📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

[pyororon]

Spring challenge summary!
I had a lot of fun with this challenge! Read 55 days, I ended up missing quite a few but I managed to read a lot more than I did before the challenge started as well as get through some stuff that I started a while ago and somehow ended up continually putting off finishing, so I’m really happy with what I was able to get done. I had read quite a few manga and games before this but never managed to get all the way through a book until now and finishing one has reminded me how much I enjoy reading (and also made me realize I really need to learn more vocabulary ). I’ll probably try and keep reading and posting everyday because this month is the one where I have the most free time (and a big pile of things I want to read saved up)

Thanks to everyone in the challenge! I really enjoyed seeing what everyone was reading and the progress they made, and thanks to @windupbird for organizing it (and for all of the cute manga)
I look forward to seeing everyone in the summer challenge!

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June 2nd
Started the book 夜は不思議などうぶつえん, which so far doesn’t seem so hard grammar wise but took me forever to get through 20 pages because there’s a lot of zoo related vocab in the beginning. Then I remembered the game LOOPERS came out on the switch today, it’s apparently on the short side so I think I’ll finish this before I continue 幻想マネージュ. I love games where crazy things are going on with time so I’m excited to see where this one goes. So far it’s really interesting, (being vague) the tone changed so fast, it went from happy treasure hunting to what?!! in no time flat. I’m too tired to keep playing right now or I’d probably not be able to stop there. One of the characters has a way of speaking I’ve never seen before, she ends like all of her sentences in し.

Some zoo vocab

マントヒヒ hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas); sacred baboon
厩舎 （きゅうしゃ）barn; stable
ロバ donkey
換毛期 （かんもうき）moulting season; molting season
飼料 （しりょう）fodder; feed
檻 （おり）cage; pen; (jail) cell
猛獣 （もうじゅう）fierce animal; beast of prey; big game
草食動物 （そうしょくどうぶつ）herbivore
ヒグマ brown bear (Ursus arctos)​

[Zakarius]

The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220603

No Longer Tanuki Progress: 0.04%

Today I managed to finish the foreword, so now I’m onto chapter one, or “First Note” as it’s called and into the story proper. Quite a lot of new words (and stumbling over words I know but using different kanji) but they are repeated quite a bit so reading’s gradually getting a little quicker.

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Japanese found in the tall grass

Learnthings

変貌「へんぼう」ー Transfiguration; transformation
美貌「びぼう」ー Beautiful face; good looks (same kanji ender X2 Combo)
覗く「のぞく」ー To peek through a hole or crack (This was in my list only yesterday or the day before but I’ve forgotten how to read it)
籐椅子「とういす」ー Wicker chair
渋み「しぶみ」ー Astringency; a Japanese aesthetic of simple and unobtrusive beauty.
充実感「じゅうじつかん」ー Sense of fulfilment
羽毛 「うもう」ー Plumage; feathers
造り物「つくりもの」ー Man-made thing/structure/product (the alt. kanji threw me)
気障「きざ」ー Smug; pompous; pretentious
軽薄「けいはく」ー Frivolous; superficial; shallow
奇怪「きかい」ー Strange; wonderful; weird
箇所「かしょ」ー Place; point; spot; portion
謂わば「いわば」ー So to speak; as it were (think this has come up before too, but the alt. kanji keeps throwing me off)
瞑る「つぶる」ー To close your eyes
主人公「しゅじんこう」ー Protagonist; main character
霧消「むしょう」ー Vanishing like mist
死相「しそう」ー The shadow of death; look of death
所謂「いわゆる」ー So-called; so to speak
駄馬「だば」ー Packhorse; workhorse

Forgotten Stuff
忌まわしい「いまわしい」ー Unpleasant; disgusting

New Meanings
熟「つくづく」ー Deeply; keenly; severely. Can also be written like: 熟々, but most likely it’ll just be in kana.

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Replies

@Daisoujou

I’ve heard so many people attribute very good results to hanging in with things that are really hard for them at the time. It’s probably going to be great for you.

Thanks for the additional motivationnn! I’ve found perseverance is the key to most things in life, step by step until you’ve made the whole Lego model.

