#did vocab after i finished the book reading stuff

[cringecompanionapologist]

Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma: Chapter 2

This one's called Duo, because it's the beginning of Turlough and Juras working together. Other than that, I only half-understand a fair amount of this chapter.

This chapter gives us more of Turlough's PoV than the first. He's been visiting various ancient ruins on Trion and one of its moons to learn about stuff that I'm still not sure how it ties into everything else he's doing.

First, brief vocab definition:

The Old Regime is when the Imperial Clans were in charge. The Revolutionary Regime was Rehctaht's little reign of terror. The New Regime is the congress/parliament/whoever is in charge with Rehctaht overthrown.

There is a bit of insight into the Old Regime here. This particular moon of Trion has a poisonous atmosphere. Apparently the old Trion scientists sent animals to the moon in hopes that they'd adapt to the atmosphere, but they all died. This shows a bit of the Imperial Trion "Science above all else" mindset, since it's a bit cruel to do that to so many animals. I guess it's not as bad doing it to people, but it feels a little disturbing.

After finishing his moon research, Turlough meets up with Juras again and invites her back to his house. It's apparently his house from before his exile, so you'd expect like a palace or something, but it's only described as a house. Other, later depictions of places Turlough lived during his childhood tend to go with palaces.

Earlier research I did about this book said that Turlough lived in a rainforest, but this is not that at all. Interestingly, the place is given a latitude of 50 degrees north. We don't know the exact size of Trion compared to Earth, but we can see what sorts of places are 50 degrees north on Earth.

That line would be here:

So around the border between the US and Canada as well as going right through the middle of Germany and Poland.

Here's a climate map:

The climate of this entire latitude line is naturally gonna vary, but we're mainly looking at Dfb with a bit of Cfb thrown in.

You probably don't know what that means. Most people don't spend as much time staring at maps as I do.

C and D both refer to temperate climates with distinct seasons. The main difference is that, while it can snow in some C climates, the temperature of every month averages above freezing. D climates have winter months where most days are below freezing.

The second letter is about dry seasons. In some parts of the world it rains/snows far more in one half of the year than the other. The "f" means there is no dry season.

The last letter is about how hot the summer gets. Climates with "a" get hotter summers than climates with "b".

So, a Dfb climate has warm, but not too hot summers, cold, snowy winters, and no dry season.

Cfb has warm, but not too hot summers, coldish, sometimes snowy winters, and no dry season.

The descriptions of the summers around Turlough's house staying cool and the winters bringing regular snowfall would fit with a Dfb climate. Very far from what could be called a rainforest. It's more like Toronto.

Look, I got distracted by geography because this chapter was hard to read. The talk of physics and engineering makes me feel dumb so I switched to something I can be smart about.

Anyway...Turlough and Juras talk about what Turlough's been up to. She still doesn't get why he's visiting ruins instead of going into politics.

There's still a lot of exposition going on and a lot of it is in dialogue.

Turlough is studying Trion's past because he's found a weird connection between Trion and Earth. The New Regime's main allies are people called the Gardsormr. If that sounds vaguely Norse to you, it did to Turlough as well. On Earth, he heard of a myth about the Midgardsormr and the myth was very apocalyptic, making him suspect that the Gardsormr, who apparently also worked with Rehctaht, are up to no good.

His reasoning isn't Science enough for Juras' liking.

Also now it's four years away. It was two last chapter and the number will continue to change.

Turlough has one more set of ruin to visit: Slotsruin.

So, as well as Trions, Trion has another intelligent species called the Slots who are (spoilers!) descended from the Laima, who were the ancient astronauts who visited Trion and ate people back in ancient times. The Slots don't eat people, though. They have an island to themselves and they mostly keep to themselves.

So Turlough stops by Slotisland to visit Slotsruin.

So was Turlough previously pronouncing "Slots" the way it's spelled? The correct way is apparently Schlootz. Okay.

So Turlough checks out more ruins, mostly of a giant monument with a forcefield around it so nobody can learn what it is.

Once he gets home, Turlough spends a few days trying and failing to contact Juras again, but she's gone AWOL. So he gets into his own personal spaceship (a small ship meant for around four people) which he's building a new engine for: one that travels in time.

Turlough had helped the Doctor with TARDIS repairs and was able to learn a bit of how the TARDIS worked. So now he's building his own time machine. Not a TARDIS, just a small time machine. Previous Trion attempts to figure out time travel all failed at the last minute and it's suspected that the Time Lords might've been involved. So, Turlough worked in complete secrecy to avoid his work being sabotaged.

Turlough reflects a bit on not knowing whether he can trust Juras or not and how Rehctaht sucks, in his opinion.

You'd think they'd give Thatcher-Spelled-Backwards some more upsetting dictator shit to believe in but she apparently genuinely believed in egalitarianism of some sort and rich boy Turlough complained about it until he got exiled, something he apparently hasn't learned anything about. Considering that Rehctaht is Thatcher-Spelled-Backwards in 1986, we're probably not supposed to like her. Turlough is supposed to be the good guy who stood up for what he believed in, but this really isn't making him look good.

Apparently, another thing the Imperial Clans believed in was sharing knowledge. Everyone told everyone else what they were working on. But, Juras, while working for Rehctaht, got involved in secret projects.

So the Clans believed in the superiority of a minority of the majority based on genetics, valued scientific progress above all else, and didn't believe in the right to privacy. Okay then...

But this does create a sort of interesting insight into Turlough's perspective on secrets and lies. For such a dishonest character, he came from a society that didn't really do dishonesty. He was apparently a good, dutiful, Imperial Clansman who was driven to keep secrets and tell lies. He probably felt like he'd abandoned his principals in order to survive well before he met the Black Guardian.

Turlough's thoughts about Juras are interrupted by finding out that Juras stowed away in his time machine, so now they kinda have to have a conversation. Juras, an engineer, fangirls over Turlough's stories about the TARDIS for a bit and then the subject switches back to politics and the Gardsormr. The Gardsormr are the New Regime's first allies and nobody is gonna believe they're evil. They won't even listen to the evidence.

So...uh...wow. Turlough was almost driven to murder by exile. His main conflict in Planet of Fire was being afraid that he'd face exile again if he did the right thing. And now he doesn't care. He just wants to make Trion the way it was again and he doesn't care if he'll be exiled again trying. After all that trouble, he doesn't care.

Yeah, I don't buy it.

Anyway, there's going to Earth to test the time machine because Turlough apparently left some stuff at Brendon that he wants to retrieve. He still doesn't get what the Doctor likes about Earth so much and assumes that he knows something about this Planet in the Middle of Nowhere that makes it interesting.

My guess is that the story is going to imply that Turlough is right when the truth is that the Doctor's first companions whom he learned morality from were from Earth. He did, in fact, just like the inhabitants.

So, they get the time machine together. Turlough does some physics technobabble, Juras does some engineering technobabble, I fail to keep with it, and it can easily be summed up as, "Turlough and Juras, with their knowledge of two different fields, work together to build a time machine." And that's the chapter.

So, still a lot of exposition with a lot of characterization coming out as variations of : "X, I know that you have, Y personality trait!". The characterization we can see is a tad questionable. When it comes to characters like Juras, who were made up for this book, I don't have much to say. But, yeah, Turlough's characterization definitely doesn't feel quite right, though we're still early in the book and this could go in a better direction later.

[nickelstudy]

JLPT N1 Experience

So first of all, Happy New Year. It has been a while since I've updated this blog. I've been feeling depressed in the past few weeks, I think it's because of drawing? I feel like I haven't been performing well in art, and that it's hard to accept painful truth that I cannot please everyone- not that it matters on this blog, but it's WHY I decide to take some time to write an update here.

I was supposed to talk about my first experience with N1 but I got busy after. I caught up in many stuff, I guess, plus I was busy with my birthday and helping my family's work throughout the month. But now that it's over, let's talk shall we?

Before That

I haven't talked about my last week strategy, here's what I did.

Stopped learning Kanji and do the drills instead

Finished Shinkanzen Grammar in the first section. I had some days left, so I skimmed through the second section without doing the exercise (I did for A - D i think but- I definitely shouldn't)

Borrowed these two books (pic below). For reading, I did every bit of every question style (there were like 6 of them right? Short passage, Long, etc.)

And for listening, I tried to rush through it but I kinda gave up with the chapter III or IV I'm not sure.

I switched between two of them on the last day

FYI the blue book is actually fantastic! I think I've said it before but it has explanation for each answers. I think it's super cool.

Now For N1

Chapter 1: Before exam

For context, I travelled to the exam location alone, so I wasn't bounded by anyone and I could roam anywhere. I got out early, and arrived there pretty early. But walking from the entrance to the exam spot took a while, to the point where I doubted to myself if I was going in the right direction. There were many people there already. I think the morning peeps had already entered the room when I arrived.

I had lunch and... wander around (Typical Pikmin Bloom player). There wasn't much to do anyway. I decided to take a quick review of some onomatopoeia and other vocabs. I think at that point, nothing is more important than vocabs. It was a while before they allowed us to go up the building. Anyway, I SAW A KID in a highschooler outfit in front of the same room as mine! IM- I DON'T KNOW?? HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO BE THIS GOOD AT THAT AGE?? And of course we entered the room. I sat not so far from the entrance.

One thing that bothers me is the fact that they never announced to bring a mask but they asked everyone to wear it in the room?? Luckily, I had it on already.

Chapter 2: The Exam

Sorry for the long introduction haha. SO, starting off with vocabs, grammars, and reading. I skipped to grammar secion first because it's not too hard or too easy. It's all fuzzy now but I did okay(?)

There was あっての that's pretty easy. But there was one of them that bugged me and I was wrong on that one too. It's といたしまして... so weird, I didn't expect it to answer that. ALSO, HONORIFIC VERB CAUGHT ME OFF GUARD but i think i answered it right.

