The final month of lessons - a certain Bidoof's study log!

[GolyBidoof]

Hey lads!

I thought I’d start a thread where I would do some sort of a countdown until I reach level 60 on WaniKani on January 31, and use it as a time capsule where I’d put some of my memories over that time.

January 2021 might become the most hectic month of my life, so I’d like to be able to look at it in a while and remind myself how did I get to where would I be from that point on.

A bit of background - I’m home for the holidays right now, but I’m flying to Dublin on January 5th. It’s been my ambition for a while to actually move to Germany, so I’ll spend January exploring my options of getting there and - if everything goes right - I might celebrate my Level 60 promotion in Berlin instead of Dublin. And there’s one more thing… I don’t know too much German. Good luck hunting the housing market!

Ireland is under a very strict lockdown right now, but I’ll do my best to make as many memories as I can of that place. I love the Offbeat donuts, I love the Bunsen burgers, Boojum burritos, biking across Phoenix Park, running through across Clontarf Promenade and listening to the sound of the sea, I’m going to miss it a lot!

It’s not 100% sure I’ll move to Berlin yet, but I’ll treat the study log as if I’m moving there with a 100% certainty, just in case I open this post somewhere in 2025 and I’m in a completely different place

The structure of the study log I’d like to keep is that I’d like to keep a dedicated section for each day as I study contaning the following things:

• an amount of reviews I did that day
• what’s my current level
• how far away am I from the level up
• what were the reviews like today
• how many apprentice items I have that given day (whoopsie xd)
• what music has been ringing in my ear that day, either while reviewing or while going for a walk
• what did I do that day
  and
• a photo that I took that day.

I’ll try to keep the OP updated with each entry, so here’s the first one:

January 1, 2021

Level: 51
Level up: January 3, 2021 (two days left)
Reviews: 290
Apprentice items: 263

Fridays are my days when I tend not to do too many reviews, but level 50s are very difficult and I had to do a lot of catching up today. I struggle especially with the kanji whose meaning I struggle to imagine, either by the word or the mnemonic not being descriptive enough. An example of that being tenacious - 執, or eddy, 淀. The review session was rather gentle today though, despite having so, so many overdue items that I looked over today.

I’ve been listening to Disgaea 5’s “Moving on” a lot today, gotta say it’s a very tranquil track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKY1rb3hc3A
Gotta say, really stimulating

I went for a bike with my parents today, the weather had been absolutely meh, but we’ve managed to go for a nice ride together. We rode to a lake that started slowly freezing over because of the sub-zero temperatures at nights lately. The sky looked as if it hadn’t done loading, not too many people either. I’ve read some threads from meteorology forums of people not being too fond of snow in any capacity, but I find it to be the thing that I’m really, really missing and I’d love for snow to come falling here.

And for the ski slopes to be back.

January 2, 2021
January 3, 2021
January 4, 2021
January 5, 2021
January 6, 2021
January 7, 2021
January 8, 2021

[NicoleIsEnough]

I know that‘s not really the point of your study log, but just to let you know:

@GolyBidoof

Berlin instead of Dublin. And there’s one more thing… I don’t know too much German. Good luck hunting the housing market!

As long as you’re talking Berlin, you will be perfectly fine with English. By now Berlin has a very high population of foreigners who don’t speak German (especially IT folks). So everybody is used to people who can’t speak German. (For the rest of the country, this isn’t as extreme but you should still be able to get along with English most of the time.)

Anyways, if you need help or have questions, feel free to give me a shout (either here or via email, see my forum header).

[Saida]

@GolyBidoof

I’ll try to keep the OP updated with each entry, so here’s the first one:

If you were planning to put all of it in the OP, might I suggest putting them in a reply, and maybe putting a link in the OP? Otherwise the thread will disappear from the homepage, and hardly anyone will see it. It sounds like an interesting thing you’re doing!

[GolyBidoof]

So that’s what I’ll keep doing, thanks for the advice

January 2, 2021
Level: 51
Level up: January 3, 2021 (20 hours left as of writing this)
Reviews: 203
Apprentice items: 250

I’ve felt pretty disoriented the whole day, I blame it partly on Disgaea 5, and partly on the fact I didn’t sleep too well today. Need to get back to physical exercise!

My inner ears have been bombarded by Mario Kart DS’s Wi-Fi menu playing on repeat:
Wi-Fi Menu - Mario Kart DS [OST] - YouTube

I only went to a grocery store outside today, haven’t really done much otherwise. Still haven’t processed the fact it’s my last few days at home, but with the flight to Dublin being booked and all I know it’s inevitable now. I gotta get some good sleep later today

[Saida]

How many lessons are you doing per day?