@NicoleIsEnough

@Daisoujou

looking up a whole bunch of words […] blanking on kanji […] words written a different way

That’s reading older books in a nutshell

I get a little excited when finding weird, old, archaic kanji or words, like an archaeologist uncovering some ancient rune of cosmic origin. And then hurrying it back to the lab to uncover its secrets (mostly ‘how the heck do I read this??’)

[Daisoujou]

Love that my VN post has attracted some discussion, thanks everyone

@Belerith

The Switch version has a lower rating, so probably something between some to a lot of that got cut, though. For people who’d rather avoid sexual content, the Switch version might be the better bet.

I appreciate you looking into that to add on to what I knew! Often when an all ages version is created, that’s the one put onto Steam, so I just made the quick assumption that no such version existed when I saw the Steam one labelled with sexual content. Oops.

@Belerith

I feel like that’s a pit trap with a lot of VNs, like you said. Sometimes someone will recommend a VN for its awesome story, and it’ll be an epically long one too so I believe it even. But looking at the tags can get wild.

Yeahhh… this is getting into a bit of an aside, but it feels like Japan especially has an interesting history with this sort of thing. Outside of the VNs just made purely for their sexual content (which I haven’t read), a lot of the time it very much feels like a niche product that tries to farm a few more sales through including that stuff, in order to stay afloat. It varies by game but sometimes they’re totally just tacked on in that way. But part of what keeps me coming back is how, through being niche, they’re also able to be pretty free about what they make if they can hang onto the small audience they need. There are some surprisingly challenging VNs or just ones that go in very unexpected directions.

I mention the more broad history of this because it reminds me of pink films, softcore pornographic stuff that was big for a while in Japan. The thing about that was, there often weren’t particularly demanding standards on the films as long as they fulfilled a quota of smut and were made quickly/cheaply. So you actually sometimes got these really dense pieces of art, especially with some of the political movements going on at the time. Directors that a studio would, under normal circumstances, never consider were given the resources and distribution that way. There are pink films that discuss things that go way over my head, it’s just every 10 minutes they take a quick break for someone to have sex, hahaha.

[AzusaChan]

Oh, I just saw this post! Flowers is like my favorite thing ever (hence my avatar). I read the entire series in English but I do want to go back to it in Japanese later on. If you read it, I’ll definitely follow along and talk about it with you. If you like emotional stories and really good character development, you’ll be in for a treat. I’ve yet to read anything that comes close to being as good as Flowers. The OST is super good too I like everything about it really

[Daisoujou]

Hahaha I just saw your profile description too! I’ll consider this as a helpful extra nudge that direction. It being a series is the only thing making me slightly lean away, approaching the end of a very long visual novel that took me like half a year and wanting something a little more quickly finished given my reading speed. But I could always read part one of Flowers and decide from there if I need a quick break.

[AzusaChan]

Yeah each game individually isn’t too long, think they took me about 12-15 hours each so altogether it’d be slightly longer than Summer Pockets, at least based on my time in English - not sure how difficult they are to read in jp. I have a friend that read Flowers in jp and they said grammatically it was pretty easy, just that the author uses some unique/obscure kanji at times.
I can understand wanting to read through a shorter series first though, I get that way a lot too when I read stuff haha. If you do decide to read the first one though, I’ll look forward to following along to it!

[lucylavelle]

June 3rd.

I read the next chapter of Teasing Master Takagi-san. It was an especially sweet chapter
Only 1 more chapter left in this volume, so I’ll be finishing it next week.

(Home Post)

[Belerith]

@Daisoujou

all ages version

It’s still rated 17+ on switch, but that’s less than the 18+ off the PC version. Reviews mentioned some sexual scenes being cut, but there will still be some I suppose.

@Daisoujou

lot of the time it very much feels like a niche product that tries to farm a few more sales through including that stuff

I’d like to think they’re not so niche anymore that they need that, but I guess it still works since they are still doing it.

Super interesting about the pink films, too! I hadn’t known about or even considered that, but it makes sense.

[softlyraining]

I feel like this has happened for each challenge I’ve been a part of…

A lot happened in both April and May: namely, I got married (which involved travel and last minute planning/drama) and I started taking a translation course (the work for which has occupied a large chunk of my time). I have trouble managing my time even when I’m not relatively busy, so having more factors thrown into the mix didn’t/doesn’t help. My reading took a nosedive as a result. Looking at my habit tracker for April, there’s a two-week gap around the time of the wedding festivities. While I did push myself to read every day in May, a lot of those days were filled with either 1) reading whatever was part of my pre-class coursework or 2) stories on…Duolingo. (They apparently added ones to the Japanese course recently.)