Then onto reading section because I was really scared if I couldn't finished it. It- took me a while to finish each of them but in a fair amount of time. It's like 10 minutes left that I switched to doing vocabs with a lightning speed because I FORGOT there was a fill in the blanks and not just guessing kanji's reading.

I almost got 誇張 (こちょう) wrong as こ���ちょう

There were 奇跡、偏り、矛盾、賄う、軽率 in which i had no problems

Filling the words is where I had problem due to hurriness. I missed the 快挙 cause I don't know the word.

見返り too, because there was a word that I thought it meant (repay) and not the first

I GOT ONOMATOPOEIA WRONG ANYwAY HECC YEA i didn't know what つくづく means so i went with きっかり or きっぱり im not sure

Also there was a sentence that was supposed to mean "His body condition was..." I thought it was "worsen" so I went with 崩れる except no it's the opposite "ほぐれる". I didn't know that word but i've seen it before it's the goodamn spirit's name from the game.

I didn't know what 尺度 means or how it is read but I got the meaning substitution right (yay) (it's standard)

Here's the fun one. デマ... THIS WORD THAT I NEED TO GUESS HOW IT IS USED WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING ITS MEANING. I tried to came up with the word this word could come from. Dermatologist? Demand? Theme??? (that's テーマ) I had no idea and got it wrong eventually. Can you guess?

It's "Demagogie", a German word meaning false rumor... WHO WOULD'VE GUESSED. I asked one of my Japanese if she knew. Of course she did. She even gave me an alternative for it too... but I forgot. I only know that's it in katakana (im sorry)

Last minute i left one Mondai randomly answered!

For Choukai, it was so goddamn fast. I am certain that if it wasn't fast, it would be manageable for me. I honestly don't know if I scored it well or not, the last listening part were as hard as ever. ONE THING ABT IT THOUGH, there was a part where they were talking in a cafe about how the shop owner use a coffee beans? I think?

ANd FOR GOD'S SAKE WHAT'S WITH THE BACKGROUND MUSIC??? My concentration was popped away, I kept glancing around wondering if what I was hearing was someone's phone or the tape's music. I don't even know what the question really was to be honest.

What's Next?

I- I don't know. I just need to wait for the result. But I'll try to slowly get back to learning a bit Korean and Japanese every day again. Probably need to brush up Memrise and Anki. At least 5 mins a day haha. Thanks for reading til here. Keep on learning! I'll make sure to do my best for learning languages this year too!

I don't have new year's resolution but I guess.. continue ASL? I got busy that I have no time to do it anymore. I doubt if I can do it, considering I'll be busy with internship next academic year.

Anyway, have a great year everyone. Hope you have a good luck and success with studying and anything you are willing to pursue this year.

[dp-marvel94]

Face to Face - Chapter 56

Summary: When Danny went through the ghost catcher, he expected to be cured of the ghostliness that had haunted him since the accident, not to wake up on the lab floor with his parents saying he’d been overshadowed but everything’s back to normal now. But why does Danny Fenton cry himself to sleep to then dream of flying? Why does Phantom, the ghost who was supposedly possessing Danny remember a life that wasn’t his? Most of all, why do both the human and the ghost feel that something vital is missing, in their very soul? Or: Trying to cure himself of his powers one month after the accident, Danny accidentally splits himself but neither his ghost nor his human half know that that is what they did

First -> Last -> Next

Word Count: 4,253

Also on AO3 and Fanfiction.net

Penultimate chapter ya'll! 😍😍😍

Grabbing a quick snack, Danny settled onto his bed to do homework, textbooks and paper spread around him. 

“Alright. Math worksheet. Bio vocab. Spanish notes card.” The half ghost mused to himself, pointing at each assignment.  “And… I need to read a chapter for Lancer and take notes.” He scowled at the thought before shaking his head. The boy put his hand together, forcing himself to focus. “The easy stuff first. Then math. And… ugh, English.”

Biology was pretty good, definitely his favorite subject right now. Plus it was easy; with his Mom’s interest in biology and medicine, he’d known most of this by the time he was in fifth grade. Spanish…. Making the notecards and going over them a few times wasn’t hard. The words lodged in his head, making a surprising amount of sense… Maybe he did have a knack for this.

Math was… math. Boring, a little difficult but…

“What did Mr. Faluca say in class on Friday…. Oh, that’s right. First, you’re supposed to…”

The memory flickered through Danny’s mind. His two halves on this same bed, talking through the math together. The suggestion to keep the talking-to-himself up once they were back to normal… 

A shrug. “Well, if it works, it works.”

And it seemed to. Danny talked himself through the math, finishing in fifteen minutes. And then the English… the half ghost read the chapter, half-muttering down at the page. He opened his reading journal, first jotting down a summary. And then looking for different literary devices: allusions, symbolism, foreshadowing. 

“What’s the point?” He scowled down at the page. “It doesn’t make any sense. What’s with the red…. Wait.” He flipped back a few pages in the notebook. “That was mentioned in the first chapter… Yeah!” He pointed out the sentence he’d written. “That was foreshadowing, wasn’t it? And now…” Connections sparked, almost faster than Danny’s tongue could fly. “Loneliness seems to be important. That’s a theme, right?” A flurry of words, of jolting down thoughts. “That sounds familiar…. I bet that’s referencing something… Wait! I remember now! It’s….”

Ten minutes passed, the page full of words. “Alright. That’s done.” He closed the book with a thud. “So we’ve done….”

The sound of footsteps approaching the slightly ajar door…

“Bio. Spanish. Math’s done. And English. That was all, right” He nodded, counting on his fingers. “Right. And…” Danny glanced at the clock, eyes widening. “An hour and a half! We got that done in less than two hours!” A flicker of orange at the door….  “Good job, Danny!” The half ghost turned, eyes bright and one hand up for a high five…. 

Eyes falling on nothing, his expression fell, a complex feeling flickering in his core. “Oh.”

“Are you okay?”

Danny jerked his head at the noise. There was his sister, standing in the doorway. “How long were you standing there?”

“Just a few seconds. Mom wanted your help with dinner.” Her expression softened, concern in her eyes as she repeated. “Are you okay?”

 The boy blushed. “Yeah, I… I’m okay. I just… forgot for a second there.”

That worry just seemed to deepen. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Danny considered for just a moment. He could say no; he kinda wanted to…. Shaking his head, he dismissed the impulse, instead patting the bed beside him. “Yeah. I’ll talk about it.”

Jazz closed the door while the half ghost cleared the bed for her. The older sister sat. “What do you mean you forgot for a second there?”

“I guess….” The boy frowned, brow furrowed. “I kinda forgot I wasn’t still split.”

The girl blinked, concern flickering to confusion. “You forgot… that? How could you manage to forget something like that?”

“I was split for a month, Jazz. I guess…” He crossed his legs under him, sitting criss-cross on the bed. “By the end there, I think I… we were almost used to it. I mean, being split wasn’t fun. It definitely wasn’t good for me. But we… Fenton and Phantom were making do, I guess.” A shrug. “And…” Danny bit his lip. “We talked to each other… er.. Ourself through the homework all the time. Sitting on the bed doing that just felt familiar.”

“Danny….” That worry was back. “Should I be worried about the… pronoun swapping?”

The halfa could read between the lines of that question. “I’m only one person, Jazz. There’s just one of me here, I promise.” He sighed. “It’s just…” He rubbed his head. “Actually figuring out how to talk about it out loud is hard.”

Danny had thought about what he’d experienced while split, that first night after merging while floating in front of the portal. In his head, it made sense. He’d been split in half. He had two sets of memories for the past month, both of which were equally his, equally him. But actually verbalizing that…

“I think you should try.” Jazz offered gently.

“You would.” The boy rolled his eyes, a hint of a smile on his face. 

“I’m serious.” The girl poked him. “On Saturday, you said you remembered everything. But it kind of felt like you’d been gone for a while. Do you think you can talk about that?”

“Yes.” Danny said simply, letting the word hang in the air.

Jazz gave him a look that screamed, ‘really?’

“Alright. Alright.” He held up his hands, surrendering; he should stop being difficult on purpose. He sighed. “I do remember everything that happened from both perspectives. But still… it doesn’t quite feel like I was there.”

“Like they feel like someone else’s memories?” His sister offered.

“No.” The half ghost shook his head. “That’s not it. It’s…” He sucked in air through his teeth. “Phantom and Fenton were both me. And still are. Those are just names I gave to each of my forms. I am both of them but… I’m more than that too.” Danny furrowed his brow. “When I was split, I…we… my two halves… they knew they were incomplete. Even if both of me, Fenton and Phantom, were sitting here, side by side,” He motioned vaguely to the spot on the bed beside him. “completely on the same page, in sync, agreeing on everything…. There still was something missing. Fenton and Phantom together… that still… that still wasn’t me. I’m… more than that.” He rubbed his full chest. “So in a way… I wasn’t really there then. Even though I was.”

Jazz’s face scrunched up, still focused in thought.

The boy deflated slightly, legs unfolding and pulling to his chest. “Sorry. I guess that still doesn’t make any sense.”

“No.” The girl shook her head, a hand reaching out to rest over his. “You make sense… even if I don’t understand. I don’t think I ever really can. But I know how unhappy your two halves were to be split. Phantom you told me you feel incomplete, like you weren’t a whole person.” She squeezed his hand. “But you’re back as one person now. And I know how happy you’ve been because of that. If you say you’re finally back, that you feel like yourself again, then that’s good enough for me.”

The boy smiled softly. “Thanks Jazz.” He turned his hand over, palm meeting hers. “You’ve really been the best sister. I…I can’t even tell you how much you helped both of me when I was separated. I wouldn’t have gotten here if it wasn’t for you.”

