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1月19日〜21日
Materials:
きのう何食べた?1
地球星人
I’m slowly but surely getting back into reading. Not much to say about きのう何食べた. I stopped with one of the characters talking to his mother on the phone. She thinks he should come out to his co-workers. Mama, it’s not your place to say! I guess I should be happy that he at least felt comfortable enough to tell her that he’s gay, but still.
I muscled through today and finished week 2 of 地球星人. According to my calculations, in order to catch up with the book club by week 12, I’d need to read two weeks’ worth of pages every week. I want to give it a try, though that seems like quite the challenge. That said, I read 9 pages today, and the most I’d have to read is 7 pages a day for one or two of those catch-up weeks. Content-wise, I felt quite sorry for 奈月ちゃん during this reading session. As you can see from the later sentences in the vocab section, her mother needlessly chews her out. I get that she’s at her in-laws and apparently doesn’t like going there (so she’s likely stressed), but still.
Question regarding tense changes
This has been bothering me for a while. Something I notice in a lot of the books I’ve read thus far is that the writing sometimes switches between past and present tense, sometimes within the same paragraph. One of my theories is that, if something about a character is still true about them, then the present tense is used. Here’s an example from 地球星人:
由宇は大人しいけれど意志が強い。由宇はすぐにどこかへと消えてしまう気がする。私は、自分も宇宙人になりたくて、帰る場所がある由宇がうらやましくてしかたがなかった。
That’s how Yu seemed then, and I assume that’s how the narrator still sees him. However, this theory doesn’t seem to work as a complete explanation. Here’s another example from 地球星人:
てるよしおじさんが玄関で声を張り上げている。「ほら、きた。奈月ちゃん、こっちはいいから行っておいで」「はい!」 私はしゃもじをおばさんに渡して立ち上がった。外からは虫の声がする。もうすっかり、夜が訪れて、台所の窓の外は普通の色に染まっていった。
I just can’t figure it out. This is a real puzzle for me.
Vocab 地球星人
豆電球 [まめでんきゅう]: miniature light bulb
豆電球のあかりに微かに照らされて、由宇がそこに立っていた。
どころか: far from; anything but; not at all
由宇の身体は成長が止まっているどころか、小さくなったようにすら感じられた。
線香花火 [せんこうはなび]: sparkler (“incense” + “firework”)
「わあ、うれしい!線香花火やりたい!」
羊羹 [ようかん]: jellied dessert made from red bean paste, agar, and sugar
私の苦手な、海草を固めた生臭い羊羹みたいな「えご」を切りながらおばあちゃんがこちらを向く。
みそっかす: good for nothing
「いいええ、本当にあの子はみそっかすで、何やらせても下手くそなでね、見てるほうが疲れるんで嫌になっちゃうんですよう。」
出来損ない [できそこない]: good-for-nothing; worthless person
実際に私は出来損ないで、よそったご飯もうまく丸くふっくらせず、ぺったりしてしまっていた。
おべっか: flattery
母がため息をつき、おばさんが「そんなことないわよお。上手よー!」とおべっかを言ってくれた。
迎え火 [むかえび]: welcoming fire for the returning spirits (the story so far takes place during お盆)
「暗くなっちゃったわねえ。そろそろお迎えに行かないとねえ」「今日は迎え火だからね」
Pics of some vocab words
豆電球: I was curious about the size of these light bulbs, so I popped the word into search. Such cute little bulbs! I guess they can be as small as Christmas lights as well as ones that are roughly proportional to the part that you’d screw in. So long as they’re smaller than the standard bulb, they fit into this category.
羊羹: I like me some red bean paste, so I had to search for a pic. In the book the narrator says their grandma is making えご (on the right). The two dishes look very similar, though I don’t know if they taste the same.