📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

[pocketcat]

24% → 30% of モテ薬. It’s mildly amusing, the voice acting remains good, but I’m honestly more bored by the constant interviews than all that intrigued by this business of a medicine that makes mice so horny they kill the poor soul injected with it. (content warning, not a spoiler)

I did have a fun moment where I read this sentence and it made perfect sense:

しかし、サイトカインが分泌されすぎると、「サイトカインストーム」＝免疫の暴風雨を起こす恐れがある。つまり免疫が異常に反応し、ウイルスや細菌だけでなく、自分の身体まで壊してしまうことがあるんです。

I think it’s the first medical rambling in this book I’ve just blithely taken in instead of struggling to remember what all the words mean at once (probably due to all the カタカナ英語 heh). Progress!

[DIO-Berry]

a nit pick

@NicoleIsEnough

小泉 八雲 (whose real name is Lafcadio Hearn)

It is his real name though, he took the surname from his wife and then his new given name was also legally registered. Lafcadio Hearn is his birthname rather.

As a genderqueer person, this phrasing rubs me the wrong way because it implies that the newer name is somehow fake or less valid.

[enbyboiwonder]

Home

Nope, my shoulder got worse. I refuse to let it stop me entirely though. Oh, and SxF?? Originally was set to get here on the 27th at the earliest. It got here TODAY. It shipped YESTERDAY. From ŌSAKA. WTF. I thought the fastest something could get to the U.S. from Japan was 2-3 days, but this didn’t even take 36 hrs.

And it seems I’ll be going to Half Price Books tomorrow! If I end up buying any books, my mother can’t even complain, because she’s the one who invited me! I even found a couple books in English today that I wanna read, and they’re recent, but HPB does carry some recent releases, so with any luck they’ll have at least one of them.

I finally got around to reading the Bookwalker preview of 魔女が恋する５秒前. It looks good, and also it’s by an author I’m familiar with (which I hadn’t realized), so it’s definitely one I’ll be getting eventually. I also read the preview for アキはハルとごはんを食べたい, a gay cooking manga. It looks so cuuute, and the art’s pretty adorable too.

I read the 描き下ろし ch 15 of クールドジ男子.

Shun gets confessed to!

A first-year gives him a confession letter but he doesn’t understand what it is lmao. The poor girl runs off, and he tries to ask his friends (who were spying) what that was about, but they tell him he should read it alone. So he does and reports back, “I was confessed to.” That was the first time they had ever met, so he was gonna go turn her down, and since he has a tendency to be blunt (like when he asked the poor girl to her face what that letter was! この手紙、なに), his friends stop him and try to get him to turn her down gently asdfghjkl he’s like, “Then what should I say,「無理でございます。付き合えませんでござる」?!”

Since he’s so hopeless, his friends get him to write her a rejection letter since that way he can think more about what to say and won’t turn into a samurai, and he ends up texting Hayate for advice at lunch. Hayate went to an all-boys school though and has never been confessed to.

He’d also asked Mima. Aw, Mima and Hayate both had the same reaction: thinking, “青春だなぁ…” ♡ (And it’s funny because Hayate isn’t even all that much older than Shun lmao) It seems he has experience (at least with getting confessed to; no idea if he’s ever dated), but his school days were so long ago that he doesn’t remember, and he just says, “「ごめんなさい」じゃ駄目ですか？” so Shun writes that down and is like, this woulda been quicker to just tell her. Souma, whom he’d also asked, says then that he should try dating her or starting as friends first. Finally, he asks his sister, and he gets some actual advice. Though his only takeaway from it is to, underneath the “ごめんなさい。” write “でも 好きになってくれてありがとう。” and draw a cat (which at least looks better than his dog lol). The girl’s happy though and thinks he’s kind, so I guess it worked out?

Also, when he went to give her the letter, he first dropped by the wrong classroom and was greeted by one of his kouhai in the handball club, and of course as usual he played it off as intentional.