I know the point is to just get some reading in every day no matter how small. I guess my guilt comes from feeling like I abandoned the Sayaka Murata Book Club (still haven’t made it up to Week 2’s reading…) in addition to not reading everyone else’s updates and progress. I also feel like, if I just managed my free time better, I wouldn’t have fallen behind (which was the only goal I really set out for myself this challenge). Clearly this is a perspective problem that I hope to fix in time for the summer challenge.

Though I’ll keep trying to read every day in June, I’m really going to take this month to better work out how I manage my time so that, come July, I’ll be ready and raring to go. (the emoji is labeled as angry, but it’s a face of determination in this context)

If anyone has any time management tips that have worked well for them, feel free to let me know. I’ve tried lots of things, but I’m always willing to try some more.

[Beyond_Sleepy]

@softlyraining

If anyone has any time management tips that have worked well for them, feel free to let me know. I’ve tried lots of things, but I’m always willing to try some more.

For finding time to learn Japanese the only thing that has really helped me consistently find time for it is severely dropping my standards for the quality of my performance in other parts of my life, as well as basically completely dropping some of my best loved hobbies (even then I had to drop the challenge towards the end of April). I’m envisioning this as a 1-2 year state of affairs (which I am now 6 months into) after which I’ll find a new normal

Don’t know how much this helps you but I thought I’d share the one tip I have

[AzusaChan]

An update on my own reading status, I’ve still been reading every day, I just forget to post here sometimes. I am about halfway through volume 3 of マリア様がみてる now. Grammatically the series hasn’t been too hard but there has been a lot of expressions and vocabulary that I’m unfamiliar with. Also don’t know if its an お嬢さま type thing or just them being overly girly, but almost everyone in the series adds ね in randomly to particles in the middle of sentences (lots of はね、がね、etc). Lots of ですわ as well although I find that to be a bit cute.

I thought this panel was funny

Outside of マリア様がみてる, I also started on a VN called 「生命のスペア」. The story in that one seems pretty sad,

Synopsis from VNDB

Shukugawa Meguri is afflicted with an illness called the “Oumon” disease. At this point in time, nobody knows its cause, and there’s no real treatment for it yet. The only option with a slight chance of success, is to undergo a heart transplant. But finding a compatible heart is something that can be compared with a miracle. For that purpose Meguri’s sister, Ria, was actually born as a designer baby. So that her heart could be used “like a spare”.

I’ve only read a few scenes so far in the VN but I think I will like this one. I’m usually a sucker for more “sad” VNs.

[Daisoujou]

Replies

@AzusaChan

Yeah each game individually isn’t too long, think they took me about 12-15 hours each so altogether it’d be slightly longer than Summer Pockets, at least based on my time in English - not sure how difficult they are to read in jp. I have a friend that read Flowers in jp and they said grammatically it was pretty easy, just that the author uses some unique/obscure kanji at times.

I’m not sure if you mean you played Summer Pockets in English as well, but if so, I’m playing Reflection Blue so mine is especially long with the 4 new routes (by the way, every single time I type this name, I write Reflection Eternal first and have to go check. Good rap group, heh). But yeah, that sounds not too bad. Summer Pockets has thrown all sorts of seemingly at least somewhat rare kanji at me, loads that aren’t on WK, but I texthook stuff for Yomichan lookups so the only real fear is something being so dense I can’t even understand it with help. On that note, I haven’t verified the texthook-able nature of any of these VNs! But I remember seeing Flowers recommended for Japanese learners and I’m pretty sure that list implied it was doable. Anyway, we’ll see how I feel when the time comes, but given yours and fallynleaf’s interest, I might just go for that one.

@AzusaChan

生命のスペア

I hadn’t heard of that, but it looks interesting!

@Belerith

It’s still rated 17+ on switch, but that’s less than the 18+ off the PC version. Reviews mentioned some sexual scenes being cut, but there will still be some I suppose.

