take down Christmas too early, eh!). There are both specifically to the day things and otherwise it talks about Christmas holiday stuff in general. It is fun to learn more about the types of traditions we once did here.
I also started volume 5 of Orange. But it was already late so didn’t read far. Maybe close to half the first chapter in the volume.
Also for those that have missed it, BU$TAFELLOWS VN club starts tomorrow. It is a Switch and mobile game, the PC version is English text only, but with the Japanese audio. This is a long VN and we will need to keep the speed up to not read it over a year or more. But please come join if interested!
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December 15th (Home Post Link)
Read:
- NHK News Web Easy: 小学校と中学校 発達障害かもしれない子どもが8.8％いる - some rather syntactically complicated sentences in this one, but read through it a few times and then picked it apart in deepl and they mostly make sense to me now.
- ホリミヤ ch 26 + おまけ - given that i’m just now finishing volume 4, finishing this series by the end of the month is looking less and less likely could do it? yeah, probably. But it feels like i’m reading plenty and enjoying myself with one of my favorite series, wouldn’t want to rush it and stress out about it
Good Words
NHK
発達障害 「はったつしょうがい」ー developmental disorder
かもしれない ー might, possibly
どのくらい ー how long, how much, how far
周りの人「まわりのひと」ー the people around oneself
ホリミヤ
崩壊「ほうかい」ー collapse, breaking down
ウケる ー to find funny, to find humorous (form of 受ける)
居間「いま」ー living room
判断「はんだん」ー judgement
登校拒否「とうこうきょひ」ー truancy
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Another tiny read - I want to keep reading but it’s already bedtime! I love 乱歩 so much, I really should make a list of his books and just try to get through them all eventually.
I also really enjoyed my advent reading today, 梶井基次郎 is an author I’ll have to make a note to read more of in the future.
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So… Manga Republic has a coupon… and I found out they’ve got one of the issues of Cocohana that’s got a 2.43 manga chapter (the third, I believe; also, it amazingly wasn’t super expensive), so I ordered that, as well as the Premium Collection ver of xxxHolic vol 19 (which Amazon doesn’t have for some reason?? TOM I’m not surprised about, but Amazon not even having a listing? They’ve got the others though, so I’ve got that option for them too) and a few volumes of the 今日から㋮王! manga that I don’t have. So yeah, happy xmas to me, I guess (though I doubt it’s getting here by then). My 積読 pile just keeps growing.
Today I read ch 3 of JJK0.
Getou: Satou-san—
Saitou: Um, I’m Saitou.
Getou: Nope, I called you Satou, so you’re Satou now.
What are you, a spoiled five-year-old brat? Yup, I definitely hate him. For that, he’s on the level of Yahiko now. Unfortunately, also like Yahiko, he’s a main supporting character.
Oh, lovely, and he thinks of every non-jujutsushi as a monkey and therefore below his high-and-mighty self. He may as well use 俺様. But then, he does speak semi-politely, and 俺様 is about as far from polite as you can get. Why can’t he be some one-off, two-bit villain, why does he and his extremely punchable face gotta be a recurring character, ugh
Apparently in the novelization, Yuuta compares Maki to the shining sun in the winter sky, so I’m really looking forward to reading that. I’ve really fallen for this ship, especially after this chapter. They’re so good.
Some vocab of note:
うさんくさい [い-adj.] suspicious-looking; shady; questionable; dubious; fishy
杞憂 (きゆう) [noun] needless fear; groundless apprehension; unfounded worry. I have a feeling I’ve done this one before, but oh well. Also I like how it looks.
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Finished Chapter 2 of 青ブタ11 and good lord things are getting weird. O.O
I don’t even know where to begin. But this is definitely one of the more wild volumes.
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December 15 Home Post
Tail end of finals week, spent most of the day dealing with that so just barely snuck in a few pages of ブルーロック 
but after tomorrow I’m free!! 
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Day 36 Progress:
お隣の天使様 四冊 - 39.58% → 50.92%
Don’t let the fact that I’m posting this at 5 AM distract you from the fact that I had a great reading day today.
