Spring 2022 Reading Challenge Completion Post
Completion: 51 / 61 days (83.6%)
Work done:
- Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun → About 25h, but there’s not too much text in this game, it’s mostly gameplay.
- Final Fantasy VII → 48h.
Thoughts on spring 2022's challenge
Sadly I missed too many days this time due to being sick for a week and whatnot. But anyways, fourth challenge in, that marks officially one year (not exactly, I took breaks in between challenges) of regular Japanese reading. To be completely honest, I have no idea how much exactly I’ve improved, but I certainly feel that I have. If I look at my completion posts of previous challenges, I went from reading Satori Reader, some NHK Easy News and some Final Fantasy III in the summer challenge; Satori Reader, Final Fantasy XIV (that I considered very hard and eventually changed back to English), some Stardew Valley and some of Recettear in the autumn challenge, to reading my first full book 君の名は , some 50 pages of 星の王子さま (that managed to kick my ass in different ways to be fair) and several NHK articles (no longer NHK Easy News) in the Winter challenge, and finally playing Final Fantasy VII this time, a story heavy JRPG, while following it just fine with a very comfortable amount of lookups.
I like to write these conclusion posts because I can see the improvement based on what I was reading at different points in time. I remember FFXIV being really, really exhausting, to the point that I didn’t think it was worth my time because the constant lookups completely drained my energy every time I played, so I dropped it. Nowadays, when I’ve set the language to Japanese again, I don’t get the same impression, it doesn’t bring me down so much as it used to, so that definitely is an improvement and I would be so thrilled if I’m finally able to take it up as a learning resource. I went from Satori Reader to reading 君の名は , which was really fun and motivating. From Final Fantasy III 's very simple language to Final Fantasy VII 's complex and deep story. My brain must have definitely been doing some work in between my occasional complaining of no progress 
. That’s encouraging.
I’ve been wondering about how can I make it so that I can keep doing these challenges indefinitely without inevitably burning out at some point. I mentioned about wanting to experiment with doing the next challenge with no checkbox calendar. My reason for this is because I would like to move from two months of work and one of break, to regular, “uninterrupted” reading throughout the year. I plan to read and keep posting through June, and we have the next challenge right after in July. If I’m being honest and realistic with myself, there is no way I can read every single day of the year without occasional tiny breaks, but at the same time I don’t want to take a whole month off. I would like to be able to take a day off if I need it and not put too much pressure on missing challenge days. Of course, the goal would still be to read every day, but I feel like the checkboxes kinda change my focus from “read everyday” to “check boxes everyday”. In a sense, it wouldn’t be a “read every day” challenge for me any more, but technically if you miss a day at all you would “fail” the challenge already, and we all know that’s not really true because you just keep going. My goal with these challenge threads is not to complete a challenge per se, but to read consistently and improve my Japanese in any way I can through reading. I don’t think taking a day or two ultimately hinders that goal, in fact I think it might end up being a positive strategy. So in conclusion, I might change my personal approach to the challenge from “read every day” to “read as much as energy permits in this period of time”. I think that’s a much more realistic goal for me going forward. Occasionally I just really need that one-day rest to recharge my batteries and I end up not taking it because I don’t want a missed day on my calendar (which I always have anyways, the only challenge I achieved 100% was summer’s). I’m hoping that taking that timely rest also allows me to be more productive and read more overall.
Also I would really like to track listening as well as a secondary thing. It kinda feels like hijacking the thread a bit, though, so I will post them in a summary box apart from all the reading. It’s just so that I have a way to keep track of it in some way. It’s nice to see how much I’ve done once the challenges end, it’s helpful to me. I kinda treat this thread like my study log. I’ve been avoiding making a study log thread for myself because I don’t want all the focus of a thread being on me. I very much prefer it when I participate in something where the focus is more global, like here.
I’m not sure of what I’ll be reading next challenge. I still have some of Final Fantasy VII left but it’s likely that I finish it this month. After that I might start the Zero Escape games that I bought some weeks ago. It’s also likely that I start Final Fantasy VI (I should probably stop using Roman numerals to avoid confusion 
). Other options are Zelda Breath of the Wild, Code Vein, Bravely Default and possibly FFXIV again.
Thank you all for the participation, interesting conversations and overall amazing atmosphere as usual <3
For the ones taking a rest until the next one, enjoy the relaxation! And for the ones continuing, I’ll see you around 
.