Day 4: January 4th 
からかい上手の(元)高木さん Volume 10 (10% ➨ 17%)
ポケットモンスタースペシャル Volume 7 (0% ➨ 6%)
Small reading day today as I took out the time to learn all the new things in the HTML standard from the last 20 years. (As it turns out, it’s a lot less than I expected!) Between that and updating one of my projects to utilize a custom element in HTML+Javascript, I was left with little time for manga.
January 4th
What did I read?: にわにはににん
How much did I read?: 18 pages
(Finished 2nd Story: ユーレカの庭 )
How long did it take me?: 2 hours 5 min
I have now finished the second story! 
Happy birthday to a surprisingly large group of people! I’m a bit behind so afraid to tag names and miss anyone, but 
happy birthday(s) all the same!
I didn’t read yesterday and only read half the ユージニア assignment today. I’ve been very tired and busy this week so it’s not working out well for my reading goals. Here’s hoping tomorrow goes better.
I read 5 volumes of HQ today, all the way through vol 43! There are only 2 volumes left, *sobs*
仰々しい (ぎょうぎょうしい) [い-adj.] exaggerated; bombastic; highly colored
頭が高い (ずがたかい) [expression, い-adj.] haughty; holding one’s head high
惜敗 (せきはい) [noun, する verb (自)] regrettable defeat; defeat by a narrow margin. As opposed to 完敗 (かんぱい) “utter defeat; annihilation.”
引く手数多 (ひくてあまた) [noun] being very popular; being in great demand
天秤にかける (てんびんにかける) [expression, 一] to compare and contrast (two alternatives); to weigh the relative merits (of two options); to weigh (one’s options)
呉越同舟 (ごえつどうしゅう) [四字熟語, noun] bitter enemies in the same boat; rivals finding themselves together by chance
softlyraining’s snowy book stack 
January 4th
ラストで君は「まさか！」と言う 冬の物語 (28% → 32%)
Finished another story! This one, 「氷のジジイ」, is about a group of kids who walk through an empty lot on their way to school. They usually mess around a bit while they’re there. One of the kids, however, is afraid of the old man who lives next to it, while the other children aren’t terribly concerned. I thought this story might venture off into the spooky, but the author went for a more heartwarming ending. I think I mentioned this in the advent calendar thread, but because of the 3 minute limitation, these stories all run into the problem of needing to do a substantial bit of telling one way or another. I’m sure it’s not easy to write something amazing under this limitation. Still, there’s only been one spooky winter tale so far, so it was kind of a letdown that this wasn’t another.
Many birthday wishes to @Cathm2, @Hantsuki, @lucylavelle, and @nyxqueenofshadows! 
January 4 Home Post
Even more 山猫 today; I read 52 pages which I think is the most I’ve read of a novel in a day by a pretty large margin so… yay!! It was spread over a few sittings but still some really solid progress. Story-wise, things sure are getting interesting 
the book’s namesake has arrived in full force and oh he is as much of a character as I anticipated, any character who will unironically say この俺様 is bound to be a good time 
so it’s been a lot of fun hearing more from him directly and watching 勝村 suffer trying to deal with him lmao. Also in retrospect I can’t believe I wasn’t even a little bit suspicious about a character named 山根虎 just happening to meet 勝村 and bond with him about 今井, like wow that should’ve raised some flags 
But also mysteries upon mysteries what’s the deal with the necklace? Also just with 今井 in general? How many people are somehow connected to it all? Very curious
Also happy birthday to like half the people in this challenge apparently?? I hope you’ve all had a wonderful time! 
Day 4 Progress:
お隣の天使様 五冊 - 64.24% → 66.97%
Another subpar reading day and quick post before I go to bed for work tomorrow. I definitely feel like I’ve been becoming pretty lax with my JP studies lately… spending more of that time playing games with friends. Not having much to do outside for work is definitely affecting that mentality lol.
As a side note though I’m really enjoying just doing little Twitter webcomic translations for friends. It’s a nice way to feel like my efforts haven’t been going to waste and weirdly enough actually doing pretty well in the motivating department.
Word of the Day:
Hilariously enough my own state (Massachusetts) placed sixth in that same video. Was not expecting that name to come up, lol.
is there any chance you could put this stuff under spoiler tags? You’re very far ahead of me with ハイキュー , think there’s a few other people in this thread too who are in the ハイキュー reading club which is on vol 11 right now. Nice to be able to have the option avoid potential spoilers as you’re at the end.
In other news, after a big reading slump (which may or may not have coincided with me downloading the game ‘Obey Me’ on my phone, but hey, it’s in japanese so it kind of counts??) I’ve got back into reading everyday! Currently enjoying BUSTAFELLOWS and Who Inside with their respective book clubs. Also read 今夜、世界からこの恋が消えても this week which I would recommend to people who like romance stories that make you cry lots, but I actually listened to the audiobook so probably doesn’t count for this challenge!
