21st of July
Read page 117 and 118 (31 – 32%) of かがみの孤城 today. I’ve not been doing so well in terms of productivity and sleep these past three days, so I’m hoping I can reset my rhythm over the weekend.
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Today: よつばと！p. 44-58.
I am starting to feel the looming end of my summer vacation. We go back to classes mid-August, but preparations start well before, and I always see the month of July as my time to invest myself in projects. This summer’s project has been to immerse myself in as much Japanese as possible, and I’m seeing the end of this luxury coming! I have been distracted by a lot of house repair stuff this week as well, so today, for example, I’m really feeling what it’s like to try to fit in intensive study around all the nagging responsibilities of life. I will soon have to start constructing a more manageable study schedule that I can maintain throughout the school semester, and that will mean cutting some things out. Not looking forward to this!
New stuff!
連れて行く (つれていく) to take someone along, to accompany
大した事ない (たいしたことない): it was nothing
次女 (じじょ): second daughter
末っ子 (すえっこ): youngest child
キョロキョロ: looking around restlessly, goggling
おあがりなさい: after you
ベタベタ: sticky, applying thickly
ムシャムシャ: munching, devouring
ごくごく: in big gulps
真ん中っ子 (まんなかっこ): middle child
見習う (みならう): to follow another’s example
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The Tanuki Beach Resort: Date 20220721 
Tanuki Scroll of トゥインキーの抗弁 
Random article - when I saw the title I thought “Twinkie Defense” must be some really oddly named Twinkie line that was only available in Japan back in like the 90s or something.
Turns out it’s not a tasty oddly named snack, but a label that came about in court for an improbable legal defense. There was a whole case in the US back in the late 70s were Twinkies (among other sugary foods) were used as part of a legal defense against murder and this is not a rabbit hole that I ever thought could exist to even go down. But here we are.
Japanese found in the sand
Learnthings
荒唐無稽「こうとうむけい」ー Absurd; nonsensical
嘲笑「ちょうしょう」ー Scornful laughter; ridicule
法律上「ほうりつじょう」ー From a legal standpoint
食習慣「しょくしゅうかん」ー Eating habits
責任能力「せきにんのうりょく」ー Legal competency; criminal responsibility; full accountability
巷間 「こうかん」ー On the street; around town
流布「るふ」ー Circulation; dissemination
故殺「こさつ」ー Voluntary manslaughter; killing with intent
自動操縦「じどうそうじゅう」ー Autopilot; automatic control
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Day 21:
It’s the first time I have to crank out the NHK easy news during this challenge… I read one article today and that’s all I have time for, because I’m hanging out with a friend soon! I also just signed the tenancy agreement for my new apartment, so I’m moving next week 
A lot of things are happening while I push through this reading challenge, huh
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I just listened to a great podcast breaking down the Twinkie Defense; it is apparently linked to the trial of the murderer of Harvey Milk. The story is pretty convoluted and fascinating; apparently the term is based on a semi-fictional article by a “satirical journalist” at the time and has little to do with the actual trial but somehow ended up in the popular imagination. Maintenance Phase: The Twinkie Defense on Apple Podcasts
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Home post 
July 21st 
・詩的私的ジャック - JACK THE POETICAL PRIVATE (81% → 87%)
Finished this week’s reading early, nyohoho :3 Probably my favorite chapter so far? 
It had many good parts. I’m starting to appreciate Saikawa a bit more. Too many cigarettes tho.
・ わたしの幸せな結婚 3 (0% → 36%)
Since I finished early, I figured it was time to nyoom some more 
The MC is cute uwu
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July 21st!
I read 2 chapters of Yotsuba today, which means I finished Volume 13!
One of todays chapters (89) had a very sweet bit which got me all emotional. Yotsuba’s grandmother is leaving and says she’ll come again and bring an omiyage, and Yotsuba replies that even if she doesn’t bring one, its ok. Which was very sweet when compared with a few chapters ago when Yotsuba’s excitement at her coming to visit was largely driven by the idea of getting a gift 
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Today I read 3 pages of Konosuba and 3 pages Shin Kanzen Master Reading N2. I could have read more but I didn’t feel like it.
Maybe I should play some videogames in japanese for a change or read some articles on internet sites. Doing the same thing every day is boring maybe I should mix up things a bit.