[tls]

@GolyBidoof

I only went to a grocery store outside today, haven’t really done much otherwise. Still haven’t processed the fact it’s my last few days at home,

I can so much relate to this. And it keeps becoming a very unique experience every time a change like this is happening. Take it as it is and I heartily encourage you do what ever comes up once you’re in Dublin.

As for WK, it seems it will be the stable part for you until end of the month. I remember reading a little bit of your journey in the Diary of a mad level 50’er. Are you still going with the same pace posted over there?

[GolyBidoof]

@Saida

How many lessons are you doing per day?

118 today, 0 yesterday, 0 two days ago, 121 three days ago:

@tls

Are you still going with the same pace posted over there?

Yup, I’m still stuck in a perpetual loop of having only a handful hours for myself each Sunday and Thursday xd

It’s absolutely, completely unsustainable and it leaves me so insanely exhausted, but I’m well aware that if I were to stop doing it right now I’d probably spend all day reading about the c-disease-cursed-word or some other injustice in the world, so I’ll have to devise a strategy on what to do after I’m done with WaniKani xd

January 3, 2021
Level: 52
Streak day: 333
Level up: January 7, 2021
Reviews: 604 (+ self study)
Apprentice items: 242

Each Sunday and Thursday I feel like giving up, I’m so overwhelmed by the reviews and the lessons that I just want to scream. And then I do them anyway xd

I couldn’t keep up with self-study today making the same mistakes over and over again, so I’ll have to review them tomorrow, but I’ve spent around six hours today mulling reviews, new lessons and self study.

Kanji are starting to become more obscure and when I saw the word “auspicious” today with an empty “synonyms” section I wanted to end it all at that exact moment

But I’m so close now, there’s only 8 levels to go. I’ll struggle through it, January 31 is this month already xd

And I’m absolutely not burning all of the items, no chance in hell xd

Today’s mental breakdown was sponsored by Life is Strange soundtrack Episode 3 - Track 4

I realized we haven’t had a day when the sun would be out since December 26. The weather stays the same every day - cloudy, with humid air, no sunrises nor sunsets xd
I spent the first part of the day waiting for the reviews to come and doomscrolling, but luckily I managed to take a break in-between and go for a bike again. Today was probably my last trip around the town, I caught up on the last few spots of Christmas decorations around I haven’t seen before. The decorations will probably be taken down last week anyway, so it’s cool that my last memories of the town for the time being will be of it being decorated for the Christmas.

Speaking of the last times, I had a coffee with my dad before he goes to work tomorrow for the week.
I do realize I’m eating too much, drinking too much caffeine and completely messing up my sleep schedule when I’m home, but hey, I’m home, I can afford to spoil myself every once in a while xd

I’ll have to start packing up tomorrow DDD:::

[GolyBidoof]

January 4, 2021
Level: 52
Streak day: 334
Level up: January 7, 2021
Reviews: 206 (+ self study)
Apprentice items: 239

I had a very nice day today in terms of my reviews, even though I wasn’t very convinced about some of the words when I saw them, most of the stuff would come up to my head after a few seconds. A few items dropped down to Apprentice 2 though, will have to self-study them a little bit more if I don’t pick up.

I’ve played a bit of Hades today, so here comes Lightning Chariot Base from Kid Icarus Uprising because I have an attachment to this track and I missed it

Of course I’m not ready for the trip, but the time is not playing in my favor, all I can say is that I’ve had some physical exercise walking for a long time today and it felt good

The same time tomorrow, I’ll be out of this continent on an island somewhere to the left

No caffeine today, which is good news, because for some reason I’m incredibly sleepy right now and it’ll be easy to fall asleep now

And would you look at it, I saw the bears dine today in a restaurant! It’s a shame they wouldn’t let people in, but I’m glad they at least put the bears in, at least someone could benefit from the lockdown xd

[GolyBidoof]

January 5, 2021
Level: 52
Streak day: 335
Level up: January 7, 2021
Reviews: 334
Apprentice items: 196

I had like 10 separate review sessions today, cause at first I couldn’t focus on anything but WaniKani and then I was just wasting time making reviews as soon as they became available xd

勘定, damn you!

Minecraft’s Mice on Venus, thanks for lifting me up today <3

They say that home is where your mobile provider doesn’t text you about roaming fees, if that were the case then I’m finally home

But who knows where your home is if you’re living in two different places xd

All I know is that I was very glad to finally arrive in Dublin and I feel like I can finally rest for a minute or two here, no deadlines, other than level 53 on Thursday <3

And you know what? I was worried nobody would be waiting for me here, but as soon as I entered my room and saw all the plushies there, I realized how wrong I was too

[GolyBidoof]

January 6, 2021
Level: 52
Streak day: 336
Level up: January 7, 2021
Reviews: 202
Apprentice items: 174

Yep, that’s it, a few hours left until level 53 xd
A few burns today, including one of my favorite words: 吸血鬼.