Oh yeah I think I’m just using the term differently – I had assumed to be on the Switch all the full sex stuff would be gone, but I don’t know for sure. I just think, based on how I’ve seen it used, among VN readers “all ages” tends to be a catchall term for versions of games with the sexual content cut out (or lacking it in the first place, regardless of any other content/ratings.

@Belerith

I’d like to think they’re not so niche anymore that they need that, but I guess it still works since they are still doing it.

Yeah it’s hard to say. There’s been a huge boom in translating them to English and that’s nice, but I never get the impression they’re in a great place? Steam has been a double edged sword of getting them more attention but also being over crowded with some pretty low effort just straight porn VN stuff that doesn’t help perceptions. But I’ve heard of a few developers that always made the adult stuff making their first VNs without it from the beginning recently, so maybe that’s encouraging in that direction? Who knows. It also really depends on where you look, cause I get the impression Otome stuff is doing pretty well and rarely has all that, but at least by the communities they draw, I’ve almost compartmentalized them separately from “visual novels” (I mean they’re not different, and I don’t mean that in a gatekeeping way, there’s just often not a lot of overlap in “otome fans” and VNDB types). I myself have been meaning to explore stuff like otome more some day…

@Beyond_Sleepy

Don’t know how much this helps you but I thought I’d share the one tip I have

Yeah… the one way I’ve been able to see results as quickly as I wanted to (granted I’m not a patient person lol) has been to pretty much throw out all my other hobbies for a while, haha. Of course, eventually I think I can transition to doing some of them themselves in Japanese… but it really takes crazy amounts of time. Respect to those who can hang in there for the long haul without going crazy with it like I did. I think I’d burn out in the other way.

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I read 12,000 characters today! It’s going very well for me recently. A little slower than yesterday, as I spent longer, but it’s all good. In the past I hit numbers like this (maybe 15,000 at absolute most?) only a few days, and those were outright draining marathon sessions where I was dragging along to see the end of a route. Today I’m still pretty refreshed, just ready to go for a nice walk again soon.

I’ll give my full thoughts on this game eventually when I finish it, but it is pretty cute how often it is genuinely about holding hands and hugging and the like when the romantic stuff comes along, heh. They mostly commit to the “being a kid in summer” vibes.

The only reason I really struggled any more today was a pretty big section on fireworks, and comparing them to various plants (oh god, specific flower and tree kanji). The impact was a little blunted by the constant lookups, but it was pretty sweet and poetic in what it was aiming for. Shiki’s route has improved substantially since the early days.

If my ability to feel these routes out is as good as I think it is, I’ll probably be finishing this one tomorrow

[AzusaChan]

Edit: Oops, forgot to hit the reply button to @Daisoujou when I made the post originally

Reply

@Daisoujou

I’m not sure if you mean you played Summer Pockets in English as well, but if so, I’m playing Reflection Blue so mine is especially long with the 4 new routes (by the way, every single time I type this name, I write Reflection Eternal first and have to go check. Good rap group, heh). But yeah, that sounds not too bad. Summer Pockets has thrown all sorts of seemingly at least somewhat rare kanji at me, loads that aren’t on WK, but I texthook stuff for Yomichan lookups so the only real fear is something being so dense I can’t even understand it with help. On that note, I haven’t verified the texthook-able nature of any of these VNs! But I remember seeing Flowers recommended for Japanese learners and I’m pretty sure that list implied it was doable. Anyway, we’ll see how I feel when the time comes, but given yours and fallynleaf’s interest, I might just go for that one.

Ah, yes, I meant I read Summer Pockets in English haha. I took a rather long break from studying jp and only started it back up at the beginning of this year so I ended up reading SP back when it came out in English. Reflection Blue seemed interesting but the game is super long so not sure I want to go back and play it in jp just for the extra routes. I did like the game a lot though, might be my favorite Key game.

