Day 5: September 5
What did I read?: ハイ☆スピード! and ふらいんぐうぃっち Vol. 10 (finished the volume)
How much did I read?: 6 pages and 17 pages
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 21 min and 22 min
Makoto being late because he needed to clean his goldfish bowl is too precious 
Sweet baby angel. And Nagisa’s here! Being an annoying child, why is that not a surprise xD
Gushing about the writing of Haru + water/swimming (not really spoilery, I just felt like putting it under a cut because I put an image to explain my feelings and it felt large just sitting out there lmao)
I love the way that Haru thinks about and relates to the water/swimming. Like…I just love the way it’s written. It’s not stated in so many words, but it feels like he’s got a better “relationship” with water/swimming than he does with most humans. Like they understand each other, and respect/accept each other as they are. There’s something I find so bittersweet about that, in the context of his not being that good with human relationships. I don’t know if I’m conveying what I mean very well right now lmao but this window into Haru’s thoughts about swimming just got me like
I feel like I haven’t really noticed writing styles that much in Japanese before, but there’s something about this novel’s writing style that I really really like. It feels so pretty sometimes. :3 It’s really helping me enjoy the story even more, I think, especially now that I’ve had a chance to settle into it.
Finally finished off the last volume of Flying Witch today also - I was reading it with the book club during the summer challenge and just…sort of…didn’t finish it after the last challenge ended. 
Whoopsss
Good words/phrases from today (mostly from High Speed, but one from Flying Witch too):
- 認め合う (みとめあう) - to mutually recognize; to accept
- かすめる - to appear and quickly disappear (a thought, a smile, etc.); to flit (through one’s mind, across one’s face)
- 手を抜く(てをぬく) - to cut corners; to be shoddy
- 御免だ - might be more of a grammar point than a word per se, but apparently means “do not want/want to avoid,” which I did not know (and the author of High Speed clearly likes to use this construction, it’s shown up at least 3 times already)
- 齧る (かじる) - to dabble in; to have a smattering of (but also means to gnaw; to nibble; to bite; to munch; to crunch - this was written in hiragana in Flying Witch but I love this kanji, it just looks so appropriate for that meaning. Like, doesn’t it just look like crunching? It does to me anyway xD)