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| REDC | 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 4 |
July 21
Monster Hunter World
Loopers: chapter 1
Caught up with Loopers just in time for next week. Ever since I set up yomichan properly with anki connect and now also using ShareX, it’s so easy to make cards from anything, even more so from VNs apparently. I used to have a love-hate relationship with Anki but nowadays I think it’s definitely drifting more towards love. If I had to put effort into making these cards I’d hate every single second of it, just like I used to c:
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2022-07-22T01:14:00Z
I’'ve finished another volume of manga in less than a month. Since I’ve started this reading challenge, I’ve found my reading speed and reading comprehension increasing. A couple years of this and I might be able to read Japanese as fluently as I do English!
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Today was another low-energy day, unfortunately, so I didn’t read much. Just 1 page of 2.43, leaving me off on pg 156.
I looked at the character profiles from the official website again, and they have Uchimura listed as a wing spiker, probably because he’s swapped in for Oda on the starting roster in the latter half of the series. But in the section I read yesterday, we learn that he’s sort of a jack of all trades (has no outstanding characteristics as an athlete), and he’ll sub in wherever he’s needed. He has no set position.
They also say that Kanno cannot exercise outside for long periods of time due to his health. Uh, it ain’t just exercise. He’s allergic to the sun. Although I grant that it’s more difficult to keep the sun off your skin when you’re exercising. But then again, the anime got rid of all reference to his sun allergy and thus just inexplicably have him indoors with the girls’ team in ep 6, though of course he still wears long sleeves, and his oversized hoodie outside of practice/games, and when they’re standing outside before the first match in the prefectural qualifiers they’re in the shade (although anime-only watchers would just think it’s because of the heat).
Y’know, I think I did know this, actually, it’s just not in my active memory or anything yet.
Some vocab of note:
口惜しい (くやしい) [い-adj.] A rare alternate spelling of 悔しい. I dunno why, but it really speaks to me for some reason.
本末転倒 (ほんまつてんとう) [四字熟語, noun, の-adj., する verb] failing to properly evaluate the (relative) importance of; putting the cart before the horse; mistaking the cause for the end; mistaking the insignificant for the essential; getting one’s priorities backwards
ぶら下がる (ぶらさがる) [自ラ五] to be within one’s reach; to dangle (before one’s eyes)
埋める (うめる) [他一] to make up for (a loss, shortage, etc.); to compensate for; to make amends
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Finished ウテナ volume 3. It’s definitely diverged from the TV series but I like it a lot. I think some of the fun with the different versions of ウテナ is they all play on the same themes but go very different directions.
I’m traveling this weekend so no idea how much, if any, reading I’ll manage to get done.
Also tiny shout out to the 
Mystery Book Club 
on the Natively forums. We’re voting for our first read now!
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July 21st
Today, I read some of それでも歩は寄せてくる (0 - 6%). I decided to start over now that I have a vocab list to help (Thanks again, @MrGeneric). It feels a lot better to refer to the list rather than typing everything into deepl. Looking forward to reading more.
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July 21 
Home Post
A decent amount of my reading today was actually looking at the nominations for the mystery book club over on natively lots of interesting stuff! I generally find things like summaries more taxing to read, I guess because there’s less context? Swapping between different styles and such more regularly? Idk, but I did it and I have a lot more books I want to read now 
And then I played more バディミッションBOND, naturally; things are still wild! I just read a few side stories which were fun as always, though the further I get there’s definitely a tendency for them to not be so lighthearted, which… yeah, makes sense 
there’s a lot going on!
buddy bond!