His big sister had done so much. She yelled at their parents for him, convincing them to rethink their ghost bias and actually see Phantom as part of their son. She talked to his ghost half and encouraged him to make things right with his human side. She was there after the ghost catcher blew up, when he’d finally broken down over Mom’s avoidance of his ghost side. She checked on him after Mom apologized after their fight, reassuring him that he wasn’t a bad son for not being ready to accept the woman’s apology yet. (That apology…. something niggled in his mind). And after his halves had talked about the accident, mourning their own death, she’d comforted him. Jazz had been the first one Phanom had told about that first week, about him thinking he was an imposter.

So much had happened and Jazz had been there through it all.

The boy lowered his legs and spread his arms out, leaning forward for a hug. His sister accepted it. “Thank you Jazz.” He repeated.

“You’re welcome.” The girl squeezed him tighter. “I love you little brother.”

“I love you too.” Danny returned.

The two stayed like that for a long moment, arms around each other. Then with a heavy breath, the half ghost lowered his arms, pulling away. “Alright. That’s enough mushiness for today.”

Jazz let him leave the hug, rolling her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with talking about your feelings.”

“I never said there was.” The halfa stuck out his tongue. “But I can still only take so much.”

His sister stood up, shaking her head. “Come on then. We still need to see Mom about dinner.”

“Coming. Coming.” Danny rolled his eyes.

Jazz hurried to the door as the boy stood. Down the second floor hall and the stairs. The living room. The kitchen. Excited voices carried up from the basement. 

The half ghost reached to open the door but… a hand rested on his shoulder. He turned to his sister, a brow raised.

“If you want to talk about it more, you can ask me. Anytime you need.”

Danny's face softened, his reply not the excuse they would have been just a month ago, but completely real, trusting, authentic. “I know.”

His sister’s eyes shone with pride. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You’re saying, because the portal is on top of Danny’s lair, it’s in his territory.” Mom asked. “So that makes it a privileged, permission-restricted area?”

“As in… other ghosts can’t enter without Danno’s okay.” Dad said.

“Well, it’s not that they can’t…” Sidney pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Entering without permission is highly frowned upon. And doing so repeatedly will get you in trouble with Walker. Most of the time, the resident ghost beats up or scares off the intruder…”

Well… Danny had been planning to talk to Mom about dinner. But of course everyone got distracted. It’s a wonder Jazz hadn’t stomped down yet, wondering what was taking them so long.

“But that’s just unspoken societal rules keeping interlopers out.” The woman’s brow furrowed.

“You mentioned doors earlier, with phase-proof paint.” The ghostly nerd pointed out. “Infinite Realms paint would probably do the trick; ghosts can only phase through things in the material realm.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You would need something to trade for it… Material Realm goods fetch a good price.” He looked to Danny. “And you could try shaping the lair so it hides the portal at least partially.”

The half ghost sat up more fully, attention drawn. “What do you mean, shape the lair?”

Sidney tilted his head, eyes narrowing slightly like he couldn’t believe the question. “You’re already almost as strong as me and you’re only two months old, buster. Of course you’ll be able to manipulate its form once your lair settles.”

“By-passing the two months old comment…” Danny blushed at the words. “Lairs can be changed like that? I thought… I don’t know… they just came pre-made and stayed like that.”

“Oh.” Sidney nodded, apparently getting the misunderstanding. “It does take a considerable amount of time and effort but it can be done. I never bothered to do much with my own lair, besides make myself a bedroom. I’ll show it to you next time you come over.”

“So I can probably do something like that too…” Danny’s eyes widened. “How do I even do that though? Is it just supposed to, what, come naturally? Or could you teach me?”

“I could help.” Sidney nodded. “You would be able to make a bigger change sooner that way as well.” He smiled slightly. “I’ve never been a part of making one but I know that’s how some of the larger islands form: groups of ghosts working together to form free-floating rocks into a kind of communal lair. That’s how the Acropolis and Far Frozen originated, according to the histories in the Library at least.”

“What are the Acropolis and Far Frozen?” Danny asked.

That tail-spinned the conversation into another direction. Sometime later….

“...And that’s why it’s called the Carnivorous Cannon.” Sidney finished.

Danny’s stomach growled, earning an embarrassed chuckle from the boy. “Okay. We really need to go figure out dinner now.”

“I should head back to my lair.” The ghostly nerd gave a nod, floating back towards the portal. 

“Yeah. Bye.. Oh!” The half ghost’s eyes flickered to the jars still sitting on the tables. “Let’s plant these before you go.”

“Of course.” Sidney nodded, eyes widening in remembrance. “They won’t be happy if they have to stay in those jars much longer.”

“I’ll get the gardening tools!” Dad offered brightly, already digging through the closest. “Here we go!” He slung the bag onto the table, contents on display. Shears, trowels. A hand fork and weeder. Even gloves and a knee pad.

Danny blinked. “Why do you have these down here?” In the basement, far away from any dirt…

Mom gave a casual wave. “You know us, Danny. Always prepared.”

The boy shook his head, chuckling. “Sure. I guess.” He turned back to Sidney, reaching for one of the jars, but suddenly paused. “I should transform.”

Danny summoned the ring, light flickering out once before passing over him. Now in ghost form, he floated off the ground. He took the tiger shrub cutting and with his ghostly friend, passed through the portal. Mom and Dad followed.

Sidney surveyed the dirt for a few seconds, drifting closer to the edge. “Right here is perfect.” He knelt, placing his own jar down before patting the spot beside him meaningfully. “Let’s do the tiger shrub first.”

Danny lowered himself to the ground, handing over his own jar. “Here you go.”

The nerd unscrewed the lid, placing it to the side. His head turned up, looking towards the half ghost’s dad. “Mr. Fenton, can I have the garden trowel please?”

“Here you go, kiddo.” The man handed it over.

The ghost accepted, using the tool to dig a small hole. “This is good soil.” He hummed, pleased. “Loamy, not very compact.” He ran his fingers through the upturned dirt. “A little dry but it’s not too bad.”

With that comment, Sidney gently lifted the plant cutting out of the jar. He placed the small portion of soil, thick with roots, into the hole, and with his hands brushed the dirt back into place around it. Again, Danny was reminded of Sam, of watching her care for her plants and helping her in her greenhouse. 

The other ghost sat back slightly, studying the cutting. “See, easy.” He turned to look at Danny. “Now you just need to water it.”

“Oh.” The half ghost turned his head up from the plant. A glance back at the portal. “I can go get some water from the house…”

Sidney shook his head. “It’s a Realms plant. It needs water from here.”

“But… where?” Danny looked around, wide-eyed. But there was no water here…

“Here is the first lesson on shaping your lair.” The ghostly nerd reached out a hand, grabbing Danny’s. “Place your hand over the soil like this, palm down.”

The half ghost did so, questioning gaze flickering from the ground to his friend. “So… what do I do?”

Sidney smiled encouragingly. “Things are malleable here, not like in the Material Realm. They’re shaped by thoughts, feelings, intentions, as much or more than by the normal rules of cause and effect. And here, this place. This is your lair. Your home. It’s an extension of you, a part of you. It reacts to your mind.”

Danny’s eyes widened. He saw where this was going…

His friend continued. “So tell it what you need. Focus on it. Picture it in your mind. And the lair will draw from the matter and energy around to make it.”

Danny closed his eyes. “Alright. I need to water this plant so…. I need a watering can. With plenty of water….” He tried to picture it in his head. The shape of it, the weight, the texture….. There was a strange, fuzzy feeling at the edge of his perception. 

Surprised, excited voices behind him. “Madds, look!!” “Shh. Jack!” 

He needed to focus. The square shape of the body. White plastic with some kind of floral design. A spout coming out. The water inside: liquid, not too cold or too warm. 

The fuzzy feeling swirled, solidifying. There was something under his hand…

Danny’s eyes popped open. “I did it.” The words filled with awe. There, sitting in a slight depression in the ground, was a perfectly formed watering can. Tentatively, the boy reached out for the object, fingers wrapping around the handle. He lifted; it was heavy, solid, real. He tipped it, slack jawed as slightly green water gently poured out. “I can’t believe I did that!”

“Nifty work, pal.” Sidney congratulated. 

Dad patted him on the shoulder. “Good job, son!”

The halfa beamed. “Thanks!”

The two ghosts returned to working on the plants. Danny carefully opened the second jar, holding some kind of viney plant; Spotted squa-pump-chini is what his friend had called it, right?

“Tiger Shrub needs lots of space.” The ghostly nerd said. “Let’s plant the squash a little farther away.”

The halfa dug the hole, pulled out the plant, buried the roots, and watered it. Moving another few feet over, the process was repeated with the midnight arugula. All plants in the ground, the two ghosts stood, surveying their work.

“It looks great, sweetie.” Mom approached, wrapping an arm around her son in a half hug.

Danny returned the gesture. “Yeah, it does.” Smiling in satisfaction, his eyes flitted from plant to plant. Each so small and delicate now but…. He could picture it, over months of time. Plants growing and spreading, multiplying. His little island, no longer bare. “It’s gonna look awesome once the lair’s done. I’m thinking, a dome over the top, like a greenhouse.” He motioned above him. “And see that staircase. The door to the actual house will be down there so everything’s underground… kinda like a hobbit hole from Lord of the Rings. Super cozy.” He started counting off on his fingers. “It’ll have my bedroom. A kitchen, living room, game room. And guest bedrooms! One for Sidney, at least. And maybe I’ll make some other ghost friends…” He pictured Dora, fleeing from her brother and needing a refuge. Maybe Johnny and Kitty would stop by; the biker dude seemed to like him at least. “It’ll be a cool place to hang out.”