There are two ways and they are both hiding under the cogwheel in the configure row at the top of the reply window.
Blur spoiler looks like this.
Blur spoiler looks like [spoiler]this[/spoiler].
And detail tag like this:
This text will be hidden
[details=“Summary - you can type whatever you want here, doesn’t need to call it summary, could even be empty”]
This text will be hidden
[/details]
Typically I use blur for short spoilers or part of a sentence spoilers. Detail tag is good if you want to spoiler a lot. Or if you want to hide a super long reply like I did recently. xD
Happy birthday to @lucylavelle!! 
January 4
Finally had a solid block of reading time so I could finish chapter 2 of ユージニア (13% → 16%). As expected that was a better experience than reading in little chunks so I’ll try to see if I can read full chapters in the future… I’m probably two slow for that now so maybe just half… we’ll see.
Also played like 15 min of BU$TAFELLOWS. I’m just starting chapter 2 so I better up my playing time if I’m to keep up with the club.
So the good news is I’m really enjoying everything I’m reading right now, the bad news is it’s very hard to find solid blocks of time to dedicate to them.
1 月 5 日
コナの大冒険 第19話 from Satorireader
Same series today but will change it up over the weekend!
New words:
泥棒 (どろぼう) thief, theft
犯人 (はんにん) offender, perpetrator
Thanks for the words of encouragement @ChristopherFritz ! Will definitely be joining the next ABBC and I’m excited for the results to come out this coming Saturday!
A few of my other concerns in reading outside of Satorireader was also covered by @emiri_learns_jp (the many pauses in reading to look up stuff and whether to create additional set of flash cards for new vocab encountered when reading). The responses to that were useful too so thanks for sharing!
Jan 5, Thu of Week 2 of Winter Q1 2023 
Extra gallery has a second page now.
君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.2 (8% => 11%)
はたらく細胞 Black Vol.2 Ch.8
About upcoming book clubs, Komi-san seems interesting. Yotsuba-to! is interesting too, but digital copies seem to be nowhere to be found (other than sample chapters on the website).
隈
禄 (祿)
濾
憧 (Level 59)
So many people’s birthday in not even a week of the new year. HBD 
Only than I am not sure about my timezone and Discourse.
these posts are getting later and later in the day for me oh no asdfghjkl
read another 24 pages of 蟲師 which is just over half a chapter. i feel like i’m getting into the rhythm of it now, but it’s also very fun to read which helps, they really do feel like folktales, this chapter is about 蟲 who feed on sound and silence and inadvertently deafen the townspeople. one of the characters spoke in a very honourific/old-fashioned way and used おらぬ at one point, which is fun
other notable vocab: 蝸牛（かたつむり - snail, 凄まじい (すさまじい）- terrible, tremendous, intense, 寄生 - parasitism
thanks for all the birthday wishes! and it’s someone else’s today, we’re really clumping together huh happy birthday @lucylavelle !
January reading, starting on the 7th because I’m still on vacation dang it.
Jan’s book:
Jan’s manga:
The Tanuki Kotatsu Reading Den
January 5th
新書太閣記 progress: 00.31% // Volume I: 03.64% 
That’s the first chapter complete, onto the next tomorrow!
This is a bit easier reading, sentence-wise at least. I get held up a lot with looking up all the words and history stuff (but that is a lot of fun).
仄「ほの」ー Faintly; dimly; barely
がやがや ー Noisily; jabbering; chattering (like the noise of a crowd of people)
皆の衆「みなのしゅう」ー Everybody
盆地「ばんち」ー Basin (geography)
浅黄「あさぎ」ー Light yellow
既往「きおう」ー The past
手押し車「ておしぐるま」ー Handcart; wheelbarrow
心棒「しんぽう」ー Shaft; axle
キイキイ ー Sharp creak/squeak/screech (the thing it’s describing here is a squeaky carriage)
容貌「ようぼう」ー Looks; features; physical appearance
糺す「ただす」ー To ascertain; to confirm; to verify
蘆荻「ろてき」ー Reeds
便船「びんせん」ー Available steamer (boat)
水楼「すいろう」ー Tower/castle facing the water (or a watchtower but not like a lighthouse)
櫓「ろ」ー Japanese scull (the oar attached to the back of a boat)
舷「げん」ー Side of a boat; gunwale (also: 船端「ふなばた」)
艘「そう」ー Counter for small boats
苫「とま」ー Woven mat
耳環「みみわ」ー Non-pierced earring; helix
Character Kanji-Name List
for easy referencing later, because these will take some remembering
Main
Hideyoshi: 豊臣秀吉「とよとみ ひでよし」// 豊太閤「ほうたいこう」
Volume I Characters
五郎大夫 「ごろ だゆう」// 祥瑞「しょうずい」(Goro’s Chinese name)
– Servant of Goro: 捨次郎「すてじろう」
– Mother of Goro’s child: 梨琴「りきん」
– Rikin’s & Goro’s child: 楊景福「ようけいふく」
Historical People
– 阿倍仲麻呂「あべ の なかまろ」ー Japanese scholar & poet (around 700AD)
– 白楽天「はく きょい」ー Late 700s Chinese poet (Bai Juyi / Bo Juyi) also known as: 白楽天「はく らくてん」in Japan.
