📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2021 🏖🏖

Japanese Language Reading
#983

Summary

Today I didn’t have any other evening plans for the first time in a while so it was a bumper reading day! Read 6 chapters of 鬼滅の刃５ to finish off this volume - this volume was pretty much entirely a massive fight scene so hence the quick and easy read. Then, in my characteristic way of contemplating decisions for ages and then going for something pretty much on a whim - I decided to start reading NO. 6.

The anime was on this list: Queer Anime Recommendations - Anime Feminist which recommended it but said that the pacing was a bit off as they had to fit a lot of light novels into few episodes. Which was enough for my brain to go “well, guess I’m reading the light novels then!”

Actually getting through a novel/light novel has been my next goal since reading manga started to feel less of a struggle and I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to make sure I went into something with as little new vocab as possible etc etc. And then on a whim I have decided to start reading a Sci-fi light novel which doesn’t follow any of plans I’d been considering to make things easier haha. I read 5% of it today (kind of annoying not having page numbers on kindle) and tbh, while there is a lot of unknown vocab…it’s kind of easier to read than Kiki’s somehow? The prose is a lot more direct and less descriptive so far, and while I’m sure I’m not getting 100% even with vocab lookups, I feel less lost than I have with Kikis at times. Granted, I think half of my struggle with Kikis is that I’m reading it on a bookclub schedule and don’t want to get ahead…which makes it hard to build momentum and get used to the writing style. Anyway - I’m looking forward to getting stuck into gay scifi adventures!

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#984

Summary post
July 15 Finally managed to sit and focus on reading for a while

・Read 冷たい密室と博士たち, ch.2 part 2-4. (10% → 14%) Starting to get interesting :eyes: Was going to read more but time was suddenly super late and sleepyglare couldn’t focus anymore :zzz:

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#985

Well the intermediate book club has read this before so there’s a discussion thread and a vocab list for it - just in case you weren’t aware yet :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: Might make things a little easier.
I’m also wondering whether the kindle version is always just 99 yen or if that’s just the current price, because I’m tempted :thinking: :thinking:

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#986

While movie is incredible, but as usual it had to cut some things from manga, so manga is better (I read in it English).

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#987

ace! yeah I didn’t expect it to have a book club to be honest - it will certainly come in handy I think! Planning to do the same as I’ve done with kikis so far and stop in to take a look after I’ve finished a chapter to find out how wrong I was haha :sweat_smile:

And yeah, Im not sure if it’s always 99yen either but it was enough to give me that final push to get it. That and the fact that a sci-fi story with queer characters is something I’d be interested in even in English so seems worth a shot :crossed_fingers:

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#988

Oh hey it’s me, these are my two modes. Spending way too long deciding which of my many books to read (/ video games to play), and then at another time buying a new book to start reading (/ video game to start playing) right away.

Ohh thanks for the link, I don’t think I’ve heard of the Anime Feminist, will defs. be reading more.

and since I’m here, update time.

Home post

July 15th からかい上手の高木さん 2 pages from chapter 6.

I’m making pretty good progress, my plan is to try finish as much of volume 1 as I can before the volume 2 offshoot club starts, I think I’m on track to finish chapter 7 (out of 9) in time as long as I can keep a pace just slightly above 2 pages a day (2.3 pages IIRC?).

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#989

Main post

Day 45 :ballot_box_with_check:
Satori Reader: The River Sanzu, Episode 19.

Vaccine day, rest day! (Who am I kidding, it’s lazy day week D:)

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#990

Summary post

Day 45: July 15th
What did I read?: いつでもサメーズ
How much did I read?: 13 pages
How long did it take me?: 16 min

Omg, I ran out of time today D: I was wrapped up in doing something else and almost forgot to leave myself any time to read. So I made today a quick day, with sharks~ It’s been a while since I had a shark day haha.

シュモク trying to wear glasses will never not be my favorite

2021-07-15 21.07.28
2021-07-15 21.07.282104×1992 206 KB

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#991

Now I’m tempted too :eyes:

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#992

haha yeah you should both get it and then it won’t just be me reviving a years old book club thread with my questions lol.

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#993

I’m not sure I’ll start reading that quickly to help you with that specifically :sweat_smile:
Btw, it looks like that thread is so old they didn’t even mark each schedule’s week clearly? :open_mouth:

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#994

Yeah - I think it was the first ever IBC pick? At least it looks that way from the comparison of book club picks thread. Definitely less structured than book clubs now, the WK forums book clubs have come so far haha. still I’m sure there is some helpful discussion in there, maybe just a bit harder to navigate!