Dad slapped him heartily on the back. “You’ll have your own little place in no time!” His eyes flickered to the watering can. “And check that out.” He stepped forward, eagerly lifting the object. “It feels just like a real watering can!”

Mom wrapped her hand around the spout, eyes widening. “It does. And you made this.”

Danny blushed. “Not really. I mean, I just asked the lair to make it.”

His parents’ excitement failed to wane. “It’s still incredible.” The woman’s eyes shining with pride. “You’re going to do so many amazing things here, Danny.”

The ghost boy’s heart twisted, a burst of complex feelings but… “Really?” That was hope.

Mom nodded and Dad agreed. “I just know it.” 

They sounded so proud of him. And the words… that was an acknowledgement for what he had realized to be true. His core hummed, pleased and content.  That this was his lair, his home as much as  Fentonwork. And what’s more…. He was a ghost, a resident of the Realms; this was his world too.

“Thanks Mom and Dad.” Danny wedged himself between his parents, an arm around each. “Thanks for working so hard to understand. I love you guys. And…” He’d reminded himself of it earlier, the words heavy in his heart. Making the decision, his voice quieted, earnest eyes fixed on his Mom. “I accept your apology.”

For just a moment, the woman startled, a flicker of hurt…

The boy blushed. “I wasn’t sure if I actually said it before but…. I forgive you Mom. I want to put that fight, when I ran away, behind us. All of that, all of it…” He motioned vaguely, shaking his head. “It’s in the past, where it’s going to stay.”

The last of that icy hurt chipped away, something in his core finally sliding into place.

His mom wrapped both arms around him, the sensation so much fuller, so much greater than when it had been both his halves clinging to her in a hug. “Thank… thank you, Danny.” A hint of a sniffle but he felt her muscles relax, could almost see the weight lifted off her shoulders. “Thank you.”

They stayed like that for a long minute. Then…

Over his mom’s shoulder, Danny caught a glimpse of black-and-white, awkward shuffling. Embarrassed, he pulled away. 

Mom turned around, towards what he was looking at, brow furrowed in question.

“Oh. Uh… Sidney. I forgot you were still here.” The half ghost rubbed the back of his neck.

“It’s alright.” His friend smiled understandingly. “You were having a moment.” 

There was a hint of sadness, of longing there. A second of wondering then… the memory. Sidney had said he wished he’d been able to talk to his parents, when Danny told him about the fight with his mom and making up. 

Danny didn’t comment, instead drifting forward, eyes full of compassion. “Well, thanks for waiting. And thanks for everything.” He held up his fist for a fist pump.

The ghostly nerd quickly caught on this time, raising his fist. “You’re welcome, pal. I’m happy to help. I will see you on Friday?”

The half ghost nodded. “I can come to your locker after school. We’ll talk more about plans for the library. And how to change my lair.”

“Ghost Zone Field trip!” Dad cheered, rejoining the conversation. He took his wife’s hand, the two meeting eyes for just a second before continuing. “We need to design some kind of vehicle to navigate. A blimp? A jet? Oh! A submarine!!”

“And communications equipment. Maybe some kind of bluetooth headset?” Mom offered, excitement rising.

“We can set up satellites to ping the signals off of. What if we set up a dish on the Zone side and connect it to a receiver in the lab through the portal?”

“They’re going to be making blueprints the rest of the night.” Danny stage-whispered to his friend.

“Of course we won’t.” Mom waved him off.

“Yeah! We need to get dinner!” Dad exclaimed. “And there’s a new episode of Spector Hunters tonight.”

“It’s not Monday night if we don’t get to insult… I mean critique, other… researchers.”

The ghost boy rolled his eyes. “Only if I get to watch the new Supernatural too.” 

“That’s just as bad.” The woman complained, raising her hands.

“Come on. It’s a good show. I mean… this season hasn’t been that good but…”

Sidney chuckled at banter. “I’m going to go. See you on Friday, Danny.”

“Bye, Sidney.” Danny waved. “I’m invested. I have to see what happened. And last week…”

With that, the ghostly nerd flew away, leaving the family to debate (and insult each other) about their preferred shows.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Okay, okay.” A short trip through the portal found the three back in the lab. Danny summoned the rings, feet softly landing on the metal floor. “We’ll watch both.”

“You guys are supposed to tell me if you go somewhere.” 

The boy turned at Jazz’s annoyed voice. “Oh. Sorry.” He smiled sheepishly.

“I knew I should have gone down here with Danny instead of going to work on my thesis.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s almost eight.”

The half ghost glanced at the wall clock. “We were talking for that long?” Then he asked. “What can we make fast, Mom?”

“We have cans of soup in the pantry and plenty of ingredients for sandwiches.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Soup and sandwiches were served around the table. Danny ate on the tiger fruits his friend had brought. Then the family gathered for evening tv.

Even with the blob ghost claiming one of the couch cushions, the scene was cozy, safe, familiar. Danny remembered: Phantom’s feet draped over Fenton’s lap, Fenton, half laying on Phantom. His core purred contentedly. Satisfied, intertwined, nestled in its place beside his heart. He was both. Both were him. But… he was also more. He was whole.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Drown in a contented kind of tiredness, Danny watched the credits roll.  

His ghost sense went off, blue mist billowing past his lips. He sat up, suddenly more aware. All eyes fixed on him, eager and expectant for explanation. 

“There’s a ghost.” The boy stood. “I should see what it is. It…” brows furrowed… “Feels familiar? Maybe like that ectopus I sent back through the portal.”

A hint of worry, of doubt from his parents. But… “Make sure to take the thermos, sweetie.”

“I’ll be fast.” Danny summoned the rings, his core buzzing pleasantly. And… “Yes!” The light spread smoothly, the ghostly chill expanding, blooming effortlessly. In his core, something had at last realigned….

Finally, on the first try, he transformed.

[187days]

Day One Hundred Twenty-Two

It was still pretty snowy in the far reaches of our district this morning, but the roads were clear, the buses could run, and we had a regular school day. 

I didn’t actually do a ton of teaching in World, though. First, the school counselors came in to talk about course selection for next year, and about an upcoming trip all our ninth graders will go on: a college visit! We haven’t been able to do this trip for the past couple years because of the pandemic, but now it’s back, and it’s going to be awesome. Students can choose to visit one of four schools (we vary the choices by size, selectivity, programming, etc... to try and have something that’d be useful for everyone). So today was about picking top choices, getting permission slips, all that. 

After that, my students had a vocab quiz to take. I told them they could study first if they wanted, I’d leave it up to them to make that call. Some opted not to, some studied quietly on their own for ten or fifteen minutes, and some went out into the hallway to quiz each other. It all worked well, they did great. Once they finished, I had them take their books out to read (and if they’d already finished reading, the time was theirs). They read, I graded, and then I took the last few minutes to talk about what’s next: lessons on Confucianism and Taoism. 

In APGOV, it’s a test review day. I started by going over some of the economic policy stuff they had to learn on their own yesterday, then opened the floor for questions about anything we’ve covered so far. Once they’d asked all their questions, we played a round of Kahoot, and that took us right to the bell. 

There was a faculty meeting after school. It was supposed to be yesterday, but, of course, it had to be postponed. The admins wanted to give the teachers information about changes to the schedule for next year. A lot of my colleagues are frustrated by how late these changes are being made, or about the fact that we didn’t have much input in them, so... it was not a happy meeting. I mean, it was civil and all, but the vibes were not good. There were a lot of questions, too, so it ran long. 

I’d originally planned to go home afterwards, grab a snack and maybe a coffee, and then come back for winter sports awards. I opted not to, though, because I only had about forty minutes. I just sat at my desk and did some lesson planning instead. 

And then I went to sports awards, and that was awesome. We had a lot of trophies on display, a lot of things to celebrate. All teams gathered in the auditorium for the major awards, then went to separate locations to give out ceritifates, varsity letters, and so on. The indoor track team had a lot to celebrate: a handful of championship medalists, a state champ, a new school record, a generally awesome season. So we had a nice time looking back on all the accomplishments. 

After that, I had to dash down to the auditorium because it was also 8th grade open house night. Our future freshmen and their parents came up to the high school to get information about next year, grab their course selection sheets, attend a clubs and activities fair, tour the building, watch our band and dance team perform, take pictures against our picture wall, and more. Wild: seeing Mr. W- and some of my other friends- there as parents. I can’t believe their kids are that grown!

So, 12+ hour day for me, but most of it was good fun. Whew!

