📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 🏖 ☀

Japanese Language Reading
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Updating way late for the 25th. Even though I didn’t end up having work yesterday (fryer started acting up after like 3 trays of doughnuts, a.k.a. after I had already started walking to work, so I didn’t find out until I got there. At least I got in a healthy 15-min walk while it was still cool enough outside for it not to be hell?), I was really tired, especially in the afternoon and evening. And today at work was super busy, so I’m super tired now. I still haven’t had lunch. I want to curl up and sleep for 10 years. Anyway.

I started out reading HQ ch 86 月の出 (or at least most of it) because I had some time before “work,” and then on my walk I saw the moonrise! Well, I dunno how much it counts when it was already at about the height of the treetops, but yeah, it was pretty. A thin sliver of silver above the golden oranges and pinks coloring the sky before the sun makes its way above the horizon.

I went on to finish the rest of vol 10 and all of vol 11. Even though vol 11 is where we see a lot of the things set in motion in vol 10 start to come to fruition, 10 is still my favorite volume so far.

lol normally “recent worry” gets written as “最近の悩み” on the characters’ profile pages, but since Bokuto’s is that he doesn’t remember how なやみ is written in kanji, it’s spelled out like that in kana.

Some vocab of note:

頭角を現す (とうかくをあらわす) [expression, サ五] to distinguish oneself; to stand out
挙動不審 (きょどうふしん) [四字熟語, noun] suspicious behavior; acting suspiciously
霞む (かすむ) [自マ五] to be overshadowed; to be upstaged; to be outshone

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August 24-26 :heavy_check_mark: :mag:

十角館の殺人 ~15-25%, chapter 2

Reading for this week’s mystery club completed! It was a relatively easy chapter, at least compared to the previous one, full of mostly non-casual dialogue. Casual dialogue is still often harder for me than narration, but polite dialogue means less text density without all the twists and turns of casual language. (Unless it’s too polite, then that’s another level of difficult).
So far the book is turning out to be more interesting than the straight Agatha Christie clone I was expecting. Hope it keeps it up. :smiley:

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:sunny: :beach_umbrella: Memoria’s Summer Readin’ :beach: :sunny:

August 26th:

I had some downtime at work today so I read an NHK news article to stave off the boredom. It’s a good thing I did, because now it’s 10 pm and I’m too tiiiireeeed to read :melting_face: But the weekend is here!!!

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(home post)

Last night I finished vol 1 of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle! Now the big question is whether to continue with vol 2 or start something new on my shelf…there’s not a lot of options right now though…

I wish there was a swap-by-mail site for manga, cuz I’ve done the same thing! Found some great stuff at Kinokuniya, got home and turns out I already owned 2 of them. The place is waaaay on the other side of town, wasn’t worth driving back to return them. So they’re still on my shelf in their plastic wrappers cuz who’s gonna want vol 7 of a shoujo?

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Home post :bookmark: Aug 26th :beach_umbrella:

・ 本好きの下剋上 10 (51% → 52%)

Just a tiny read.

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Me too! I have a duplicate copy of volume 5 of the Spice & Wolf light novel sat on my shelf because I got confused about which was the next one I needed to buy… (free to anybody in the UK who wants it)

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Today I finished the sixth chapter in the Monobeno visual novel and realized that it’s an easy read for me. Maybe my japanese reading improved.

Next I read two pages in Best Essays 2021 and finished the first essay. The author lives in an old house an complaints that something always breaks. At one time the author even thinks that there may be a curse. Should I ever be bored I am thinking about writing an essay in japanese too.

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August 26th!

I read chapter 19 of Happiness today, and was very tempted to read the next chapter too to finish off the volume but managed to control that impulse so that I don’t get ahead of the club!
Also did a tiny bit of reading with my tutor, but just things like reading example sentences and reading questions.

(Home Post)

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Aug 27, Sat of Week 9 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

This week, I haven’t realy read “a book” much, but I should progress a little to show directions and possibilities.

To get along with HUNTER×HUNTER anime, I dug into HUNTER×HUNTER manga Vol.3 a little. Currently at Ep.21, which doesn’t equivalently finish Vol.3 yet.

I continued to read Death Note Vol.4 with the club, so I have read Ch.26-27; but both of I read relatively slowly and I don’t want to be ahead of the club, so I would stop there. I also have other reading priorities. (Perhaps try to finish HUNTER×HUNTER volumes ahead instead?)

I haven’t continued 3月のライオン yet, but this manga after Ch.1, each chapter is relatively short, so that shouldn’t be too hard.

I started reading a grammar point (～まい), searched via Bunpro, to help with reading (HUNTER×HUNTER manga, actually). This is is in N2, so I wonder about textbook and from N5 approach, when will I get there?