Coolstory: around when I was level 10 I was playing Code;Realize on my Vita and listening to the background actors and I was like, “whoa, i understand quite a few things”. And those that I did not understand, I’d cross-reference them with my phone and WaniKani’s database. And one of the words I heard and tried transcribing, 吸血鬼, was there on level 23, and I was like “whoa, I’ll learn that word in a few months :OOO”

And I have learned indeed!
Level 23’s vampire, burned

Fire Emblem Awakening OST - Conquest. Won’t say much, I’ll leave the track to do the talking for me xd

But truth to be told, I went out to the town to do some essential groceries and I realized that it’s not just me who’s self-isolating here in Ireland… Everything is shut down. I knew the situation was a bit funny, but just for reference, there is a country in Europe where McDonalds as a business is not operational at all, including takeaways, grocery shops are the only ones that stay open and even they have non-food items fenced off and even click and collect businesses are not allowed to be open. Good thing I learned how to cook over the first wave xd

I didn’t get too many exciting pictures today, but I did take one of my breakfast: what’s supposed to be hummus spread on bread, cheese curd, some salmon, chia seeds and beef jerky sticks. And some jelly to that. We’re getting to the vegan diet, eventually, maybe in 2030 xd

Tho it’d be hard to survive without dairy products, not gonna lie.

[GolyBidoof]

January 7, 2021
Level: 53
Streak day: 337
Level up: January 10, 2021
Reviews: 725
Apprentice items: 260

The reviews number is not a drill. 725.
I’ve literally spent like 6 hours doing Japanese today. And I did the usual 9 to 5 working hours too. Lord, my ears are falling out of the orbits.

When I saw 152 lessons today, my hands just dropped. And the worst part is that I see level 54 on the horizon that has 115 vocabulary items, I’m worried that when items from level 54 come, be it on January 10th or January 14th, this number of lessons will go up even higher. Whee!

I was curious how difficult is WaniKani right now compared to the previous weeks so I put up a quick script and would you look at that!

Yep, don’t speedrun WaniKani. Seriously. Please. I can’t take it any harder, but according to my math about 750 is the hardest it might get if I keep up the accuracy.

There was a point in time where 150 reviews would take me an hour, but I’ve become more ruthless since, if I can’t remember a kanji or vocab in less than 10 seconds I immediately discard it and move to the next one xd
But going by that standard, just the reviews would take 2.5 hours each day of the week on average for me. That estimate might not be that far off factoring in the lessons as well

Torigoth! I wasn’t very fond of the soundtrack of Xenoblade 2 when it came out, but a few tracks have always stood out to me, and Torigoth is definitely one of those. I can never have enough of it, the vocals are perfect in this one

I woke up at 6.15am to do reviews today and I had to pause for a few minutes, because… it started snowing! By the lunch break the snow had already melted, but I managed to take a few pictures nonetheless.

But what’s interesting about the weather here is that while back at home it would be foggy and gloomy pretty much every day, the sun is out pretty much all the time while I’m here! I mean, not counting the evenings. Anyway, here’s the snow around Clontarf today

[tls]

@GolyBidoof

The reviews number is not a drill. 725.

you made you choice. But I cheer for you. You can do it!

@GolyBidoof

because… it started snowing!

I so much would love to experience snow.

As for your graphic: I’m not sure what your y-axis is about. Is it the reviews per week broken down as a daily average? (Sorry, for me being slow to get it…)

[l_l]

@GolyBidoof

The reviews number is not a drill. 725.
I’ve literally spent like 6 hours doing Japanese today. And I did the usual 9 to 5 working hours too. Lord, my ears are falling out of the orbits.

Yikes! Even at the very worst, I never got close to 700 reviews in one day. I think my absolute worst review time was a little over three hours in one day, and even then, Wanikani was basically dominating my life for a while and I was constantly exhausted. I can’t imagine trying to do six hours.

Also, those are some great photos you’ve posted.

[GolyBidoof]

Ooh, I’m sorry, I mislabeled the chart, the improved version of the chart is in the post from yesterday now, I hope that’s more readable now

January 8, 2021
Level: 53
Streak day: 338
Level up: January 10, 2021
Reviews: 278
Apprentice items: 221

I autopiloted through most of the reviews today, so I haven’t really learned that much. That being said, a lot of Apprentice items went to Guru today, I’ll have to do a self-study bootcamp someday but lord, I feel so tired and so lazy that I don’t know if I’ll do it within the next 24 hours.

