Today’s article was 霧が晴れるのが怖い. It’s a blog I found and have been meaning to read. I needed something short today as I have less time than usual this morning.
古き良き時代 - the good ol’ days
文壇 - literary world
克明 - diligent; detailed
スラヴ - Slavic
秘訣 - secret (to success); key (to something)
反体制派 - rebels; dissidents
The tl;dr is it’s about famous authors and Russian thoughts/perspectives on death.
6th and 7th January
Continued reading かげきしょうじょ！！because I’m obsessed. One of my favourite characters just met a tragedy and I’m now drowning in feels.
This is a really good manga. Like all good literatures, we can make character analysis, identify the foreshadowing and the significance of particular scenes, etc. I think it might be a good material for the book club. Would be fun to discuss it with other people.
Some words I remember today:
I just learned it in WK, 由緒正しい : venerable / good lineage.
The context is that one of the new students is the daughter of a great family, Iga group.
伊賀グループは由緒正しい元日本財閥の一つ
Another one is あみだくじ, which is the ladder lottery you often see used by the Japanese.
Day 7 today! I’m tired so I only read two pages of 銭天堂。Took me around five minutes.
I’m spending the whole day at home tomorrow so I’ll see if I can read at least five pages of Kiki then.
Day 7: January 7
January 7
君の名は , 7 pages.
I swear と-adverbs are the bane of my existence. They are a legion, and way too many are so similar D: help.
Ahhh the magic of the daily updates! 
- I love the frequent activity of this thread, it feels so alive. It’s nice seeing so many others working on their own goals while you do as well. I like to see this challenge as a shared study log, it gives me a similar feeling. It’s silly how it motivates many of us, but it definitely does.
Ok, I only heard about this thread today so I’ll be joining from tomorrow:) I’ll be reading よつばと！
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Homepost - Tigerdate: 20220107 
Tanuki Scroll VII: 七草がゆ 
Today is 七草の節句「ななくさのせっく」!!
A festival in which the porridge “七草がゆ” is traditionally eaten on the 7th day of the new year. Because there’s little greenery in January it contains the seven plants of spring to help with your health.
ー 七草がゆ！！ ー
一草！ ・ 芹「セリ」ー Java waterdropwort / Japanese parsley
It has a lot of iron so it’s good for your blood and circulation.
二草！・薺「ナズナ」ー Shepherd’s Purse
It’s supposed to help with lowering fevers.
三草！・御形「ゴギョウ」ー Jersey Cudweed
Helps with coughs and stuffyness.
四草！・繁縷「ハコベラ」ー Chickweed
It’s rather high in protein and other minerals and nutrients.
伍草！・仏の座「ホトケノザ」ー Henbit / Nipplewort
Generally good for you.
六草！・菘「スズナ」ー Turnip (Might just be me but I find スズナ to be a cute name for a vegetable)
Improves digestion / helps with indigestion.
七草！・蘿蔔「スズシロ」ー A kind of raddish / daikon.
Helps with digestion.
☆ Learnings ☆
お粥「かゆ」ー Rice porridge.
母子草「ははこぐさ」ー This seems to be another way of writing Jersey Cudweed 「御形 - ゴギョウ」
田平子「たびらこ」ー Another way of writing Nipplewort 「仏の座 - ホトケノザ」
Thanks, yeah my body was telling me to rest. I did get some side effects from the previous shots, but that was a bit of soreness or a minor headache that went away after a day or two. Now I felt like I witnessed multipe stages of being sick and every day was something different. Today was the first day I didn’t feel meh. Guessing my immune system was weakened due to the season, so if I got covid it could have been much worse even. 
It wasn’t even that bad, as I was able to do my reviews and reading, but yeah makes you feel more vulnerable and useless.
It being cute and a Jump+ series can definitely throw people off that is on the easier side. These challenges last a while, so you can always try again later when you’re more up for it.
Back to reading, I’ll post the next regular update on sunday I think.
Well I’m quite proud of myself! I went over the first 17 pages of よつばと! and put all the vocab into a flash card system! It took forever, and I would say it counts for my reading for the day 
However, because I just connected with someone today who is going to be my Yotsubato reading pal, I am putting it on pause so they can catch up to me! In the meantime I have example sentences galore in my particles and verb books, and I got Minna no Nihongo today - although the English study guide has been delayed for over 2 more weeks for some reason! Either way I can use these resources to keep up my Japanese reading!
January 7
・かがみの孤城. I finished week six of the book club schedule, it was a short one.
Progress: (34% → 38%)
Very unrelated: I have the urge to read Spy x Family and One Piece. I own neither of them 
I read crazy much this week (about 100 pages) and managed to read the prologue of Pillars of the Earth (while collecting more than 300 unknown vocab from just 10 pages 
I hope this will improve at some point!) and then started the Honjin murder case. This is going a bit slow and so I could not get through all of this week’s assignment. Also, I went to the sauna today and had to take a paperback book with me as digital books are not allowed (or more precisely, my devices for reading digital books, as they have a camera). I picked The Little Prince (I had bought it a long time ago in Japan but never got around to actually reading it…) The language is amazingly beautiful, I really like what the translator did here. I will continue taking it to the sauna from now on.
Plans for next week:
I will try to up my reading speed a bit so that I can manage to read all of this… If not, I decided that I will slow down on Honjin, sad as it is 
January 7 
Home Post
I finished the prologue-type section of 錆喰いビスコ today! So that’s some sort of accomplishment in and of itself; I’ll be on to actual chapters with numbers! I feel like my “reading” speed was slower today, but I think that’s just me not actually realizing how long it usually takes and also being endlessly easily distracted. It didn’t feel super rough though? Like I definitely looked up a lot and had to take time parsing things, but it wasn’t overly mentally exhausting so that’s good.
