Regarding the reading challenge: Just don’t stress out on it too much, would be my take on it. Sometimes life just gets in the way, and it sounds like life provided you with a big colourful box of things to deal with at the moment. So I wouldn’t worry too much, continue where you dropped off, and try to keep up with it a bit more next time.
For building a habit, I feel I cannot add anything that hasn’t been said (I’m still working on that bit myself, so… )
Given the general interest in the medium, it might actually be worthwhile to read a VN in a kind of club, I guess. Due to the recent Big Tread Move™ I learned that we already have one VN reading club, it’s called DokiDoki Literature Club iirc. They even have some weekly threads; maybe you can see what they did and whether it worked out well or not? Other than that, my spontaneous idea would have been something like one thread per route or something, without fixed schedule? This way everybody could read in any order and in the end everything comes together or something But these routes seem to be very long so that might be too large a chunk. Or you could read up to a forking point together, and then poll on what route to take next, and then the whole group takes that route together. This way you could synchronize your experience a bit more.
Anyways, sounds like an interesting experiment!
I can see that Anyways, whatever y’all end up coming up with, I’d be curious to hear about how it worked out for you.
I see you . I’ll keep this in mind as something I want to try to try starting a little ways down the line then!
Oh thank you! I had no idea! I guess it makes sense they’d do one for Doki Doki, since that game exploded in popularity a little while back. I guess it’s time to play 君と彼女と彼女の恋, which I always heard should appeal to Doki Doki fans. Doki Doki’s a game that has somewhat clear delineations for days which helps, plus it was originally an English VN later translated and it seems a lot of people were replaying. That’s the thing about trying to make a schedule – often you kind of need someone who has already played it to have any idea what divisions the game has, if any, and how they’re paced. I think both of your ideas could work and I see in that club they did at one point vote in relation to the choices presented there.
I want to say what’s on my mind right now is, a little bit in the future, to simply make a thread to check for interest and find out what people want to read, aiming to hopefully begin with a visual novel that avoids most trickier issues (there are “kinetic visual novels” that don’t feature choices at all, for example). While I think the polls might be a good idea, I feel like we just have to go no schedule unless we have someone on hand who already knows how that VN works… even when they’re sorted by chapters or days or something, I’d worry about some being unexpectedly lengthy or short. But once we see that there’s even interest and that we make it through a VN, if more happen, those among us who already have experience can feel out if we want to tackle ones that require more problem solving and can knock together our ideas then. Of course if people feel strongly about playing something not like that from the beginning we can work something out, but y’know.
I have actually played one of these before, and personally, I really prefer the format. It’s nice to be able to enjoy the story with art and voice-acting and not have to worry about making the wrong choices or having to backtrack to get the other pieces of the story. I think it would definitely make for an easier club format, because everyone would be on the same path, essentially.
Work really swept me away these past few weeks, but I’m really proud of everyone who participated and/or finished the challenge this spring I’m almost used to my job again so my plan is to participate for real in the next challenge go go readers!!!
June 3rd
Continued LOOPERS today, lots of fun so far, we’ve got time looping, the explanation of what’s going on with that, and more fun with geocaching. Most of the characters have interesting ways of speaking. I saw someone say it took them 4 hours to play (in english) so I’m curious how long it’ll take me (probably at least three times that lol). I’m about halfway through now, I won’t be able to check for a while though since the switch only shows play time after ten days. I’ll probably take a break from it tomorrow to focus on some book club reads.
Also came across the word 一本気 today, didn’t know it and looked it up, turns out it’s from level four and I somehow completely forgot it whoops
I read this weeks BBC chapter of Yoru Cafe.
It took me about an hour and a half to read this chapter, so it wasn’t quite as tiring as last weeks chapter! I think its because I recognised more of the vocabulary than I did last week as there weren’t lots of specific terms about cooking!
I also had a call with my tutor today and we did the 読解 section of a JLPT paper as preparation for the exam next month.
As for tips, I’d just recommend reading whatever you feel like reading, that always works most natural to me. To guide it you can set yourself a limit like wanting to finish it in a certain period of time (day, week, two weeks, a month) and additionally set aside a small amount of time each day (15min, 30min, 1hour) to try to do that without having any distractions around you. I typically like to read books before bed, while manga I’m okay with throughout the day, games and anime I like to pick evenings. It gets easier when you’re more used to it and give yourself a break when you need it.
I read recently about the idea of developing a “rhythm” rather than a “habit” or “routine”, and I think this is a great way to look at it. A rhythm can skip a single beat, yet continue without that detracting in any way from the rhythm as a whole. A rhythm can also be disrupted by unusual events or travel or big life changes without that being a bad thing. (In fact, I think our daily rhythms probably should be disrupted from time to time.)
I’ve been thinking about reading every day in this way for a while (although I didn’t have such a good metaphor for it until recently haha). It really changes the focus. When I don’t read for a day, instead of thinking “ugh, I didn’t do the thing I want to do every day” I think “ah, my rhythm is totally disrupted today because ______, but it will go back to normal on Monday”. For example. And often the disruption is a positive thing that just took a lot of time or energy.
My tip is mainly the one above, about thinking in terms of rhythms rather than habits or streaks. Cause … it’s awesome that you got married! (Congratulations!) And it totally makes sense and is maybe even a good thing that that disrupted your regular rhythms for a while.