Yomichan is a godsend, makes reading everything a lot easier! Flowers should be texthook-able as far as I know. I’ve also seen it on a lot of lists for more “beginner” type VNs so I’d be surprised if it wasn’t texthook-able. I think I might have missed fallynleaf’s post about the game, but if lots of people had interest, it would be nice to do a VN reading club here one day~

[Daisoujou]

I’ll keep this bit uncollapsed since it’s something I’ve been musing on…

@AzusaChan

I think I might have missed fallynleaf’s post about the game, but if lots of people had interest, it would be nice to do a VN reading club here one day~

@fallynleaf was mostly just indicating that while they don’t usually play VNs, it was one that looked good, and would be interesting to see me post about. But you know, I’ve had the same thought about VN reading clubs as well in the past. It just runs into a few problems – beyond being a little unsure where the interest level would even be, visual novels tend to be pretty long. We could pick against that of course, but even the shortest are probably pretty big investments of time, especially when I know I can’t do anything that requires going too fast. It’s also hard to divide things up for a few reasons. They aren’t as easy to just look at and divide up a schedule because you can’t open the whole thing up like a book. So maybe it’d be schedule-less? Even then VNs have different formats, we’d either have to play one that doesn’t allow for splitting to different routes or all commit to what route we are going to do (and look up how to ensure that happens haha), or we’d be having totally different experiences for a while. I guess it’s fine to go totally free for all but yeah, ends up a little awkward no matter what.

I think I would love to do it, but pretty much everything about the medium is a barrier to making it work well.

[AzusaChan]

I know there are a lot of kinetic visual novels so something like that could be easy to follow along with since there wouldn’t be any route order enforced, just a straight playthrough. For games with multiple routes though, I tend to follow a walkthrough since I don’t like going through all bad ends etc but I know not everyone likes to play that way.

There are some shorter VNs out there, I’ve played a decent amount in the 8ish hour range (probably be much longer to do it in jp at my current level but yeah). It would be awkward to break it down into a schedule though. Some VNs break things down by in-game date or chapters but that’s not really consistent throughout the medium, would probably have to be a more free-for-all style? I would definitely be interested in a VN club either way even if it was just a place to discuss the game and ask questions throughout without a rigid schedule.

[MissDagger]

Time management reply that was far longer than I noticed, oops?

@softlyraining

If anyone has any time management tips that have worked well for them, feel free to let me know. I’ve tried lots of things, but I’m always willing to try some more.

I don’t I have any that you haven’t heard before. Start small, cut out things that don’t matter, do it earlier in the day if possible, hook it in with an already established habit. Well, some of those are more creating habits advice, but anyway…

The very words “manage my free time” honestly makes my blood freeze, that sounds like my worst nightmare. My free time (outside chores and such) are supposed to be about fun and relaxation. Not micro-managing my time to make room for ALL THE THINGS. But that might just be me.

I have this need for both organization, but part of that means slotting in time with nothing planned, so I can have that relaxed freedom to survive my need for organization. (Yes, I’m a dichotomy that wants both a schedule and no schedule at all. I hope no one else have this problem )

So my tips, or what works for me, is this (and I do it imperfectly all the time, so don’t think I’m on top of it…):
Regularly reflect on whether I am spending my time as I wish. And if I’m not, figure out what I’m doing instead, ask myself why, and then try to figure out how to do what it is that I truly want.

Sometimes it is as easy as just switching, but most of the time not so easy. Not sure these are time management though?

I feel like the whole time management idea, that if I could just control my time a bit better, I could get more done is an illusion. At least when applied to free time. Because time management is about efficiency. But now, I feel like I’ve digressed from what you were asking about. I don’t think you were wondering how you could be more efficient in your free time so you could fit in Japanese reading too.

I’m tired. I should probably go to bed, lol.

I haven’t had to give up all my other hobbies to keep learning Japanese. But I certainly can’t do all the things I want every day, nor are even some of them on the docket right now. I was playing an MMORPG for about a year, from 2020 summer-ish to 2021 autumn. And during that time I also didn’t study much Japanese. Coincidence?

No. I also did a few other things that would have made Japanese studying hard, but mostly I just spent my free time playing the MMO. After I quit the MMO, and a couple of months went by… Then I had the time and energy for Japanese and I started picking that back up again, and then in late March it picked up more and then this challenge appeared and I knew how I would keep my motivation and fun with Japanese up, while also committing a bit more time to it.

So I guess my tip is: look through your free time activities, put a value on them (doesn’t have to be numerical, more like check in with yourself how important/fun/entertaining they are to you), then decide from there which ones you want to put most of your energy towards, and then try to make that happen. The more honest you are with yourself in this assessment (whether that puts reading Japanese high or low on the list), the more successful you are likely to be at getting yourself to spend the time on the activities that mean most. At least that is my experience.