Grammar points and transcripts (from anime watching), are broken down into sentences, and made into flashcards with context. (with mochi.cards API, but Anki’s AnkiConnect API should be no different) Next possibility is Wikipedia articles / business Japanese articles / blog articles?

Manga and novels in Bookwalker aren’t really impossible to be made into flashcards, but they have to be started from DRM removal, and manga would also need OCR. I am reluctant to do either.

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:star2: Home :star2:

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険27

start - 31

I started getting to excited over Dio so I stopped reading in order to calm down lol. I need to carve out some time so I can write down all my thoughts while reading

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Summary Post

August 26th
What did I read?: きつねくんと先生 Vol 1
How much did I read?: 10 pages
How long did it take me?: 9 min

Just a few pages today, since I worked a little later than usual. Kitsune-kun is so cute :pleading_face: And he likes pudding :pleading_face:

That is definitely an option!! I’d ship it to you free, honestly, I’d be happy for it to go to someone else who wants it ^^ Do you have Discord? We could work out the details on there, I’m windupbird#3480 if you want to message me ^^ (If you don’t have Discord, I also have a burner email I can give you lol, just let me know :slight_smile:)

This is the truth :joy:

That would be such a good idea :sob: I really prefer physical manga, but there are definitely some manga where I’m like…I really don’t need to have this sitting on my shelf for the rest of my life :joy:

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Home

Ugh, my laptop updated today, and now my Japanese IME is even more annoying about the alphanumeric vs. hiragana input modes. I wish I could make it default to hiragana.

I had thought, tired as I am, I was just gonna read よつばと! vol 9 today (and I’d thought so, the name of Yotsuba’s teddy bear is the same as the word for duralumin!) But I put on Re:coll on shuffle but just ended up listening to Kajiwara Gakuto’s 恋 on repeat—he has such a nice voice, and it’s a good song besides—and it reignited my love for Nao and I ended up digging 2.43 out from under my other waiting books and reading some more of that. Luckily this is the chapter where he starts getting more pagetime! This subchapter even more so. Disappointingly, he was hardly in the first novel. But I suppose I shoulda expected that, considering he didn’t become particularly important in the anime either until ep 7.

I started ch 2-2 CHILDHOOD FRIEND and ended up reading 7 pages, leaving off on pg 71. We learn that at least the girls in 2F call him Nao (his given name being Naoyasu), and he is apparently used to them feeding him when he visits during lunch lol (unless it’s just the one? the one who fed them at least was his ex from middle school). Yuni goes to see him during lunch the day after the whole sort-of confrontation in ch 2-1, worried that he wouldn’t be going to noon practice, and Nao pulls him into 2F because he has something he wants to talk to him about first, a.k.a. the convo that happens outside in front of a vending machine in the anime. Before they can start talking though, one of the girls feeds Yuni a piece of kara’age off her fork because he’s “still growing,” and he feels like a seal in an aquarium lol, and then Nao gets a piece of broccoli.

This is the first time I’ve seen the meaning in furigana, rather than the reading:

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(For those for whom it’s hard to see and you don’t wanna click bigger: the text in question is いっかい, a dialectal variation (Fukuiben) of 大きい, with 大きい in parentheses as furigana.)

Some vocab of note:

ダンゴムシ [noun] pill bug; woodlouse
くっつき虫 (くっつきむし) [noun] burr. I wonder why the 虫 when it’s plants.
荷担 (かたん) [noun, する verb (自)] support; participation; assistance; complicity; conspiracy
言葉に詰まる (ことばにつまる) [expression, ラ五] to be at a loss for words

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August 26 :blossom: Home Post

Well so far I’m a liar, I didn’t start reading until super late again so I just forced myself through a couple pages of 跡を消す before I pass out :joy: hopefully things will stabilize a bit as I get acclimated to the semester but who knows :man_shrugging:

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:sunny: :beach_umbrella: Memoria’s Summer Readin’ :beach: :sunny:

August 27th:

Only 11 pages of 好きっていいなよ volume 3 this morning, but! I got my reviews down to zero for the first time in like, a week. I’ve just been doing 30 reviews here and there to make sure I’m doing something, but my low accuracy has been so demotivating. Today I decided to not care anymore because putting off my reviews has only made things worse. So I did some lessons for the first time in a month :confetti_ball: Now I’m going to sit and stew in my leeches while I force my brain to learn new things again :melting_face:

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:cake: :books: August 26 :books: :cake:
(home post)

Night Café 2 :cake: page 17 → 26 (9 pages)

Read the rest of the first chapter of volume 2 of NC. Nice little review of the last volume plus a new character introduced. Not much to say there. I’ll try to add my commentary in the currently active club for the volume.

And man, I’m getting so far behind in all my clubs. I’m now 3 weeks behind in both Orange and Loopers, well the third week behind just started, so it isn’t like I can’t catch up, but still.

