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・４月６日・
The storms are on a weekly schedule here in Texas, it seems. Every Thur and/or Fri, there has been rain, ever since that storm that made the utility pole right outside the shop lean dangerously. (That’s long since been fixed, by the way—replaced and the snapped phone line fixed soon after the neighboring telephone-only poles went down, and those two have long since been removed, but still not replaced despite the little flags and spray paint marks indicating plans to. It’s been what, a month, almost?) (Actually, there was just a thunderstorm Tues/Wed night, and I think that’s the first time we’ve got rain outside the schedule.)
I forgot Tatami Galaxy is starting on Saturday. I’ll have to decide whether I’ll start it on time and slow down on Summer Cider or start it late and continue trying to finish Summer Cider within two weeks. tbh I’m a bit scared of people complaining about this book too since it’s also supposed to be a wild ride, though I don’t know if it’s magical realism (really all I know about it is a friend likes the anime, and when I told her about この本を盗む者は and that the next pick is Tatami Galaxy, her reaction was that she was excited for me to read it but hoped the club didn’t complain about it too lol—and also that she found a Chinese translation of この本を盗む者は and wanted to read it).
all 42 pages of サマーサイダー ch 3, leaving off on pg 152
So in 2.43, the breaks that weren’t just a single line would be demarcated with an asterisk ＊, but in this book, an image of soda pop bubbles is used, suiting the title. Until now, they were just the outlines, but in this chapter, they’re shaded in grey. Also, the POV character has changed from Mizu to Miura! I wonder if we’ll get a Megumi POV chapter too, then. It’s looking like it’s a thing that Kabei-sensei writes in first person with female POV characters and third person with male ones. (Actually, now that I think of it, I can’t remember if she did the same with the short stories from Itoko’s and Ibara’s POVs…) When I translate, I’m sticking with one or the other.
Honestly, I’m not seeing how there’s a 三角関係——this even made me look it up on Goo to make sure it does just mean “love triangle,” and it does. One leg is Miura/Mizu, and you’d expect the other to be Megumi/Mizu, but there’s… nothing. Sure I’m not even halfway through yet, but still, the summary says that “at the center of their love triangle lies the secret to the mysterious death of their homeroom teacher last year,” so you’d still expect there to at least be something. Honestly there’s way more support for the other leg being Megumi/Miura, but considering that would be gay… it ain’t likely. I generally don’t care for love triangles, so I’m not mad about it not being a big thing, I’m just a lil confused.
Okay so now a couple people have said that Megumi likes Mizu, but there’s been nothing from Megumi himself so far to indicate that. The first person to say it was a teacher, and I didn’t put much stock in it since she’s an outsider, but now Miura’s saying it. I hope we do get either actual indication from him or him denying liking her at some point, because right now I’m just sorta like, “Uh, okay then.”
I actually wasn’t sure I’d finish this chapter today since I’m tired from work. But lately I’ve been reading in EN (sometimes a lot) on top of whatever I’ve been reading JP, and today I just cut that out and somehow managed it. I need to find out what happens, it’s killing me only being able to read ~45 pages a day.
Some vocab of note:
アブラゼミ [n.] large brown cicada (Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata)
面映ゆい (おもはゆい) [い-adj.] embarrassed; self-conscious; abashed; bashful
暗黙の了解 (あんもくのりょうかい) [expression, n.] tacit understanding; unspoken agreement
観音開き (かんのんびらき) double doors opening from the center. This got furigana in the book, but not the びら part.
夜盲 (やもう) [n.] night blindness. Short for 夜盲症.
顰蹙を買う (ひんしゅくをかう) [expression, ア五] to be frowned upon; to invite frowns of disapproval; to displease; to disgust
跪く (ひざまずく) [自カ五] to kneel
ふいにする [expression, する-verb] to lose completely; to waste; to let slip away
ニケツ [slang, n., する-verb] riding double (on a bicycle, motorcycle, etc.)
April 6
二ノ国白き聖灰の女王・試練を受けたるため、精霊の神殿へ行こう！
. シズク is probably my favorite character so far, and his expressions always make me laugh. Plus sometimes he’s doing random stuff in the background during cutscenes. His voice was a bit tough to get used to as he speaks more like a normal person and less like a character in a video game (mumbles, slurs words, and speaks quickly). A lot of video game companions can get annoying (glances at Navi from Ocarina of Time), but シズク remains funny and engaging so far. I hope that doesn’t change.
４月６日 
softlyraining’s blossoming book stack 
NANA 1 (57% → 62%)
Komi-san 2 : 5 chapters
Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar : 1 section