My other tip is, if you are a caffeine drinker, making a habit (or rhythm) of doing a certain thing while you drink your coffee or tea is a pretty effective way of making it happen every day. I love doing my WK reviews over my first cup of coffee every morning, and I get sad when I can’t do that haha. Hopefully someday I’ll finish with WK and then I can use that spot for reading.
I’m gonna be busy later so early post today; I played some more AI: The Somnium Files and finished 応太's route! It was an emotional ride; all the stuff with まゆみ was really sad, I hope she gets good things. But then イリス taking the flower knife with her (which makes sense actually, it definitely doesn’t mean she actually did everything but it certainly seems like she had some sense something was going to happen) and more than that, 硝子's eye being in 沖浦's intestines?? Um?? Concerning to say the least, not sure what to make of that but it explains why we haven’t found any of the eyes so far… yikes
Anyway it’s still all good reading-wise! There’s definitely more like modern slang than I’ve encountered in other things which is fun. I look forward to seeing more of what’s going on
Also @softlyraining (ご結婚おめでとうございます!, nonetheless) – Although I don’t know the exact answer to time management, I believe it is half of SMART goal setting, and half of DRIVE, and might be another half of ever-changing prioritization matrix (Eisenhower Decision Matrix).
Lifestyle of my own, is pretty much of – can be disturbed at any time, for extensible periods. Still, I do have not-so-little free time. So, I prefer goal setting, rather than ensuring ultimate daily consistency. (I believe daily schedule can be done, but just varied everyday, and I need more diligence.)
I read JoJo to finish Part 2 Vol 2, and a little of Vol 3.
Also, I read ahead Death Note Vol 3 a little.
However, I still have problem reading Night Cafe - unable to focus, perhaps?
I am interested in 人間失格 so far (and try reading on Bookwalker), but I can’t really tell if I will really be able to consistently read it until the end… Not yet interested enough in 糞尿譚, though.
Listening
Even though I watched Yuru Camp S01E02, I find forcing myself to understand every sentence bothersome.
Listening along with reading is possible – tried a little with Death Note; so SPY x FAMILY should also be possible.
But I still need to be much much better… to make it useful at all!
Get some games (on Windows PC), believing I should be able to try it and survive well.
Haven’t updated Genshin Impact for a long time, but now it says data file is broken - but I can’t fix it, and forcing verification is always successful, anyway.
Grammar
Sentence breakdown continues. However, probably gains lessen, and I don’t want to take my time outside native materials and grammar texts.
I will try to finish all of Level 3, nonetheless. Ideally, I want to finish up to Level 10, as this is more of Kana chalenge (rather than Kanji without Furigana challenge.)
I tried reading Japanese grammar on Wikipedia. Indeed, I do need to know grammar terms in Japanese to be able to use JJ dictionaries well.
There’s some very long sentences to start part one off, I am very thankful for the comma usage, if there were no commas I’d probably hide in the corner and cry.
Japanese found in the tall grass
Learnthings
停車場「ていしゃじょう」ー Stopping place (for trains), like junctions, stations, railyards. 構内「こうない」ー Premises; grounds 遊戯場「ゆうぎじょう」ー Amusement centre (like an arcade) ハイカラ ー High collar; stylish; smart 設備「せつび」ー Equipment; facilities 垢抜け「あかぬけ」ー Refinement; Style; Sophistication 頗る「すこぶる」ー Extremely; very much 病弱「びょうじゃく」ー Sickly; feeble; weak; poor health 寝込む「ねこむ」ー To fall fast asleep; to be confined to bed 敷布「しきふ」ー Sheeting; sheet 掛蒲団「かけぶとん」ー Duvet; bed cover; futon cover (more common to see as: 掛け布団)
I’m not reading at the moment so I can start training my new shelter dog. She has NO manners and NO training, so this is going to be a big challenge. But she does want to please, so maybe it won’t be beyond doing. Then, back to reading for the Summer Challenge, if not before.
I would love to get a picture up. I will if she isn’t afraid of the camera, but she is afraid of everything at the moment: air from the fan, going outside and downstairs, toys, dog blankets, etc. Think of a hound dog and you’ll have an idea of what she looks like!
By the way, it umm, occurred to me it’ll take some planning time to get this going, so I actually went ahead and made a thread for the idea of doing a visual novel club to discuss some details and gauge interest.
So uhh yeah, come join us/me if you want! Over here!
Oh by the way now that you mention your new book club thread (yay )
I think everybody noticed it by now but anyways:
I’ve set up a reading thread for 糞尿譚 💩 (Miscellaneous Book Club - unscheduled) (and some of us started reading a bit already ) so if anybody would like to join in, please feel free!
)
But these routes seem to be very long so that might be too large a chunk. Or you could read up to a forking point together, and then poll on what route to take next, and then the whole group takes that route together. This way you could synchronize your experience a bit more.
Anyways, whatever y’all end up coming up with, I’d be curious to hear about how it worked out for you.
. I’ll keep this in mind as something I want to try to try starting a little ways down the line then!
I’m almost used to my job again so my plan is to participate for real in the next challenge 
June 3rd 
) so if anybody would like to join in, please feel free!
