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!
She looks adorable! Her face is remarkably similar to my own dog, who was also scared of everything and everyone when I first found her. She won’t necessarily get over all her fears completely, but love and time will make an amazing difference. She’s very lucky to have found you!
Read non-fiction early. The things I’m reading first are newsletters and blog posts that I’ve slowly accumulated without reading. And it is so nice to slowly make a dent in that.
Then in the afternoon I read the second half of chapter 23 of Sailor Moon. And then I read chapter 24, and 25 and 26: finishing off the current story arc!
That also means I read more than 154 pages (since chapter 24-26 are that many pages and chapter 23 was about 40, so probably covered 20 of that today). My total number of pages was probably around 175.
I think that is the most I’ve ever read in one day. Even Yotsuba&, I’ve only so far read 1,5 chapters in one go. Although not saying I couldn’t have read that much of Yotsuba&, I totally could. Finishing off a longer story arc have its own momentum though.
Sailor Moon, kanzenban, volume 4 still have two short stories in it, so not finished with the volume yet.
I think my plan is: finished the current volume of Sailor Moon and Yotsuba&, and then decide what longer/bigger thing to tackle next. Going by my poll, next pick would have to be Zenitendou or next arc of Sailor Moon or Orange.
Even when I finish the current volume of Sailor Moon, there are six more volumes, each with (I think) about 7 chapters of 40-50 pages, so there is a laaaaarge chunk of Sailor Moon left (3 separate arcs apparently!).
Obviously, I’ll have Yotsuba& for any day when I want something easy and hilarious. So I’ll have that for a side read whenever I feel like it.
Thanks! She is already not quite as nervous, and has decided she can try to get into the food bag whenever she wants. I had to move it onto a higher shelf. She’s eaten four times already today.
I decided to pick up this book again. It has been a couple of months since I put this book away, so I figured it’d be better to start from the beginning instead of picking it up from around the 33% mark.
Has been a bit busy with moving to a new place and stuff since the challenge officially ended, so haven’t really read anything during the last few days, partially because I didn’t know what to pick next in addition to busy busy. I kind of dreaded picking up this book again, knowing how some of the main themes are stuff I’m sensitive to, but actually reading it now isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’d rather read something light-hearted and funny, but another part of me wants to finish what I’ve started
I guess I’ll postpone writing the post-challenge summary post until I feel like wrapping up later at some point
Checking in to simply say I read 6,500 characters, and haven’t quite finished the route, but I’m getting there. Might find more time later but I’m already moving slow because my sleep got interrupted, and I’m taking time to plan the upcoming VN club, plus I want to get out soon for what are becoming my daily walks. Good read though, went pretty smoothly.
June 3rd 
Japanese found in the tall grass 
) so if anybody would like to join in, please feel free!