Onomatopoeia words continue to remain a menace to me. So often do I just stare at one I thought I learned and just draw a complete blank. Many of them sounding insanely similar doesn’t help…
Word of the Day: 真摯 - sincere; earnest; serious. That 摯 is a 常用漢字 and yet is used in exactly one word is pretty interesting to see. Obviously it must have some decent name usage but at the same time I really do wonder about the criteria for what gets added as 常用 or not…
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Dec 16
かがみの孤城 (上) 95% → 100%
Yay, finished the book! Though it’s technically only half of the whole story, lol. Initially I wanted to take a break from such a long novel and read shorter ones first before continuing, but I feel invested in the story now 
Thoughts about the story (spoilery content)
For most of the book I assumed the ending would be some cliffhanger about the search for the key/room, but I was very wrong! I’m not mad about the book focusing on the relationships between the characters rather than the main plot, though I’m now very curious about how meeting in ‘real life’ will turn out for them, as well as what will happen with the search for the key/room.
Thoughts about my reading ability progress through reading this book
So I read this book over a total of nine months, breaks from reading to focus on academics included. I feel like throughout the book the difficulty varied between sections. Sometimes the dialogue was very easy to understand, and at other times it confused me so much that I had to reread a single page several times. As I reached the end of the novel I definitely got stuck far less times than when I started. I was also able to speedread a lot more than I could in the beginning. Which is great! I also learned a ton of new words just by looking them up far too many times until I remembered their reading and what it meant.
I think I’ll spend the last few days of the year finishing 人間椅子 and perhaps starting 世界から猫が消えたなら, then see how I feel from there.
And now I shall begin a novel in English as a small reward for myself 
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Home 
December 15
人間椅子 -
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険56
100 -132
I didn’t have as much time as I wanted. No work tomorrow though
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December 16th
Card Captor Sakura volume 2 or Aria: the masterpiece volume 2 – progress report
Yesterday: Read up to page 341, finished chapter 19.
Today: Read up to page 376, finished chapter 20 and Aria: the masterpiece volume 2.
I still have a lingering anxious feeling today but at least it’s better than yesterday. Finished chapter 20 which was cute albeit predictable, and with that the second volume. I have officially reached my goal of reading the first 2 volumes of Aria before the end of this year with several days to spare. 
While the 3rd volume is already at my disposal, I have just gotten the message that my next order may take a while longer (around a month). Therefore, I’ll switch to mostly reading Card Captor Sakura during the week again and Aria on the weekends which will prevent me from finishing Aria volume 3 too soon.
Word or expression of the day:
ホラ話 - (ほらはなし) - tall story, tall tale, cock-and-bull story
Honourable mention(s):
人混み - (ひとごみ) - crowd of people
バチが当たる - (ばちがあたる) - to incur divine punishment, to pay for one’s sins
精進 (+する) - (しょうじん) - adherence to a vegetarian diet
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Can always recommend taking some calm, deep breaths.
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Reply
Indeed, taking deep breaths is very sound advice for anyone experiencing anxiety or stress and I want to thank you for mentioning it. 
I won’t elaborate much on the kind of anxious vicious cycle I went through. I’ll just say that it also involved my blood pressure being too high that made me even more anxious in return – but taking deep breaths is exactly one of the strategies I employed: did a few short breathing sessions yesterday and today in the form of slow, deep abdominal breaths while lying down in a relaxing position and it helped a bit.
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20221216 - 吾輩は狸である progress: 97.12% 
These guys seem unaware that there aren’t many pages left as there’s no end to their conversation in sight.
Japanese found under the leaves
Meowords
破天荒「はてんこう」ー Unprecedented; unheard of
陋習「ろうしゅう」ー Bad habit; harmful practice
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Dec 16, Fri of Week 12 of Fall 2022
- かがみの孤城 (下) 32% => 35% (around 1/20 of March, audio separately first)
幻滅された。
Bookmarks can be saved (a little inconveniently), with percentage, by scroll screenshot on Android. On web browser version, percentage doesn’t show. Sync can be done by pasting in Notion, where long vertical images aren’t shrunkened.