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#995

Perfect, that’s how I’d go about it as well :joy:

Well I did end up getting it! Can’t argue against ￥99.
Though I’m also not sure I’ll read it anytime soon. I should maybe stick with one of my other things first… I don’t think I’ve actually finished any manga or book since the first Haikyuu volume months ago. I just keep starting like 50 different things and then end up jumping back and forth between everything :laughing:
Bad habit. Happens with English books too sometimes.

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#996

Haha yeah - I was in exactly the same habit before starting this challenge (and in fact noted it as one of my goals to actually try to finish things). I’m also the same way in English where I’ll pretty much either get obsessed with what I’m reading and finish it really fast, or I’ll randomly stop reading for months and never finish, woops!

Obviously different things work for different people but these things have helped me with that I think so while none are rocket science, sharing in case they are useful to you/others:
1 - writing down what I am currently reading as part of this challenge has given me a push to stick with those things rather than adding more (so long as I like them) Partly just for the sense of achievement of being able to see and record my progress. Partly because it means that I don’t just entirely forget that I’m reading something.
2 - giving myself permission to drop things completely if I’m not enjoying them rather than feeling like I should finish them. This seems like the opposite of the above haha - but yeah this was something I found a lot when I was reading manga based more on whether people recommended it for beginners/whether they were ABBC or BBC club picks etc. I’d be like two chapters into a whole bunch of things that I wasn’t really loving but then would feel guilty about reading something else as I felt an obligation to finish them. Just removing them from my ‘cureently reading list’ helped a lot.
3 - I think another thing that has helped is starting to read more things where I haven’t already seen the anime - it means that if the story hooks me then I need to keep reading to find out what’s going to happen.

I was making some really silly picks for things I was reading so if you’re enjoying all of the things that you are reading then don’t think there’s anything wrong with that - it’s more just like watching a bunch of shows airing weekly rather than binge watching one :slight_smile:

That said, I probably have at least 30 manga volumes that I’ve downloaded when they’ve been free on bookwalker waiting patiently for me to finally get to them and I just keep adding more. So I’m definitely not the best person at the “actually reading things you intend to read” thing :sweat_smile:

Is there anything you’re really keen to start/pick back up again?

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#997

:ballot_box_with_check: Day 45

Finished half of Chapter 6 in 僕はブルー！

Today's words and phrases:
  • 薔薇ばら = a rose🌹
  • 定さだめる = to determine, to establish
  • 談笑だんしょう = friendly chat
  • 施ほどこす = to carry out, to apply (makeup, tattoos etc), to donate, to sow (seeds)
  • 鈴すずなりになる = to grow in clusters
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#998

Thanks for the tips!!

Yeah, I really like the idea of writing down what I read each day (or maybe week) and stuff like that!
The thing is that I’m currently kind of really stressed about stuff I need to work on for uni and I honestly shouldn’t spend too much time on Japanese in the first place. I’m worried that if I start tracking progress or something right now I’ll be too tempted to focus on those goals instead of the ones I should actually be working on right now :laughing:

For the same reason - and this is gonna sound really dumb - I think I’m kind of subconsciously stopping my self from really getting into anything (that has a lot of new-to-me content available). I know that I sometimes struggle with productivity/focus when I have some new shiny media thing to obsess over :laughing: I don’t know if that makes any sense.

This is kind of why I didn’t join this challenge even though it seems really fun. I’m kind of hoping that there will be an autumn one or something in a couple of weeks or so when things have calmed down for me :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I also really wanna join a book club again, I think that’d help with finishing things too. And it’s fun. It’s just that right now I don’t think I’d have the time or energy to stick to a strict book club schedule.

Haha I have a few of those as well, but even if I never get to those at all I wouldn’t mind, since they were free and all. No harm done.

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#999

Haha, as an almost professional level procrastinator that makes total sense. Yeah, Japanese isn’t going anywhere - makes 100% sense to focus on your other studies :slight_smile:

I think quite a few people have mentioned wanting to do this again later in the year again or continuing on for further months so expect that will happen! :grin:

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#1000

On bookwalker at least (and they do seem to usually coincide…) it’s until August 5th.

(For a bit I thought y’all might be talking about 獣の奏者 since I saw that was 99 yen recently and picked it up with extra coins – I think I have a print copy of No.6 still around somewhere from when it was a book club pick though…)

It looks like there’s a lot of 講談社文庫 quietly at that price right now come to think of it…

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#1001

Read 6 pages of Forbidden Scrollery (2). New mystery starts to unfold!

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#1002

Today I read 5 more pages of ひげを剃る。そして女子高生を拾う, so now I’ve read 30 pages in total :tada:

Tomorrow I will have a lot of time to read so I will try to finish the chapter then (just 13 pages left).

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