Honestly though, it isn’t just Japanese reading. It is kinda everything. I’ve just not felt much drawn to anything useful this week. I wonder if it is all the food stuff I’m thinking and dealing with. Probably.

Digression about the food stuff I'm working on

There is always a lot of under the surface stuff with food for me, but I’m determined to get to a good relationship with food where I eat in a way I prefer (treats will be included!) with little overeating, no/minuscule guilt and no worries. Also you know, making my body feel good.

However, while the program/coaching I’m going through that is wonderful, all old mean thoughts, patterns, and expectations are marching to the front asking for their chance at a duel or two or three. Society in general and the diet/food industry are very good at teaching all kinds of complexes. And now I have the joy of peeling those away so I can figure out what works for me and how I actually want to eat. Because I have no idea what it would look like without insecurities, guilt, fear, FOMO and all that.

Anyway, we’re almost at the end of the month, and I’ve only finished one thing this month. And I’m not really close to finishing anything, so I can’t just dive in and do that. Super Mario Odyssey have been my reading too much this month. :joy:

Well, the good thing with one month ending and another beginning (soon), I can use that to propel me, challenge myself, to get a bit more done. Meaning more Japanese reading, more life stuff, and so on. Hopefully :tm:

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Been struggling with reading the last few days, so I let myself slip back a bit with Tugumi and just read シャドーハウス (volume 2). I ended up finishing it as I got caught up in the plot. And then starting the next one…

Today I was travelling home so I read mission 7 of Spy Family (will need to go over it quickly but it was a fairly easy read) plus a few pages of 夜カフェ book 2 - which puts me ahead of the book club but I’m going away the following week.

My plan this week is to finish chapter 4 of 夜カフェ so I’m ahead of the club, read over mission 7 and catch up with Tugumi - the latter will be the biggest challenge but should be doable. I’d also like to finish volume 1 of orange and decide if I’m going to continue and catch up with the club.

I can see myself binge-reading シャドーハウス as it’s easy reading and it’s easy to get caught up in, so the plan is to use that to bribe myself (ie, I can read a chapter of it once I’ve read x pages of Tugumi!).

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:spiral_calendar: Day 57: August 26th :watermelon: :butterfly:

spacer:stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: からかい上手の高木さん Volume 8 (14% ➨ 24%)

🦸‍♂️ ＳＵＰＥＲＭＡＮ ｖｓ飯 スーパーマンのひとり飯 Volume 1 (43% ➨ 51%)

This time around, Superman’s bringing along a friend to lunch in Japan.

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While Superman uses 僕, Batman uses:

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And because it’s a manga about eating food, there have to be scenes of Batman eating.

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(Ran out of reading time mid-chapter.)

Gotta make sure I get some reading in Saturday morning before I get distracted by :squid::octopus:(Splatoon 3).

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i missed out on thursday again, that’s the 4th day missed in this challenge. but on thursday i was climbing the tallest mountain i’ve yet climbed, so was a little busy (and afterwards a little tired).

and then yesterday i almost missed it again! i was just sitting down for a nice good read, when i got distracted by a passing thought and realised that a) ユリ熊嵐 has a manga and a LN, and b) that i had an urgent need to rewatch ユリ熊嵐. 7 episodes later it was past my bedtime. but then i wasn’t able to sleep, so got to read some やが君 anyway. i’m really liking this bit, Sayaka and Yuu are meeting up in their old sensei’s partner’s café, and it’s cute how they’re really getting along well now, and confiding in each other.

also, the ユリ熊嵐 manga and LN are going on my list of stuff i want to read :smiley:

(edit: sent requests for the manga and LN to be added on natively :wink: )

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p. 123-132 of よつば& today. I honestly can’t wait for this chapter, with all its ogling and fat-shaming, to be over, but the bit about how none of the grownups can swim but Yotsuba is an expert is pretty funny.

New words:

余る (あまる) to remain, to be too much
金槌 (かなづち) someone who can’t swim
バシャバシャ splish-splash
落ちる (おちる) to fall
降りる (おりる) to descend
ぷかぷか lightly floating

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:tiger2: :books: The Tanuki Beach Resort: Date 20220827 :beach_umbrella: :raccoon:

吾輩は狸である progress: 11.22% :blossom:

Ran out of time to read today, so only managed a few sentences, but there was quite a few new words for such a short read.

:beach_umbrella: Japanese found in the sand :beach_umbrella:

Meowords

此間「こないだ」ー The other day; recently; lately
仕舞い「しまい」ー End; close; finish; termination
匆々「そうそう」ー Busy; hurried; yours sincerely (at the end of letter eg)
白磁「はくじ」ー White porcelain
青軸「あおじく」ー Cultivar of Japanese apricot or mulberry
手水鉢「ちょうずばし」ー Washbasin