I’m still really enjoying it! I think it’s starting to get easier as I’m getting used to the book and how the author writes and such; looking back at my first post where I was like “I read one page and my brain is DEAD” I feel like I’m in a better place with it now 
so hey, progress, somehow, some way!
一般人 - ordinary person
胞子 - spore; so many mushroom and plant words in 錆喰いビスコ (for obvious reasons)
緩慢 - sluggish, lax, sloppy
稀 - rare, seldom
1月6日〜7日
Materials:
TODAI
地球星人
I fit in a little reading on Thursday before bed by reading an article on TODAI. It was about a company in 埼玉県 using the frozen water from a lake on a mountain in 長瀞町 (ながとろまち) to make かき氷. They cut the ice out and slide them down wooden boards into trucks. They plan on doing this until the end of the month. Then, it will go in storage until the summer, when the local stores will be able to use it to make and sell かき氷. 
Today I read four pages from 地球星人. 奈月 finally made it to her grandparents’ house, where she’s bombarded by a lot of different relatives. She doesn’t quite remember a lot of these people.
I thought this line was so relatable:
いとこたちはいつも夏休みには一緒に過ごし、親友のように仲良くなるのに、一年間会わずに次の夏になると、また少し距離ができている。
It really reminded me of visiting my mom’s friends and being around their kids. We got along pretty well, but there was always that awkwardness at the start. Honestly, I still feel this when I meet up with friends I haven’t seen in a while. 
見覚え [みおぼえ]: remembrance; recollection; recognition
見覚えがあるような、ないような年配の女性だ。
いまいち: not quite (right); not very good
年に一度しか来ないこの場所で、私は大人の顔をいまいち見分けることができない。
やっちまう: to screw up, to do (esp. something one regrets)
「なつこさんはね、腰やっちまってね、今年は来ねえっつうんよ」
ぴくりと: with a twitch (e.g. an eyebrow); with a dip/a bob/a flutter
てるよしおじさんの言葉に、思わずリュックを背負った背中をぴくりと動かしてしまった。
しがみつく: to cling
サキさんの足元にしがみついている女の子は、去年赤ちゃんだった美和ちゃんだろう。
ならう: to imitate; to follow; to emulate
私は母にならって、新しい人物が登場するたびに深く頭を下げた。
Let’s try this!
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Since I’m just getting back into this whole spiel I am going to count a short (very short) story on duolingo as my reading for today. But I still have the Harry Potter books waiting for me so let’s see…
Day 7: Today I finished chapter 9 of 極主夫道, oh my goodness this chapter was so cute ;o;
Oh, that’s cool! I remember learning about that from a visual novel I read a little while back, though, as weird as it sounds, if I even say the name of it, I think associating it with this lottery could be a really big spoiler.
I’m impressed by all your all’s progress! I kept going with my two reading projects today:
Ace Attorney: Finished day 2 of the 4th trial today! With some lookup assistance, my reading speed is inching upwards. Only took me the session yesterday and ~70 more minutes today for this whole trial segment. Just more facing off against Von Karma, and getting called a lot of awful things, as you do. By this point the case is very heavily repeating its core vocabulary as we argue the same points back and forth, so it’s pretty comfortable overall. Of the words I mined, I guess 行方 (ゆくえ, one’s wherabouts) stood out to me the most, if only because I’m annoyed at that reading.
I came across THAT section. There’s no real single line in Japanese with quite the same meme capacity as “Almost Christmas means it wasn’t Christmas,” but there you have it.
Zoo 1: I’ll probably read a few more pages as I get the chance later today, but I read a few more of these as well, enough to finish up the first section of this new story. It’s all mystery so far, and even though the “kidnapped into a mysterious locked room” concept has been done to death, it always intrigues me to see where they can go with it. Overall I’ve found this story slightly tougher than the first at times I think – the first story was entirely about interpersonal relationships and memories and the like. Otsuichi is still a little sparse in his writing style (if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t be managing to read this, heh), but this story necessitates more time spent being descriptive about the room and the circumstances. That kind of writing has been slightly trickier, though overall it’s manageable enough to keep going.
Pretty good progress I think!
January 7 update:
Barely managed to read a single page of 時をかける少女 today… I feel like I’m probably not ready for this book yet – lookups take more time that the actual reading, and three pages in, I’m already feeling a bit overwhelmed – while the story hasn’t really even started yet I might try to keep at it for another day or two (perhaps I just stumbled upon a harder segment? wishful thinking at its finest…), but if it doesn’t get any better, I’ll likely switch to something else for the time being.
January 7th Update
Today I read a chapter of ティアムーン帝国物語 Volume 2, making it a whole 1% further It was easier than I expected it to be, since sometimes the chapters vary widely depending on if they focus on Mia, the main character, or someone else (in this case, one of the villains). Anyway, it was fun! Maybe I’ll read some manga later today as well.
I can’t say for sure with that book, but people usually do say the beginning of reading a new thing is the hardest part, for whatever that’s worth. I think you’re right to give it slightly longer and see if you can stick it out at all, once you’ve seen the writing style and some of the most important words a little more. Good luck!
Day 6:
日本語: I read a lot of 伯爵と妖精 29 and finished it! Then I poked at two things that I’ve been in-progress on for a while: 機動強襲型令嬢アリシア物語１ (I read about 3%) and 小川未明童話集 (I read one story).
Read-aloud: We read a chapter of ふしぎの国のバード.
中国語: I read a beginner entry on Mandarin Bean and one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学. Where did my reading motivation go…