I’ve been surprised at what actually meant most to me at times. I’ve also found that this shift, sometimes spontaneous, sometimes due to something having happened, and sometimes it feel almost seasonal.

I hope any of this helps, otherwise I’ll blame it on tiredness making me ramble. Has happened before. >_>

Edit: Because I was tired I forgot something…
@softlyraining Congratulations on your marriage!
(Is that what you say in English? Sounds wrong to my ear but anyway…)

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June 3

Read non-fiction and fiction (both in English) fairly early on today. Got to Sailor Moon about midnight (a calendar day doesn’t “end” until I go to sleep, so I count even when I read after midnight as same day as the day it was before midnight).

Reading chapter 23 now… Did I understand one thing that I saw correctly? I don’t know. I’m not saying any more here. I’ll do my full chapter review when I finish the chapter and post it to the Sailor Moon thread. (I’ll link it here when that happens.)

…

Maybe I interpreted events wrong. Hopefully…

[pocketcat]

@softlyraining

I got married

Congrats! That sounds like a perfectly good excuse for a minor lapse in habits!

[Daisoujou]

Yeah I think every part of that is pretty reasonable. There are ways, especially for the beginning of such a visual novel club concept, to pick ones that would introduce fewer issues to work around. Now’s not the time for me just yet, but knowing that I’m not totally alone in liking the concept, maybe eventually I could make a thread to probe for interest for a non-structured read and check in when you want type club. It’d be fun, and I think they’re a super useful medium for learning from, so it could be a good way to introduce some people if anyone lurking around the forums is up for that.

Also, @softlyraining congratulations!!!

[fallynleaf]

@softlyraining

If anyone has any time management tips that have worked well for them, feel free to let me know. I’ve tried lots of things, but I’m always willing to try some more.

Unfortunately, I can really only second everyone saying that the only way I’ve been able to progress at a reasonable speed with Japanese is by throwing out my other hobbies. I’ve kept watching pro wrestling (which serves as both a source of immersion and also motivation for me), but everything else has absolutely fallen by the wayside.

I’m hoping that once I reach a solid intermediate level in Japanese, I’ll be able to get some of my time back, but that’s at least another year out for me. When I’m able to read Japanese at an actual reasonable speed and not have to do quite as many lookups, things will get easier, but until then, I’m buckling down and diverting more of my time and energy into studying so that I can reach that point faster.

Other than that, I’ve had the most success with forming strong daily habits, and focusing on consistency over speed. SRS is really great for enforcing strong daily habits, for better or for worse, so at this point, I’m very tied down by WK, Anki, and KaniWani. A year from now, WK and KW should both be significantly more relaxed, since I’ll just be reviewing, but until then, balancing three SRS absolutely forces me to stay on track.

I’ve also had good success tying my grammar progress to my WK level-ups. Like, I always aim for getting at least one textbook lesson done every WK level (about every two weeks for me). It’s just enough pressure to keep me plugging away at my textbook without letting it fall by the wayside.

And of course, the read every day challenge and the book clubs here have also been motivating for me, personally, though I think you also need to give yourself permission to drop out or fall out of schedule or just generally cut yourself slack.

I ended up being unable to complete 大海原大海原 volume 3 alongside the club because some other things happened very unexpectedly that forced me to suddenly have to change priorities, and I felt bad for abandoning the club (though I’m still continuing the book! Just… very slowly), but sometimes life just happens, and that’s okay.

I also think it’s okay to count just the bare minimum for this challenge. For me personally, that’s the only way I got through this challenge at all this past month. Getting married is a pretty huge life event, so it makes sense that it would take up a lot of time and energy! There’s no obligation for you to read 10,000 characters every day, or to finish a manga chapter a day, or to read all of the posts in this thread.

I think really all you can do is to set out to do the best that you can do on any given day, and just understand that on some days, your best is going to be a lot more than other days, and that’s okay. I have a minimum daily workload that I absolutely have to do at all costs (mostly SRS, as well as reading at least something during the challenge), and if I get that done, I consider my day a success.

[DIO-Berry]

Day Something

• ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 14巻

6/1
46-55

6/2
56-62

6/3
63-66

I’ve got a lot of reading to do today and tomorrow lol