[bornafter1993]

i know this is my own fault but still i’m blaming the education system

[whathappenedtodecember]

some of my chara headcanons........need to post this i've held these in my head for so long and for god knows what reason

- i like to hc that chara is the older sibling or at least same-age as asriel.....partly because the true lab's tapes' "i'd never doubt you!" and chara calling azzy a crybaby all feel like big sib ribbing to me. at the very least the way asriel admired them and kinda, like, put them on a pedestal felt like he couldn't be older than them, as opposed to kris and asriel's dynamic where asriel the big bro used the knockoff controller and took kris to get hot choco to maintain normalcy after the divorce and carried kris to school. and this is doubly interesting to me in the "everything is the same but slightly to the left" universe that deltarune is..........in DR azzy is the older sib so in UT chara is the older sib. it's just neat

- in the same vein as people connecting kris and chara's love for chocolate and knives, red eyes etc.....i like to use this to reverse engineer chara headcanons actually lsdjfsjdfh. so i hc that chara can play the piano. and azzy can sing, ofc. "his theme" is a song chara wrote for asriel a few months into their stay in the underground and the two took to singing it at any given moment, it kinda became their theme song in an endearing way.... so that's why the music box in waterfall only has the barebone melodies of the piece. those are the only parts asgore remembers from a decades-old song

more under the cut so i don't clog people's dashboards

- chara is not a native english speaker to me..........it's true that a lot of their taller vocabs are stuffs they adapted from mimicking toriel but we know they also read a Lot. i think chara primarily learned english from reading books instead of talking to people. you know how sometimes esl/efl speakers sound so formal or stiff, like theyre repeating what they see in textbooks? thats how i imagine chara talks, partly because they died young and havent finished learning english yet and partly because they just think being verbose is cool. i know a lot of efl kids think speaking english like you've swallowed an entire thesaurus is impressive. so that's how chara is to me, an esl/efl speaking kid who disliked talking to other humans and whose first actually meaningful english immersion was in the underground

- so we know toriel can cease to hit you once you've reached 2 HP, but unlike papyrus she's rusty because she hasn't had to take care of a human child for a long time before frisk fell, so she can still accidentally kill you.............i like to think this is a control she's learned to perfect when adopting chara (even though technically there wouldn't be a reason for her to fight chara, which isn't the case for the other fallen humans between frisk and chara, who she probably would have to fight so that asgore wouldn't get to them). i like to imagine she was the one who taught them the basics of monster fights and bullet patterns, and in turn she learned to be careful with them because lbr 20 HP is considerably low when compared to monsters' average HP

> in line with this headcanon and the 'chara is the older sibling' headcanon..........i like to think the 0.1 0.01 0.001 HP and so forth was partly chara's doing. this happens after the sequence where chara's memory of their childhood with asriel plays out so i can be sure that at this point chara was more 'in charge' than frisk was. plus if frisk could actually manage their HP this way they would've done it way earlier or in other fights but this only seems to happen in the fights with asriel (i have a feeling this is what happens in the photoshop flowey fight too, since it takes quite a while before you can die even when your HP bar is extremely low).

so anyway i think this was more something both chara and asriel did from muscle memory - i like to think that while toriel was more careful with chara, asriel was more.......headstrong, both because he was a child and because of his, like, general disposition. asriel always tried to be careful obv he wanted to avoid killing his sibling during playfights, but i think chara would have helped him with this by managing their HP somehow........so there'd be moments in their childhood where asriel would be panicking like 'oh no oh no i hurt chara what am i gonna do ;A;' chara would be forcing themself to stand up and give asriel thumbs up like 'hey! hey! i'm fine!! look at me i'm okay you crybaby it's going to take more than that to knock me out!!' man........theyre siblings your honour..........

- i know the timeframe doesn't match since chara and everyone who appears in game are very obviously not contemporary with each other, but it's nice to think about what it'd be like if chara grew up with the monsters we see in game......they're a weeb we know this so they'll probably go dumpster diving with alphys in search for anime. other than this activity their entire interaction with alphys is in the form of fandom wank and anime discourse. they'll really like undyne because they have so many bonding activities they can do with her........playing piano, drinking tea, geeking over knives and spears, declaring hatred over humanity

i also feel like a chara and sans friendship would be super funny in that whoever taught sans to lace his attacks with karma poisons probably could also be persuaded to teach chara the same trick to compensate for their low HP, but all chara could think about was that they now had to fight an irresistible urge to lick their knife. sans can't say he disagrees

[mediocrelanguagelearner]

Language log 24.1 – 30.1.2022

I had my last (and scariest) exam on Friday, so I spent most of my free time studying. But that's finally over and now I can relax a bit. I'm also in a quarantine, but just for two days, so I plan to read and hopefully do more language stuff.

German: I just talked to people on Tandem and watched a video. But on Thursday I talked to my friend after a long time and since she's learning Czech, we were texting for about an hour, mixing those two languages.

Spanish: Tandem was the only thing I did.

Swedish: On Sunday I finally finished A Man Called Ove! And right after I finished reading, we watched the movie. Now I have to put the rest of my vocab from the book to anki. I also started my next Swedish book, Emil i Lönneberga. It's way shorter and feels easier too, so I hope to read it quickly.

[meimae]

Language Learning Through Immersion: One Year Japanese Update

11/03/2021

I did it, you guys! I’ve successfully reached my very first year of Japanese language immersion! I honestly thought that I would have given up by now, but this really has been a fun and ultimately rewarding endeavor.

Studying the language has been at the back of my mind for years since elementary school, I just never really knew how to go about it before, and I always thought that I could learn it in a classroom setting someday. That someday for me was in two elective courses in university, and while those were fun as well, it did not give me the same gains that I have achieved in this past year.

It’s probably easier to quantify learning a language in a classroom setting, especially when going through a program to earn a language degree. Learning through immersion, however, I had to really consider what my goals should be on my own. Eventually, I stumbled upon an article saying that for an English speaker, Japanese was exceptionally difficult to learn and that at least 2,200 hours must be spent with the language to reach a certain level of proficiency. So I said to myself, “well okay internet, if you say so!”, and set that as my long term goal going forward.

Spoiler Alert: I did not hit that goal in my first year. I am not crazy and will never listen to Japanese in my sleep regardless of what Khatzumoto (the creator of All Japanese All the Time) says. 

I did, however, hit a total 1,226.65 active immersion hours in my first year, so I guess I’m still a bit nuts. That is 874.96 hours of active listening and 351.69 reading hours. I also did 270.59 hours of passive listening, also known as the time in the very beginning of my immersion where I was using Japanese subtitles (therefore not really concentrating on listening alone). That’s a cumulative 1,497.24 hours spent with Japanese. That’s more than halfway towards my goal! 

To further break that down for curious animanga fans out there, that’s 973 episodes from 109 anime, 765 episodes from 33 dramas, 7 movies, and 967 chapters from 107 volumes of manga (21 series). Here’s my anilist and mydramalist to see what I’ve read/watched.

During all this, I was also doing my daily Anki reps and now I have a 530 day SRS streak (includes the time prior starting immersion and only doing RTK and some vocabulary cards) and a total 8,857 sentence cards. I’ve been averaging 406 cards daily (because I’m trying to cure my leeches) and I spend about an hour per day doing reps and learning new cards. I don’t really track my time on Anki, but I do have a set timer that goes off after 1-1:30 hours.

What I haven’t touched upon at all is output. I have not gone out of my way to find a tutor or a language partner. There’s still plenty of input out there to immerse in before I even consider outputting.

Graphs, stats, and more thoughts:

Here's my current card count in my main deck (minus the cards in my new/learning queue and leeches I've been relearning which are in separate decks):

That one day in 2019 where I did not do my cards because I was seriously doubting whether I can actually stick with language learning this time around will forever haunt and inspire me to keep going everyday.

Workflow and Tips

You might be wondering, how do I have a lot of time? I started this whole endeavor in the middle of a pandemic, which eliminated the option of me going to a language school, and a slew of other things I were considering doing last year became impossible (and if anything, very scary to do in a pandemic). All I can say is that, things work out eventually if it is His will, and if I can learn a skill before everything properly settles back down again, then why not? 

I wake up at 5 in the morning everyday to either do my Anki reps or read until the time when I need to get up and I listen to compressed audio throughout the day. The biggest tip is to switch the time you spend watching/reading in your native language to your target language instead. Listen to a podcast during your commute, watch an episode during lunch break, read before going to bed, do your Anki reps in the bathroom if you have to. 

But, if you’re feeling burnt out, there is no reason for you to not take a break! I have been watching a lot of Among Us streams before bed, and I chat with my friends from time to time. Language learning is not a race.

More Stats

Here are a couple of grids of the kanji characters that I have encountered at least once in my immersion and how well I have answered them in my vocabulary/sentence cards.

It's interesting that after almost 9000 words, I have yet to encounter every single character from the Remembering the Kanji 1 (RTK 1) book by James Heisig, which teaches you the most common use characters that are part of the 常用漢字. Which brings me to the question, was writing down every single character being taught in RTK worth it every time it came up in my reviews for the first 3-ish months I was reviewing them? Maybe, maybe not. It certainly removed my anxiety whenever looking at blocks of text in Japanese, but the longer I think about it, the more I feel I should have switched to Recognition RTK earlier. Still, being able to write in proper stroke order is cool I guess, and it also helps me when looking things up in the dictionary.

Here’s the same grid but in JLPT order:

I clearly need to grind those N2 and N1 level cards! Speaking of which, I have apparently almost covered every single character that could possibly appear in the JLPT (except for the N1 which I have only covered half of) in just a year's time. If the JLPT word frequency lists I’m using are accurate, I have about 2,000 words more to go to to cover most vocabulary that could appear in the test. This makes the "10,000 sentences/words to fluency" argument a reasonable milestone to aim for for Japanese learners if said aim is only to pass the test. That said, 10,000 words is just that, a milestone. It's more akin to a comfortable level of comprehension, but not my own concept of fluency which is being able to read with ease, speak articulately, and write comfortably.

READING IMMERSION GRAPHS

My biggest motivation for tracking my stats is for the purpose of seeing whether my reading speed is improving over time. Reading speed is also easier to measure than listening comprehension which is kind of subjective, so I had a lot of fun making these. What I found is that for the first volume or chapter of whatever it is I’m reading, I always take the time to get used to the writing style of the author. My speed really improves whenever I keep reading the same topic over and over again. On the other hand and quite obviously, looking up many new words in a row and trying to parse sentences slows me down.

Manga: Reading Speed Progression per Volume

I clearly love ちはやふる and I am not ashamed to admit it.

I need to start reading longer manga. When I do, I’ll probably split this graph into less than and greater than 20 volumes. Imagine if I start reading something ridiculously long as 名探偵コナン or ワンピース, these graphs will start breaching the bounds of time and space.

Novels: Time Spent Reading per Chapter

#neverforget the time I read chapter six of Norwegian Wood for 9 hours when it took me less than half that time in English RIP. Also, my interest in Kitchen plummeted LOL. Still planning to finish it don’t worry. 