This time, he actually came off as smooth, though, when usually the other person can tell he’s bullshitting. You’re gonna make him fall for you!

I read ch 5-6 of 夜カフェ, which came out to 24 pages of text. I’m really thinking I coulda just jumped into the Intermediate club, because even though there are still a few things I don’t 100% understand reading this book, it’s kinda clear that the Beginners club is below my level. I am planning on continuing 夜カフェ though since I like it so far, I’m just not sure yet if I’ll keep reading along with the club after this volume or just read ahead on my own and check in with the club threads.

Some vocab of note:

和蘭撫子 (オランダナデシコ) [noun] carnation. ねこあつめ’s daily password.
無愛想 (ぶあいそう) [noun, な-adjective] unsociable; unfriendly; blunt; surly; cold; brusque

@natarin

he’s so well-known/highly-regarded/canonized that people will know who you’re talking about if you use his given name

I wouldn’t be surprised if part of it too is that Souseki is a less common name than Natsume. Dazai is a less common name than Osamu. “This story by Osamu—” “Who?” “Ah, Dazai.” “Ah, got it.” (Not that I know any other authors named Natsume or Osamu, but I’m not exactly well-read.)

[2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz]

May 10th (Calendar Post)

ハロー、メランコリック！ => 68 pages (101 min)

Some fun panels from today:

ハロー

よね～

やったー！

はーー

#shocked

にひ～

this manga has too many fun panels…

[AzusaChan]

More shinymas reading today. In the aftermath of the previous fight, the girls have devised a plan to attack Rinze and sent her a 果たし状 (a letter of challenge to a duel). As the story progresses, there was a flashback scene on how things came to be with her, and it seems like her emotions have her wavering a bit.

Next chapter should be the answer to challenge, it should be interesting.

[natarin]

May 10 Home Post

Super brief reading day today, just a couple of pages of ラストゲーム for the sake of it. After tomorrow I’ll be done with finals though! Soon

[omk3]

I’m so sorry for your loss.

[dunlewy]

@omk3

I’m so sorry for your loss.

Thank you. She was old for a dog, and she went fairly quickly.

[omk3]

That’s good to hear at least. Hope she didn’t have to suffer at all. (My own dog is about 17, and has been hanging on by a thread for almost a year now…)

[dunlewy]

@omk3

That’s good to hear at least. Hope she didn’t have to suffer at all. (My own dog is about 17, and has been hanging on by a thread for almost a year now…)

I hope you don’t have to feel like I do now for a long time. But mine went very quickly, in about maybe 10 minutes and it didn’t seem like she was in pain. My neighbor dug her grave and we put her in facing the east so she could “watch the sun come up” as my neighbor said.

[NicoleIsEnough]

DIO-Berry answer

@DIO-Berry

It is his real name though, he took the surname from his wife and then his new given name was also legally registered.

Oh I was not aware of this! I thought he took it on like a nickname or something. Thanks for providing this info!

@DIO-Berry

Lafcadio Hearn is his birthname rather.

Now not to dive too deeply into technicalities, but “birthname” implies to me that it became invalid (e.g. my birthname became legally invalid when I married and took on my ex-husband’s name). Do you know whether this also happened in his case? Or did he have two names going forward, one that was legally valid in Japan and another that was legally valid in Ireland? (The book I own says he was “naturalized” i.e. he immigrated. Given the fact that Japan does not allow multiple citizenships, I guess that his “Western” name became in fact invalid?)

@DIO-Berry

As a genderqueer person, this phrasing rubs me the wrong way because it implies that the newer name is somehow fake or less valid.

Yes, that’s what I thought actually (legally speaking). Or rather, that he took on this name for the sake of the Japanese people, not because he wanted to. (Like when I’m talking to a Japanese person, I go by ニコル because that’s what they can pronounce, not because I like to be called by that name.)

So thanks for the correction, I appreciate it!