– 道元「どうげん」(or 道元禅師「どうげん ぜんじ」ー Japanese Buddhist Priest, writer & poet (Early to mid 1200s) (also known as 栄西禅師「えいさい ぜんじ」)
– 空海「くうかい」ー The one and only Kukai or Kobo Daishi - a Buddhist monk. Posthumously given the title of: 弘法大師「こうぼう だいし」born as: 佐伯 眞魚「さえき の まお」(late 700s to early 800s)
@lucylavelle, happy birthday!
(same day as Hayao Miyazaki!)
January 5th
Card Captor Sakura volume 5 – progress report
Yesterday: Finished chapter 20, continued up to page 112.
Today: Continued up to page 141, finished chapter 21.
The plot is slowly moving towards setting up the last trial by Yue. I thought that the trial would be at a later point in the series. But now that I think of it, I’m almost halfway in and I remember that the whole deal with Eriol once the trial is over also needs to be addressed, so never mind!
One more person whose birthday is in early January?! 
Happy birthday to you, @lucylavelle, I hope you had a pleasant day!
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Word or expression of the day:
判断 - (はんだん) - judgement, decision, conclusion; divination
Honourable mention(s):
棲む - (すむ) - to live (of animals), to inhabit, to nest
Day 5, 5h of January
Today’s DrDru story was really mean, everyone asks the bakery owner if he has broccoli cupcakes, but when he has them they say it’s disgusting… So rude! Not sure why the story is called “Cucumber Tart” though?
The next story is a wall of text, which is rather jaring after all the other nicely formatted stories. It’s also just a description of the Lord or the Rings. I guess the one interesting thing here is the grammar? I haven’t gotten to read up on the te-form yet.
１月５日 (Home Post Link)
Unfortunately, we had a pretty big wind storm last night, which knocked out our power, internet, and cell service for a significant portion of the day. Our tree in the front yard was also a casualty 
So, I spent most of the morning reading stuff in English, not like I really had all that much else to do without internet 
. Knocked out a philosophy book that I’d been meaning to re-read, and also got a really good chunk of “Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: a Geopolitical PreHistory of J-Pop” done (I picked this up after finishing “Quit your Band! Musical Notes from the Japanese Underground” last month but hadn’t gotten a chance to really start it yet. This one has a significantly more theoretical/historical approach, as opposed to the more experience driven style in Martin’s book. Both good, they compliment each other well). This book also contains a lot of references to non-fiction about music/history that are written in japanese 
so I’ll have to check some of those out… eventually
Eventually, power and internet came back, so I got a little bit of JP study in too.
Read:
当番「とうばん」ー being on duty, one’s turn
定休日「ていきゅうび」ー regular holiday, regular closing day
シカト ー ignoring (someone)
汗「あせ」ー sweat
購買「こうばい」ー school store
Thankfully it fell basically the only way that it could fall without seriously damaging anything, cars and the house are fine. Did take a lil chainsaw work to get the car out from all the branches, though
Happy birthday @lucylavelle @nyxqueenofshadows
➳ January 5th.
What: ハイキュー！！ volume 1
Pages: 20
Time: 25 minutes
Boy, am I pooped. Had to get up at 6 today and couldn’t read before I left. I don’t think it’s sustainable to read in the mornings for me unless I want to go to bed even earlier (I was in bed by 10 last night 
why is being an adult so boring and why do I not live closer to my workplace? the answer is CAPITALISM and INFLATION)
Anyway, I’m over halfway done with the first volume of volleyball boys and I thiiink I might be able to do the last 50 % before the book becomes unavailable. I won’t have time for the second volume but I think I’m fine with that. No hate to those of you who enjoy ハイキュー！！ but it’s not my thing.
I’ve just learned that I can take a Japanese class at my workplace. The only issue is that it’s a beginner class, and even if I’m still hesitant to rate my Japanese skills in any way, I wouldn’t consider myself a beginner anymore. I think there’s an advanced course too but that would probably be TOO advanced. It’s a great opportunity to get some guidance from someone who’s A) a native speaker and B) a certified and experienced language teacher. But I’d have to buy Genki and it’s expensive lol. Much to think about 
I am blabbering but I also wanted to wish a happy birthday to all the early January kids! 
01月05日
うたわれるもの
So many birthdays happening I lost track ;-; ごめんね. Happy birthday to all of you! Hope you had great celebrations and ate something tasty 
.