I’ll have to do it before the level up though xd

Route 119, I’ve been on a Pokemon Ruby soundtrack high lately. It wasn’t my favorite Pokemon game growing up, but the more I get into music theory the more appreciation I get for how incredible this score is. There’s layers upon layers of complexity and it’s a sum of so many parts that it really feels like a miracle that something with so many seemingly disjointed elements sounds so fantastic in a harmony.

So, a while back I bought an audiobook for Nekomonogatari Shiro which I deemed to be a weak arc at that time, but I’ve forgotten most of the anime and simply moved on with my life. I got around to start it a while ago because I couldn’t stand the news about how many fantastic events did year 2020 bring and, whoa.

Not only was I blown away by the quality of the text, the recording gives so much justice to this book that I simply go for walks now with the audiobook in my ears, imagining all sorts of things Hanekawa Tsubasa must have had in her mind when she was going through the hardships in her life.

I thought I was over the phase where I would be taking life lessons from anime, but as it seems I’m back to being 12

(for real, the book is much better than i remembered the anime being, the person that reads the book gives a lot of justice to the source material too)

[GolyBidoof]

January 9, 2021
Level: 53
Streak day: 339
Level up: January 10, 2021
Reviews: 159
Apprentice items: 198

A liminal day - absolutely nothing new happened on WaniKani, which I was very glad for. As the time goes by, I begin to yearn for the times WaniKani felt like I was mostly reviewing stuff that I knew instead of the times when my lessons became unreasonably high xd
I still struggle heavily with the stuff I learned on Thursday, but I’m leaving this until tomorrow morning, I want to have as much of freedom I can.

aaand I’m using it to play Monster Hunter Rise demo in Japanese xd
I’m surprised to find out how much do I understand there, literally up to 95% of the kanji without having to look it up, and a few kanji from level 53 are there too, including 搭 for 搭乗
But it’s very, VERY tiring to actually have to remind yourself “wait what was the reading for this on-AH SOO, IT WAS そう wait is it rendakud, ぞう?” xd

Give it up for Tsukihime Track 1! Still remains the most important reason why I’m studying Japanese right now.

I overdosed on coffee today and my brain unleashed the creative potential I never knew it had. I think one of my New Year’s resolutions after I’m done with WaniKani this year might be to start making… art. In a vague sense, any sort of art. It can be a meme in a specific format. It can be a Blender model. It can be a guitar song. I still have a month or so to look into different avenues

Either way, I’ll try to find something specific to keep myself motivated in that goal, but we’ll see how it goes.

My brain entertained a fun thought exercise today, what if the world we live in turned out to actually have divagated in 2016 and we got transferred to a parallel universe where all sorts of revolutions happened, the Note 7 being an explosive device, Nintendo Switch being so different from Nintendo 3DS, Bluetooth headphones became adopted, USB-C became a global standard, people started getting obsessed about Fortnite, a lot of sociopolitical changes have occurred, when you think of it, an awful lot of things changed since 2016, but what if the true universe we should all be living in had none of those things happen and not a single revolution happened since 2016, all of things that have changed have been merely evolutions instead?

The newest 2021 smartphones would have three physical keys. Wired headphones! Windows 20 would launch following a middling reception to Windows 10. Amazon would never become so influential, but it would rise in popularity. Star Wars The Last Jedi would be a middling remake of The Empire Strikes Back. Playstation 5 would look like Playstation 4 Pro. Galaxy Note 7 would be a trendsetter for the phones for years to come, with Galaxy Note 11 looking very similar to Note 7, but with a bigger screen.

It’s fun to think of really.

[GolyBidoof]

January 10, 2021
Level: 54
Streak day: 340
Level up: January 14, 2021
Reviews: 715 (+ a couple hundred self-study)
Apprentice items: 309

My lord, today was a massacre. Started off pretty innocent, but I saw the apprentice 4->guru 1 promotion on the horizon and as soon as it came out, i just kept writing “a” to any answer and pressing enter between shedding tears. I hardly remembered any of the 152 words I learned on Thursday at all.

And then I thought I’d take my time and devote two entire hours for the level up kanji and vocab, felt pretty satisfied, went for a jog…

…and when I returned back I hardly remembered anything.

I think I spent 8 hours on WaniKani today, doing reviews, self-study, lessons, and the worst part is that I ended this day with more than 300 apprentice items, something that will jeopardise my rest days and make me not have any work/life balance over the next three weeks at all.