[DIO-Berry]

NicoleRauch answers

@NicoleIsEnough

Now not to dive too deeply into technicalities, but “birthname” implies to me that it became invalid (e.g. my birthname became legally invalid when I married and took on my ex-husband’s name). Do you know whether this also happened in his case? Or did he have two names going forward, one that was legally valid in Japan and another that was legally valid in Ireland? (The book I own says he was “naturalized” i.e. he immigrated. Given the fact that Japan does not allow multiple citizenships, I guess that his “Western” name became in fact invalid?)

Ah, I don’t have that connotation with “birthname” but I guess there’s not really a need for distinction from “name” if it’s not changed.

I don’t know if citizenship has any of the same implications in either place. Citizenship as we know it has changed a lot and I’d be really surprised if there was a legal definition of one in Japan prior to the 1900s. I think it’s more likely that people were mostly known by their ethnicities at that time. Just to guess, but I would think that the legal basis would be from him being added to his wife’s family register. Family registers have been well maintained in Japan for hundreds of years and some people can trace their families back many generations. Since his wife was part of a samurai family, the odds of a strong and well documented family registry are even better.

@NicoleIsEnough

Yes, that’s what I thought actually (legally speaking). Or rather, that he took on this name for the sake of the Japanese people, not because he wanted to. (Like when I’m talking to a Japanese person, I go by ニコル because that’s what they can pronounce, not because I like to be called by that name.)

My understanding is that he wanted to be closer to Japan and that’s why he also picked a given name that referenced the area that lived in. Or at least I recall hearing something like that when I visited one of his residences.

@NicoleIsEnough

So thanks for the correction, I appreciate it!

Thank you for taking me seriously to be honest

[omk3]

I just randomly learned the word for haircut (散髪）from my book, minutes before going out for a haircut myself.
why did I already know the word for nuclear fission but not for haircut?

[pocketcat]

@omk3

why did I already know the word for nuclear fission but not for haircut?

I have this feeling a lot. “Why do I know the word for dying by being run over but not {normal word needed in conversation}?” It’s getting better as my vocab expands but sometimes I’m still caught off guard by not knowing some simple everyday word. I suppose a consequence of not living in Japan, one that’s being especially revealed now that I’m making an effort to have more conversations in Japanese

[Zakarius]

Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220511

Tanuki Scroll XLI: チョコレート

Today I read some chocolate wikipedia.

---

Japanese found in the tall grass

New Things

焙煎「ばいせん」ー Roasting, like coffee/cocoa beans
主原料「しゅげんりょう」ー Main raw material
練り「ねり」ー Kneading; tempering
添加物「てんかぶつ」ー Additive
配合「はいごう」ー Combination; arrangement
風味「ふうみ」ー Taste; flavour
固形「こけい」ー Solid

---

Reply

@Daisoujou

If more of these have audio, that might be worth a shot?

Most of the stories on Hukumusume do have audio recordings (as well as the occasional video) and I do usually listen to them, since they can be pretty amusing, but only after I’ve read the story.

This was the first time (I think anyway) listening before reading anything other than the title. I’ve not really been actively focusing on listening much. I’ve been wanting to get a better grasp at reading first so I don’t have to keep stumbling over every other word - and also that by the time I’ve finished reading I usually have no time left to focus on some listening. All the reading has helped pick up more words when listening, but maybe in the next challenge I might start focusing a bit more on active listening learning now that my reading speed is a bit faster.

Glad it’s been going well for you!

[wiersm]

Chapter 45 of ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 🛵 Volume 6 was fun again with Alpha going all philosophical on one of the child characters

[Axazel]

Oh no, my heart goes out to you and yours Take good care of yourself @dunlewy

[dunlewy]

@Axazel

Oh no, my heart goes out to you and yours Take good care of yours

Thank you. I’m taking a couple of days off to just do nothing.

[wiersm]

So sorry for your loss @dunlewy

[dunlewy]

@wiersm

So sorry for your loss @dunlewy

Thanks to everyone. I’ll be scouring the closest animal shelter in a few weeks to find an abused or neglected dog to adopt.