- 史記 (front to page 44, half of Ch.1)
Perhaps around the start of 漢 Dynasty. I would be nice if I can associate names with my Chinese dialect… (where I don’t need Hanzi), not really the Mandarin one, and I don’t always find an answer. (I don’t give up the hope of learning Mandarin in the future, though. Perhaps next two years.)
- うたわれるもの (1 hour)
Bind play
I also touched a little of BU$TAFELLOWS. So, I reinstalled on my Android tablet as @MissDagger started the club, and has a good idea on how to make the VN linear, and not hurried; so now easily manageable.
Prologue + Chapter 1 is free on Android, but more than twice as expensive than Steam version. (Around 3.5 times.) However, Steam has no free version. (Steam is translated-to-EN sub version, though.)
Interesting words
- ぎこちない = clumsy
- 特典 = special benefits. Extra stuff from the game.
- 古今 = all times; ancient and modern times.
- 野太い = audacious
- 舗装 = pavement
- 雪融け = melting of snow. Alternate version is indeed 雪解け from 解ける.
- 両隣 = both sides
- 下卑る = to become vulgar. Also see 下卑.
- 上玉 = fine jewel
- 盗人 = robber. From 盗む + 人.
- 苛む = to torment. Compare 苛つく and 苛める.
- 無粋 = inelegant
- 首尾 = from beginning to the end
- 絶世の美女 = woman of unmatched beauty
- 群雄割拠. Literally perhaps collection of heroes, but split amongst factions.
- 成し遂げる = to accomplish
- 召し捕る = to arrest (e.g., of a police)
- 見せしめ = setting as example. I see as 見せる + 締める.
- 心神喪失 = of an unsound mind
- ほとぼりが冷める = things calm down. The particle changed to の in context. 熱り perhaps comes from 火通り?
- 身ぐるみ = all one has. Dictionary suggests 身ぐるみはがれる and 身ぐるみはぎとられる, but in context uses 剥がす.
- 良心の呵責 = pricks of conscience. 呵責 refers to tormenting. (Caustic words + Blaming)
-
鵜呑みにする = to swallow whole (e.g. of a 話). 鵜 is a cormorant
.
SFX
- じたばた = making a fuss
- ざっくり = roughly
- まごつく = to be confused, from まごまご
- しおしお = dejectedly; in low spirits
- もぞもぞ = creeping about
- すっくと = upright (of standing posture)
- ぱらり = dropping in small bits
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I’ve only posted briefly last week or so.
The first week of my overseas trip has been fairly busy but I’ve still read a tiny bit every day. Today was a little better.
16/12 7 pages 夜カフェ, 3 pages かみさまがまちがえる (finished week’s reading)
So going into next week I’m quite behind, but I think I’ve got scope to catch up. Except for おばちゃんたち… where I’m falling back quite a bit.
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December 16
Home Post
BU$TAFELLOWS 
I had so many hopes for today. Holiday reading in Swedish and English. Finish the prologue of Bustafellows, but no.
At least I got started on Bustafellows, figuring out the unmentioned (why?!) keybindings.
I also got my little cat a new toy. A long tunnel with balls at either end. First impressions suggests he liked it a lot. 
Edit: Apparently I was like 2-3 screens away from finishing the prologue so on the way to starting another game on my Switch, I did end up finishing the prologue.
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December 16th!
Today I read chapter 35 of Happiness, finishing Volume 7.
It ended on a cliffhanger, which seems to be happening to me a lot this week!
I need to get faster at reading so I can stop having to wait to see what happens next in so many books
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Home
December 16
人間椅子 -
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険56 
133 - end (200)
I love Abbacchio. Such a shitty, trashy guy. I sent a pic of the scene where he joins others beating up a guy because in the anime, they cut to him finishing a glass of wine before joining them and a friend asked me what some text in the corner was. I had only skimmed it in my reading last night! Turns out that he was using the now unconscious guy to test the gang’s food for poison. He’s so awful. I love him. I have awful taste in anime men.
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