I also need to start branching away from manga and start reading more novels and light novels, too just so I can make more pretty graphs.

Visual Novels: Time Spent Reading and Daily Word Count

Also known as images that clearly show that I’ve already spent several days only reading the prologue of Island. I’m not sweating. 切那 needs to stop using words I don’t know in succession. More thoughts on this VN far into the future.

Thoughts on Immersion

I can’t really say anything else other that that it works for me, and needless to say if you’re considering this method, remember that the SRS is your friend but immersion should be your one true love.

Prior to all this, I couldn’t even read a sample paragraph from Genki without being confused to my very soul. Yes, I know, it’s embarrassing, but that’s the truth. I was way more scared of failing my Japanese classes than my actual thesis for my bachelors degree, I kid you not. I would quite literally spend all my free time in university trying to understand grammar, memorize vocabulary, and answer my workbook exercises with little to no success. 

I tried so hard to get all the grammar “formulas” into my head for 1.5 years and it only brought me more confusion. I’m never going back to traditional classroom study for language learning, but I will still refer to grammar books when I need to, and not because I feel like I need to answer 4783342 different workbook exercises like my life depended on it.

I still can’t believe it, but with immersion this statement is actually true to a point, don’t try shadowing anime/or calling your boss anime language slurs, use your common sense:

study anime to understand Japanese > study Japanese to understand anime 

Future Goals/Plans

2,200 immersion hours was my initial goal, but honestly I feel like that number could be much higher. There’s still a lot of stuff I don’t understand (news, politics, sciences, etc.), so I’ll make attempts to cover more of those things in my immersion. 

I’ll continue reading more, because that’s a natural SRS in itself. Try to read longer manga, more novels, visual novels, and light novels, and maybe news articles. 

I’ll try to mine as much “JLPT vocab” as I can before making any attempts at taking the JLPT. I noticed that a lot of the words I know don’t appear in the JLPT word lists as much, even though they appear a lot in media/daily conversation. 

Continue mining all words I don’t know because all words are useful anyway. There is no such thing as useless words. I never really understood mining only “interesting words” or words that “pop up” in your immersion. As I said in my previous blog post, 美人局 is an interesting word and I certainly caught it being said in my immersion, but in the three languages I know, I wouldn’t know when I would be able to use such a word, as compared to something like ジャガイモ which is a significantly less interesting word, but is certainly useful to know. 

_

I have managed to talk up a storm, but if you have any questions regarding my process or recommendations for new immersion material, please feel free to send an ask/reply to this post. I love hearing about other people’s language learning/immersion journeys. 

See you on my next post!

[sugiwa]

Hi. I am the Advice Anon. Please ignore those asks! I am so sorry for spamming your ask box. I still need help, so I’ll paste the entire thing over here. Again, sorry and thank you! Have a great day!

My reply and the full ask are below:

Hello! I hope you’ve been having a great day so far. This is probably unlike all of the other asks you get on a daily basis, author. However, I am in dire need of help, and I have turned to you. Before I begin, I want to apologize in advance, as this ask is going to be long. Now, like I said before, I need some help. You see, I am a freshman in high school, and school hasn’t even been going on for a full 10 weeks (a quarter), and I am already in a huge, messy, sticky situation. You probably already know that in high school, you need a certain number of credits in each field to be able to graduate. I am going to be extremely vague about this because it doesn’t really matter, and I’d really like to remain anonymous, if you know what I mean. One of the fields is World Languages and Visual Arts. Obviously, I am not talented enough to do Visual Arts, so I opted for World Languages instead. My teacher for the course I chose this year… she’s nice. Really kind, and I love that she makes learning a whole new language and culture, which is extremely hard, so much fun. And the fact that she’s one of the nicest teachers I know makes the rest of this so, so painful for me. 4 days ago, for me, was a Thursday. In this class, we had a vocab quiz that day (background info: two days before every quiz, my teacher posts a practice quiz to be done before class starts). I don’t really want to discuss what happened, as it still brings tears to my eyes, but I will give you a vague summary of what was going on. Basically, I couldn’t access my quiz (it was online), so my teacher told me to come in after school to re-do it. I was supposed to close down my computer and work on homework from another class, but instead of doing so, I worked on the practice quiz. And… this was considered cheating, because I was getting extra practice in before taking the quiz– something that the other students didn’t get, you know? My teacher saw my computer screen, and told me that she’d talk to me after school, and she’d be calling home. I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the class, because I was afraid of what might happen when she called home. After school, she told me to speak with her, and be honest about it. When cheating happens, at our school, the teacher will write us up for Academic Dishonesty and give it to the administration, who then decides the consequences. My teacher had told me that if I was honest with her, she wouldn’t write my up; she’d just give me a zero on the quiz and call home and tell them what I did. I was honest with her, because like I said before, I was afraid. Once I told her everything that happened, she told me that I could call home, let them know what happened myself, and I’d be off the hook (with a zero on the quiz, of course). So, I called home, like she had asked of me, but… they didn’t pick up. I told her that they didn’t pick up, and she told me that it was fine, and that she’d talk to my parents in-person before they picked me up from school. I’m not going to lie, that terrified me more than calling home. I don’t really remember what happened after that, because I was too busy crying, but I do remember that she mentioned something about me doing this before, and that it was not OK to do it the second time, but she’d let me off the hook. The thing is, I am 100% sure I haven’t done this before… or maybe she just didn’t approach me the first time. I told her that I didn’t do this before, and she told me that I was lying again, and began to write me up. I told her that I didn’t mean to do this, and that I was sorry, but she told me to stop lying. She said that she DID approach me the first time I did this, and that I was rude to her then. This brought tears to my eyes– my kind of favorite teacher telling me that I was rude to her. You see, I didn’t grow up here, and although I’ve lived here for 4 years, I am not used to the way people interact here. It was very different where I grew up. For example, you didn’t ask each other how their day was, or what they did during their day, unless you were REALLY curious or concerned, because that was considered nosy and rude. So, I tend to be unintentionally rude, and completely oblivious to it; I have no idea when I’m being rude or not, unless someone specifically says so. I also don’t really understand people well, so that’s a huge problem. So… hearing this from her, really hurt. I told her that I didn’t intend to be rude, and I was trying my best to change (I mean, I was & am reading a book to teach me etiquette and all), and she replied with “that’s good to hear”. Then, when my parents came to pick me up, she talked to them, and even asked one of my parents to walk with us to the Administration Office to turn in the write up. Stuff happened, I got called into the Assistant Principal’s office, and now I have a zero on my quiz (and my homework activity that I never finished), Saturday School, and a black mark on my record. But the thing is… that’s not what I’m concerned about at all. Sure, getting my grades up in time for Progress Reports is going to be an extremely hard task, and Saturday School is going to leave a huge black mark on my record, but that’s not what I’m worried about. My grades have been fractured, but so has my relationship with this teacher. I feel as though she hates me now, that she has lost all trust in me. (Background info: our school does Odd and Even days, so I have half of my classes on one day and half on the other, so that means that I didn’t face my teacher at all on Friday) 3 days ago, on Friday, when I went to school, it was an average day. It would have been an amazing day, had it not been for the situation I was in. All I could think about that day was my World Language teacher. And just thinking about her, and about that classroom, it… gives me a bit of anxiety. This is where I need your help. What would you do if you were in my situation? I really want to repair my relationship with my teacher, because I know that she’s really important; we’re going to be on the same campus for the next 4 years of my life, and even more importantly, she’s going to be my teacher for the next 8 months. I want to graduate with good grades, but more importantly, I want to graduate without holding a grudge against my teacher. I want her to like me, and I want to gain her trust again. Today is a Sunday for me, and I have to go back to school tomorrow, and I have her class then. A part of me is really scared to go to school, a part of me is really angry at my teacher for reporting me (even though it was the right thing to do), and a part of me wants to ditch school tomorrow, or even drop out or transfer from her course, all because I don’t want to face her after I did the wrong thing. It’s not only that, either. I’ve also been avoiding my friends. Would you like to know why I am confiding in awesome strangers on the internet anonymously instead of letting my friends know what’s going on? It’s because I’m afraid that they won’t like me anymore, and they’d ditch me or something. They’re amazing people, and I know that they won’t do that, but a part of me is still paranoid. I’ve been avoiding my friends since Friday, barely talking to them at school, and texting them a little bit in our group chat. They don’t really suspect anything, but that’s good. And that’s why I am asking you. Not just you, but actually anyone who sees this, if they helped me, I’d really appreciate it. I really need help moving forward in this situation, and I’m desperate for help. My parents don’t understand the situation I’m in, and I’m too scared to talk to my friends about it, so I’d really appreciate the help. It’s OK if you don’t reply to this, author. I know that this doesn’t affect you in any way, so you’re not obliged to help me. I’d like to thank you for taking the time from your day to read these extremely long asks. Have a great day. P.S: I absolutely love What Heroes Do! Izumi is such a well written character, and sometimes, I see myself in her. The way she handles situations is so inspirational! And your writing skills are top-tier! My best friend and I actually started writing a book 4 years ago (I mean, we wrote for one month in 6th grade, and then spent one day in 8th grade editing it, and we’ve only got a prologue and 1.5 chapters done, so… clearly, we aren’t doing a good job lol), and you’ve inspired me to go back to that book and re-do it! Thank you so much for being such an inspiration and an idol of mine! Ilysm ❤️

sugiwa:

I wanted to take the  proper time to reply to this. I think any adult willing to hold a grudge against a child is in the wrong. You clearly made a mistake and are now taking steps to improve and learn from it. Additionally, I think teachers tend to forget how much stress students are under in their academic and private lives, so a mistake should be used as an opportunity to teach not punish. I don’t think that you should worry about what this teacher thinks of you. Your teacher didn’t believe you, despite you telling them the truth. No matter how kind or nice someone is, their behavior towards you will always reflect their inner thoughts. If you’ve clearly made a mistake, you should fight to prove that. It’s not as if you intended to ‘cheat,’ given the situation we’re all in with the pandemic, online classes and quizzes are the norm. These kinds of things probably happen regularly. Additionally. I don’t think you need to concern yourself with being rude. My culture is rather blunt and when I first moved here, people weren’t fans of brutal honesty, so it was a big cultural shock.  If people aren’t willing to learn about your culture and understand, then I don’t think they’re people worth hanging out with. Lean on your friends, I don’t think they’d make a big deal over a couple of mistakes and if they do, then it might be worth reconsidering why you were friends with them. 