It feels horrible, but I know I can’t stop because then the days that would otherwise be lighter will stop being so, and I want to be done with the level ups in 21 days, gotta grind those last three weeks xd
And I am working full time too, so I can’t devote 8 hours to Japanese every day, I simply can’t handle it.

And I’m like 10-15 hours behind on content until next Thursday.

I don’t know if I can cheat this way in music links, but here’s a track that isn’t from a game, it’s associated with a game regardless - Nintendo Anti Piracy Self Reporter from Mario Party DS. I live for this meme. That’s the only sort of relief I get between review sessions on WaniKani xd

Didn’t do much today, studied a lot and went for my first jog while I’m in Ireland again. Tried not overdoing it, because I know you’re more prone to injuries if you haven’t run for a while and then you started again, but let me tell you, it felt goooooood.

I found a light academia music playlist on YouTube, got pretty deep into recommendations under that video too, cool times xd

[GolyBidoof]

January 11, 2021
Level: 54
Streak day: 341
Level up: January 14, 2021
Reviews: 276
Apprentice items: 306

A bit of meditating while doing reviews today as well, I guess that’s one great thing I got from WaniKani, other than the Japanese knowledge obviously xd
But being able to meditate by guessing what’s the reading of a specific word, you don’t need to have the right answer, you only need to have to reach out to the depths of your brain to figure out what the reading is

The first review session today was well before the sunrise, I was waiting for the sun to rise, but it ultimately never did - the streak of amazing weather while I’m still here was broken by the cloudy skies today, which would’ve normally decimated my productivity, but I haven’t seen it for a while, so I got the lofi beats to relax studying boost xd

Since I’m playing the Monster Hunter demo quite a bit, here’s my earworm, Mitsuzune theme from Rise! Or should I say, タマミツネ?

To add to what I’ve written above, I went for another energy lying-in-bed before work after the first review session today. In order to keep myself awake, I put up the lofi hiphop radio on the speaker above my bed and I kept lying in bed thinking about, things

You know, it’s a good realization to have that the things that you have in your head are not facts, they’re just thoughts xd
I know how silly it sounds, but how liberating it is to be able to realize that whatever you’re feeling is not the absolute truth of what is going on, it’s simply how far did you run yourself in a specific direction when thinking

I still need to work on my optimism a bit, but today’s been very healthy for me in many regards: sleep length, work ethic, japanese review ethic, physical exercise (an hour’s walk, it’s always sustainable xd), things are looking up compared to the January 3 session

shoutouts to light academia playlists on youtube

[GolyBidoof]

January 12, 2021
Level: 54
Streak day: 342
Level up: January 14, 2021
Reviews: 352
Apprentice items: 269

Meh, I wasn’t in the mood to do any reviews today at all, good thing it wasn’t Thursday or Sunday xd
But we survived, and luckily I remembered a lot of Master items, so a lot of stuff went straight to Enlightened.

The Apprentice count shrunk significantly too, but there’s still ways to go.

And those ways are tomorrow, ouch xd

Susato Mikotoba ~ Flower Blooming in the New World. I just signed the papers, I’m starting a new contract for a remote work from any place in Germany on February 1st! Wow, I’m so glad this happened xd

I’m a bit worried about the translocation process over this pandemic and VERY worried about accommodation, but it isn’t my first time going to a different country, in fact it’s the second time within 12 months, so we’ll see what I can do about it

I went to eat a donut to celebrate that, there’s not too many donuts left for me in Ireland before I have to go, so gotta appreciate every single one!

Time to hunt some more monsters now

[GolyBidoof]

January 13, 2021
Level: 54
Streak day: 343
Level up: January 14, 2021
Reviews: 310 (+ self-study)
Apprentice items: 186

Speaking of not being in the mood to keep on doing reviews…

the start of the self-study regimen was rather tough today xd

Ehh, everything will work out somehow, despite tomorrow probably being the hardest lesson cycle in the entirety of my WaniKani experience! A-at least probably. 348 reviews and probably around 160 new lessons before work, setting up alarm clock to 6:30, should work out xd

Snowball Park! It actually started snowing at home. Pretty hard. I’m so envious, we’ve had 11 degrees in Ireland today, good enough for a bike, but you aren’t getting any one horse open sleigh with that weather.

You can get some holiday Pringles though!

I’m too tired to keep on writing today, I’m going to bed and I’m waking up in less than 7 hours now xd

[tls]

Congrats for signing the contract. Sounds like there are already new adventures awaiting you once you’ve reached level 60.

…and since tomorrow will be level up day for you and sounds rather tough here is some more cheer-up. show no mercy fearless kanji (monster) hunter