I reread some of the last scene with モクマ and チェズレイ because it was kind of a lot and I was pretty tired when I read it and yeah there are just a lot of complicated emotions in that whole situation? Like モクマ clearly blames himself for whatever it is that happened 20 years ago, and he’s just been ridden with guilt and searching for some sort of recompense or honorable death that whole time, which… yeah. And チェズレイ’s so adamant about seeing the real モクマ, but it’s not just about proving that he’s actually a bad person or anything like that. There’s a lot to it all and チェズレイ’s anything but straightforward about his thoughts and feelings, but it’s more like… mercy? Like he tells モクマ he set fire to the village, and that he’ll spare someone in exchange for モクマ’s life so that he can die protecting people as is his vow, but… he didn’t. At least I don’t think? There’s something about a fire that I don’t know about yet, but the screams モクマ heard that convinced him of the situation were from チェズレイ hypnosis, so it doesn’t seem like he actually put anyone else in danger. But then モクマ, in the face of what he’s wanted this whole time, fights back so that he can continue protecting people, and that’s the real モクマ チェズレイ wanted to see all along!! Not some deep dark truth, just genuine goodness! The whole situation is still very complicated (チェズレイ’s well-being isn’t the most guaranteed currently) but there’s been some real growth :')
Aside from that, ルーク had a moment where his food didn’t taste as good as it should’ve because モクマ wasn’t there to enjoy it with him 
モクマ’s a lot of things, but he really has good relationships. People just like him, you know? Despite everything He’s a hot mess but there’s something so genuine about him, and he can be so wise when the moment calls for it. He’s good :') Him talking about タンバ and how he would’ve like アーロン and アーロン saying he would’ve liked too meet him… they all have such good dynamics!!
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Day 21
カリスタルハンータズ本3
Progress [||||39%] Finished chapter 7!
Things got so intense! They definitely ended on a cliff-hanger! I’m really enjoying the intensity and pace of this book. I almost started chapter 8, but my brain is pretty fried so I’ll leave it for tomorrow 
Still procrastinating on doing new lessons. I’m gunna be level 6 forever 
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Day 21: July 21st 
🎀 ふだつきのキョーコちゃん Volume 4 (38% ➨ 58%)
While I still feel there’s some room for fleshing out Hibino’s character a bit, I’ve been enjoying how this series is moving along.
Looks like I get another 念のため, just to be sure I remember it in-between Anki reviews.
Early on, I was afraid the series might not have much variety in what happens from chapter to chapter, volume to volume. So far, that hasn’t been an issue.
There’s also a nice bit of indirect backstory here, as their visiting cousin notes that Kyouko didn’t wear a ribbon when they last saw each other two years prior.
からかい上手の(元)高木さん Volume 5 (10% ➨ 17%)
🔍 名探偵コナン Volume 10 (86% ➨ 100%)
And…here’s my second 念のため in one day.
It’s crazy how it barely appeared in anything I had read before (based on OCR text analysis of prior manga I’ve read), then once I added a card for Anki for it, it constantly comes up, over and over again.
This case took place in 1996, and to think over a quarter of a century later, Conan is still a little kid.
ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん Volume 2 (82% ➨ 88%)
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Day 21 
穴 ~ 71-76%
I’m hoping to finish the second story today. So far nothing much out of the ordinary has happened, but again there’s this constant suspicion that there’s something going on behind the scenes that is not quite as it should be.
I’m realizing that for some reason I’m reading this book more slowly than previous ones. On day 23 last challenge I had completed 三毛猫ホームズの推理, a much longer book, while also reading other stuff on the side. After another 23 days I was at 80% of my next book, 告白. I’m not overly concerned about reading speed at this point (I’m still amazed that I can even read at all, a year ago I wouldn’t have thought it possible), but I wonder if 穴 is after all harder than I initially thought. Or it may be that it’s not the kind of book that has you turning pages like crazy (that’s not a criticism, by the way). Or maybe it’s just that life got more in the way this time.
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I had the same impression (regarding my reading speed, not yours 
)! And I was also wondering why because like you said, the stream-of-consciousness writing style is a bit different and I had a few questions in the beginning and in conversations throughout, but not really much more than my usual level, and the book doesn’t feel really difficult… One explanation that I came up with is that it’s so brimming full with all these little details, and I think that especially reading mystery books has trained me to try to keep track of everything and to constantly relate everything to everything else in order to find out how things played out. It’s just that in this book so many details somehow just add to the atmosphere without being actual plot devices (in the sense of Chekov’s gun), and so I maybe ended up being really overloaded and slow because of all of this internal processing 
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July 21
Accidentally did a tiny read because by the time I was able to get to reading ビブリア I was so tired I fell asleep after a couple of pages ( 4% → 5% ).
Oh, well.
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Said screw it and finally got Danganronpa S. I am already juggling The Hobbit and Bunny Senpai. X.X what am I doing…
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