Thank you for your kind words about the story and I really hope everything works out for you!!

[dutch-polyglot]

*✧ — End of the year reading tag! — ✧*

The wonderful @bulletnotestudies tagged me in this, and since I've finally started reading books for fun again this year (thanks to knife gang actually!) I thought it would be nice to do :D

Did you reach your reading goal for the year (if you had one)?

Yes! I set my goal for 10 books bc I wasn't sure how much I'd end up reading, but I'm at 14 now and hopefully will be able to get to 15 before the end of this year.

What are your top 3 books you read this year?

1. Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

2. Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Ocean Vuong

3. The Raven King, Nora Sakavic

And an honorary mention for "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift!

What’s a book that you didn’t expect to enjoy quite so much going in?

Gideon the Ninth. I expected to love it a lot, but I loved it SO MUCH!!!! Like I even did a Halloween cosplay of Harrow when I hadn't finished the book yet. I've gotten two friends to read it already and will never stop thinking about this book because D A M N it's truly amazing. If it's on your tbr and you haven't started it yet, you should!!!

Were there any books that didn’t live up to your expectations?

The Foxhole Court, only for the reason that I expected more from the first book in the All For The Game series (since everyone I know is obsessed with it). But The Raven King is one of my top 3 reads so as you can guess, my expectations were more than fulfilled by the second book!!!

Did you reread any old faves? If so, which one was your favourite?

I didn't reread anything old, but I practically read Night Sky with Exit Wounds twice in a row because it was so good<3

Did you dnf any books?

Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language had too many lists of vocab with definitions and not enough prose at some point so I put it aside. I definitely will pick it up again when I get back into Irish more though!

Did you read any books outside your usual preferred genre(s)?

Gideon the Ninth was slightly horror, which I never really engage with. AFTG is sports, but had enough non-sports stuff going on to keep me engaged.

What was your predominant format this year?

Physical books my beloved<3

What’s the longest book you read this year?

Harrow the Ninth, with 512 pages!!

What are your top 3 anticipated 2022 releases?

1. Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

2. I Kissed Shara Wheeler, Casey McQuinston

3. Iron Widow 2, Xiran Jay Zhao (no I haven't read the first one yet but I've been obsessed with its existence since I found out about it so I'm already hyped for more)

What books from your tbr did you not get to this year, but are excited to read in 2022?

Iron Widow is on my night stand as we speak, it will be my first read of 2022!! The Song of Achilles is also high on my list after hearing how much people loved it. The entire Eragon series has also been sitting on my shelf for ages so I really hope I can start that the upcoming year!

I'm not sure who to tag since I don't talk about books on here that much with other studyblrs, but I'll tag @pawprintedpages @space-luna @ravenclawhard and @incipitinterpreter and anyone who wants to!

[nickelstudy]

My JLPT N1 Study Method (& Plan)

9/25/2023

As my introduction said, I'm trying to pass N1 by the next JLPT exam which is in this December! In this post, I will share how I study or prepare for N1

Books I Bought

Nihongo Sou Matome Vocabulary N1

TRY! 日本語能力試験Ｎ1

GO! JLPT N1 Grammar(Translated from Shin Kanzen Master i hate the renaming sm)

They are translated into Thai.

If you want to improve your Japanese understanding, people might recommend buying the Japanese version when you are at an intermediate level. But personally, I can completely understand it better when it's explained in my mother tongue, hence the reason why I bought them (plus I'm broke)

I bought them 2 months ago!

I start with TRY! and Sou Matome by reading the vocabs first from Sou Matome, then move on to TRY! doing their exercise as much as my brain can handle, usually not over a chapter.

Here's what my notebook looks like

As you can see, nothing fancy– just a pencil and a sticky note. I write words I don't or barely understand at the top of every page. As for the sticky note, it's for the words from the seventh day of Sou Matome that I can't remember their meanings. You might notice I didn't write their meanings. It's because I want to challenge myself to recall their meanings without relying on written translations.

I also READ the TRY! book in advance, so I'm always ahead of my actual exercise. Why you may ask? It came from when I read the N4 book. I always carried it everywhere because reading it was fun! So I'm trying to keep up this habit (despite taking more effort than before). When I read sample sentences, I try to translate them into Thai by myself before looking at the translations, because I want to practice my interpretation/translation skills too! (It'll definitely be useful in the future).

After finishing TRY! I will start reading GO! JLPT. Hopefully, I can finish this before the exam date.

OH! One thing I forgot to mention, I haven't done the listening exercises in TRY!. The reason is simple, it's a bit of a hassle to use a DVD player so I want to do them altogether when I am done reading GO! JLPT. I use Kanji Study (Play Store only) for studying Kanji. Right now, I'm studying secondary 3's kanjis. Believe it or not, it has been a year since I started learning secondary 3 and never managed to make progress.

Future Plans

There can be a rare case where I finish these books earlier than I expect so here's what I should do (by that, I mean you definitely should because god those books don't cover the skill adequately)

日本語能力試験　対策問題＆必点整理　読解 Ｎ1 This book is incredible imo, because it explains the answers to every question which made me thoroughly understand it when I was studying for N2

Shin Kanzen Master 聴解 Ｎ1

These will be the books I borrow from my university's library. They are in Japanese too that's why I love borrowing from here! I think the CD resource can be found online because that's what I did for N2.

Lastly, if there is still time I'll take a mock exam from the official JLPT handbook.

AAAA Thank you for reading again. I will try to use this blog for archiving my knowledge and stuff like this more. See you in the next post!

[bieups]

KIIP Level 5 & Final Exam

사회통합프로그램 5단계 기본과정 & 영주용 종합평가

So I was originally signed up for the level 5 class beginning February 2020 so I could finish right as my grad school semester started...well, we all know what happened in early 2020. My class was delayed, then delayed again, then canceled and we all had to sign up for a new class. So I decided to just wait for the summer, after my school semester ended, and do an in-person class. I registered for one beginning in June. It got moved online. We just had to join our virtual class (not through Zoom, it was some other program) from 9am to 1pm every Saturday & Sunday for 5 weeks. Our teacher was very kind and knew the class material well, but she wasn’t used to teaching online and it’s hard to have a conversation with 25 people in a video call. 

Also, the most important thing to know about level 5: you are basically doing 1 chapter per hour of class. This level does not focus on language, so while you’re probably going to encounter new vocab, you are expected to learn the actual content. It covers everything from Joseon era clothing & housing, the Korean school system, various welfare benefits available to parents/foreigners/married couples/elderly/etc., dining etiquette, the history behind important dates like 3.01 and 6.25, the government including past presidents, etc. It is a lot of stuff that probably doesn’t come up in your everyday life.

On to the exam!

For covid-related reasons + being slow to register, I wasn’t able to take the final exam until February 2021. Also I had to travel 1.5 hours to Suwon. This was obviously many months after I had taken the class. I got a study book right after I finished the class because honestly, I didn’t really pay attention that well in the online class and didn’t absorb most of the info. So I studied a lot in the week leading up to the exam.

It’s basically the same format as the “midterm” one.

The first 10 or so multiple choice questions are worth 1.5 points and are focused on language (vocab/grammar). The rest are content questions and worth 2 points. I was immediately discouraged because there were soooo many questions on things I hadn’t gotten to while studying. 

The writing topic was “a good memory with your family” which I just kinda made up something about spending Thanksgiving together. You only get 10min to answer like 3 sub-questions, which means very little time to sit and think about what you will write. I wrote the full 200 characters but had to sacrifice the 원고지 rules a couple times to make it all fit ㅠㅠ One of the exam proctors told me (while waiting for the interview) that I have very nice handwriting, though, so that was nice. 

The interview portion killed me. It was so much harder than my study book led me to believe. We did it in pairs, with two instructors who were sitting literally 10ft away behind plastic barriers. First, we read a passage about how single-person households are on the rise because people aren’t getting married, so companies are making more products catered towards them. Then we were asked what the most common family/household structure is in our respective countries. I don’t know that info for America because I don’t live there and only know about my friends’ lives...? So then we got asked to introduce a Korean UNESCO heritage site (neither of us knew one lol), then one in our home country (I said I’m sure we have them but I don’t actually know which places are officially recognized...), then we switched to politics and had to explain how does Korea choose a president, and one of the 4 types of elections. I left thinking please just let me get 10 points from that and I should be able to pass~ But on the bright side, the guy I did the interview with lives near me and we took the bus/subway home together and now we’re friends!

Anyway, I passed! (And so did my new friend!)

Overall score of 71 (60 is passing), with 59 points from the written section and 12 from the interview~

And now I’m 100% done with KIIP! So glad to not have to worry about these visa points any more.

[187days]

Day One Hundred Forty-Two

Not every state has a system in which townspeople vote on their school district's operating budget, union contracts, etc... but New Hampshire does. Yesterday was voting day here, and the budget didn't pass, meaning we're left with a default budget (this year's budget plus any expenditures that are mandatory) that's about $1.2 million shorter than what the district had wanted. The admins say they're "exploring all options," but the likely outcome will be the closure of an elementary school.

