to be constructed
I’ll move the following to the first post in the thread when I decide what to do with this space…
Mental health update
My mental health has been taking a beating these last few years and I set my Japanese studies off to the side temporarily. Just until I had things back under control. I set a lot of things off to the side “temporarily” and it’s not looking too bright in terms of my being “back to the way I used to be” or anything like that in the immediate future, so the time until I return to studying Japanese under this mental paradigm might be years in the future. The last time I posted to my old study log was in December 2023. Some time before that, in September, I was writing about feeling frustrated about not being able to just set learning Japanese as my main priority – and isn’t that a privileged perspective, that young fool – which isn’t going to be happening ANY time soon. And if I don’t do something soon my brain will probably decide that Japanese is totally irrelevant to my life, and start pruning/purging all those neurons. It’s use it or loose it with language as with most skills.
My mental health keeps fluctuating, so I’ve decided not to fall for the temptation of building up an intricate study regime with 2-3 SRS systems, ambitious reading goals, and an iTalkie tutor (i.e. what I was doing back in the day). Instead, since at the moment it feels like my executive functioning needs some work (I’m basically struggling to decide to do good things and then actually do them) I’ve decided on 6 “lost” areas of my life, including my Japanese studies, which I’ll try to dedicate at least 9 minutes to at least 10 times per day. Just to train up the mental muscle responsible for deciding to do something and then actually pulling through.
Since this is a long term rehabilitation of sorts, and since I otherwise might not start up my studies again for years, I’ve decided to reset my level from 33 to 1. I’ll be going slow and focusing on making my own mnemonics from scratch all the way through (good practice and also I won’t be tripped up when WaniKani changes them along the way).
Another thing I’ve set aside “temporarily” for way too long is art/drawing, so I’ll try to draw a bit every day and might post about that too.
TL;DR: My brain is fucked so I won’t be returning to studying Japanese anytime soon unless I change my expectations. For that and other reasons I’ve reset my level from 33 to 1 and will be taking it slow while making my own mnemonics from scratch for all items. I’ll be attempting to start at least 10 9-minute sessions of positive activities like learning Japanese and drawing each day (I have a 30-day checklist and everything). I might post a little art here as well.
Physical health/weight update
When I last was active on the forums I had gone from being the heaviest I’d ever been (110kg) to around 84kg in less than a year simply by avoiding Ultra Processed Food (UPF), with no calorie restrictions what so ever. I was also actively jogging three times per week during the second half of that time, but that didn’t seem to affect the rate at which I was already loosing weight by not eating UPF. Over time since then I gradually started eating UPF again and have for the last 9 months placed no such restrictions on my diet. I now weigh 110kg again. I also stopped running and now get slightly out of breath from a single flight of stairs. And my doctor says my blood pressure is too high…
I have now given myself a 30-day no UPF challenge as well as a challenge to go running/jogging for 20 minutes every day. I might post about this in my weekly updates.
TL;DR: I regained a lot of weight, got out of shape, and am trying to do something about it. I might post about that as well in here, please help me stay accountable 
Since last time I studied Japanese I’ve deleted my Facebook, unGoogled (most of) my life, and ditched both Apple and Microsoft so I’ll also have to rebuild my digital learning-ecosystem from the ground up again with finding and installing apps, dictionaries, userscripts, plugins, IMEs, etc. – on Linux this time. But I’m getting ahead of myself again, none of that is a priority, since I’ll mostly just be doing my lessons and reviews for a few minutes every day. At least to begin with. I’m rambling.
As for my study log itself, I’m aiming to post a short weekly update (on Saturday/Sunday) touching in Japanese, health, and maybe including some art. If I ask for advice elsewhere in the forum I might also cross-post/link the question here.
That’s it for now:)