The school board already voted to close one in the 2025-2026 school year, this just speeds it up by a year. There was much debate at the deliberative session about why we didn't just speed it up a year, so I assume that's what voters had in mind when they made this decision.

As you can imagine, it's causing a lot of emotions for parents, teachers, kids, etc... So that's rough.

It's not rough for me personally, though. I don't have kids, for one thing. And, as a high school teacher, my job is in no danger; plus, the high school may actually benefit because the paras, custodians, etc... at the elementary school can be transferred up here where we're desperately short-staffed. I'm not pointing that out to anybody who's upset, of course, because that'd be a jerk move. I'm just writing it here because, well, it is what it is.

Anyways.

Today was also an early release day, so some of my students didn't come to school (that's less of an issue than it used to be because the district's taken steps to address the importance of attendance, even for short classes, with parents, but it's definitely still an issue), and some of the students who were in attendance got a talking-to about utilizing the time as opposed to packing up ten minutes early and playing on their phones. It wasn't a super stern talking-to, just a gentle one, but I think it was effective because a lot of the students I spoke to returned to their seats and to their work. So that's a win.

It's a "B" day, so I was doing the same thing I did with the other half of my ninth graders yesterday. First, they took a content quiz, and then they either read or, if they'd finished their books, worked on their papers. My APGOV students also had a quiz- a vocab quiz- and then we played a rowdy game of Kahoot to prepare for their next test. We finished right at the bell, so some of my ninth graders got to witness the (very loud and jubilant) ending of that. That was fun.

We had a faculty meeting in the afternoon and worked on some curriculum mapping stuff in interdisciplinary groups, which wasn't bad. After that, I met quickly with my department to go over some information and get their nominees for our academic awards. That left us all with about 45 minutes of time to work on our own. So I did a bit of grading, wrote a scholarship recommendation letter, and then it was time to go!

[13-reasons-ideas]

Can’t Go Back Part 10

A/N: Thank you for your patience. There is no smut this chapter. That will be the next Before chapter. I liked ending it on a cute note between Addy and Monty. Feedback is appreciated. 

Keeping my relationship with Montgomery was easier and more thrilling than I expected it to be. There were stolen kisses in alcoves, a seemingly endless string of text messages, dates disguised as studying, and a few more sleepovers than anticipated. My friends and family had yet to pick up on anything and we were going on a month and a half of dating. I wonder how long we can keep this up. Surely it won’t be much longer.

An unseasonably chilly Monday morning in early November, I woke up before my alarm and snuggled under the covers. I had just fallen asleep again when my alarm went off. Groaning, I sat up and crawled out of bed. I breezed through my morning routine and threw on a black knitted sweater with a pair of dark wash ripped jeans. I grabbed a t-shirt to throw in my bag in case it got hot without looking. My hair was thrown up into a messy, yet styled bun and my current daily makeup was applied.

My parents were enjoying their morning coffees at the island when I came downstairs. Noticing me, my mom sat up straighter and dad cleared his throat. Uh oh. “Morning.” I greeted, timidly.

“Morning sweetie.”

“Morning.”

“What’s going on?”

“Your father and I were just talking about this weekend.”

“Alright? Why did you clam up as soon as I walked into the room?”

“You know I have that conference in Chicago this weekend.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s been on the calendar for months. What’s the big deal?” I asked, as I made my way around the kitchen getting my breakfast ready.

“I found out this morning that Dave has a family thing this weekend, so I have to go to Scottsdale in his place.” “Okay. You’ll both be out of town at the same time. What’s the big deal?”

“No need for tone Addison.” My dad scolded. I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

“It’s not a big deal at all Addy. It is just short notice is all.” Mom added.

“The usual rules apply, you know. No crazy parties. Only Justin is allowed over and he sleeps in the guestroom.”

“I assumed.” I nodded and looked at the clock on the wall. Finishing the last of my breakfast, I gathered my books, threw the shirt in my bag, and grabbed my car keys. “I’ll be home later than usual. I have an assignment to work on after school.”

“We will leave some dinner out for you. Have a good day at school.”

“Mhmm. Of course you will.” Dad muttered, checking his phone for the probably millionth time since he got up.

When I got to school, there was a strange buzz in the air. People were whispering amongst themselves. That in and of itself wasn’t out of the ordinary, but the way they died down when certain people-mainly girls-passed, was a dead giveaway. Nothing changed when I walked past which was fine by me. “Before you say anything, it wasn’t me.” Justin said as he slid next to me at my locker. I sighed.

“What wasn’t you?” I grumbled. I was still annoyed with him for the photo of Hannah that got sent around.

“The list.” He stated, shrugging, as though I would know what that meant. “And I know you’re still mad at me but Addy please. You know I wouldn’t send something like that around. You know how Bryce is.”

“I know. But you also didn’t do anything to stop it. What list?”

“I said I was sorry.”

I sighed heavily. “If I decide to let it go, will you tell me what the hell you are talking about?”

“Yes.” He nodded eagerly.

“Fine. I forgive you or let it go or whatever. Now what?”

“There’s this list going around. You aren’t on it but it like… rates girls.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Yeah, why the tone of surprise? We go to Liberty High.”

I shrugged, knowing he wasn’t entirely wrong. “I’m not. It doesn’t make it okay though. Do you know who made it?”

“Rumour has it, it was Standall.” I shook my head in disbelief and closed my locker. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I smiled slightly, even though I was still horrified at the situation.

As stupid as the list is you’d still top mine.

That list is deplorable Montgomery.

Deplorable, huh? New vocab words?.

Yeah. I gotta head to class. Text you during break.

Sure thing. Everything okay?

Yeah. I’m just tired, no worries.

I locked my phone as we passed Justin’s friends, all clearly pouring over the list. I tried to ignore the slight sting in my chest as I heard Monty join in. I knew he had to play along to keep up appearances with his friends, but it still sucked having to listen to the bragging and hoopla of the group. I must have sighed aloud or something because Justin stopped me a few feet away.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah. It was just a long weekend is all.”

“Did you want to cut and talk? I know you aren’t thrilled with me or anything right now, but I’m still your best friend.”

I paused, thinking for a moment, before nodding. “Yeah, sure.”

We walked to a side exit and made it seem as though we were getting a forgotten book from my car.

After we checked that the coast was clear, I drove to Monet’s for a to go order and continued to our spot by the hiking trails overlooking town.

I took a long sip of my latte and stared out at the skyline. “Dad just frustrates me sometimes.” I stated.

“I know.”

“It’s like I’m only worth paying attention to when he needs something. Any other time, I doubt he would even know if I was there or not. Or if he wants to share his opinion on one of my life choices.”

“Is that what this is about?”

“No. Yes. I guess?” I shrugged. “This weekend mom and I were talking about college and what I would be interested in doing, nothing serious, just talking. And all of the sudden, dad comes in from his office and is all ‘that’s a waste of a degree’ and all this other crap. She tried to get him to let it go but he just wouldn’t hear it. Eventually she gave up to go work on her paper and he just went on and on. I know that it’s not what he imagined for me, but it’s what I want. And its not like we were being super serious about anything. I have time to change my mind still.”

“Well what were you guys saying?” “We were talking about what courses I could take that would be general enough to use for any major should I choose to switch and what courses would be a waste of time. I have two years to decide this stuff Justin. We were just talking and having girl time.”

“Of course he had an issue with that.” He muttered. “What happened after Margot left?”

“I was tired of him yelling at me and so I snapped. I called him out on his bull and told him it was all hypothetical at this point anyway so what does it even matter? He didn’t think it was appropriate to take that kind of tone with him. I told him where he could shove it and slammed my door on him. I ended up staying in my room all day yesterday.”

“Wow. He really needs to… I don’t know what. But whatever it is, he needs to do it.”

“Tell me about it. And then this morning, I found out that they’re both going away on business this weekend because Dave can’t make it, and he was acting like I was going to throw a ragger or something. You know, when he bothered to look up from his phone and acknowledge my existence.”

Justin shook his head. “I’m sorry Addy. It’s not like he would know if I came over and slept in your room though. Keep you company.”

I mulled it over for a while I was going to see if Montgomery wanted to come over. “Nah, I think I’ll be alright. It’s only a couple of days.” I checked my watch and noticed that first period was almost over. “We should get going, I have an assignment due next period.” Justin nodded and we silently gathered our things.

“I really am sorry about what happened with the photos.” Justin finally said as we walked back into school.

“I’m not the one you need to tell that to. But telling her is a decision that is in your hands.”

“I know. It’s just high school though. Not like anything serious will come of it.” He said, brushing the whole ordeal off. I shrugged, not really having an opinion. The bell rang and it just so happened that we were near one of Jessica Davis’ classes. I caught Justin’s eyes wandering her body and I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t even say it, you creep.” I joked, immediately knowing what he was thinking.

“What? I wasn’t going to say anything.” He shrugged, giving me that puppy dog look that he is convinced absolves him of all his sins. I shook my head and shoved him playfully. Before I could say anything else, I heard my name being called from up the hall.

Turning, I saw Jeff waving me over. “Addison. Hey, come over here for a minute. We need a girl’s perspective on something, and Leah is busy.” Perplexed, I turned Justin, who shrugged at me. I sighed as we made our way over to the small group of boys, gathered around Jeff’s locker. I nodded politely at Garrison and turned my attention to Jeff. “Yes Jeff?”

“My less… experienced friends here, seem to think that the list going around is just a joke. Something to be laughed at.”

Of course, this is about the damn list. Fucking Standall. I made brief eye contact with Monty and he raised his brow slightly. He looked intrigued. “Right. Well I can assure you that as a woman, if someone I was interested in or seeing, thought it was funny or meaningless, there would be much more talking and consideration on my part before any more… experience… were to occur.” I explained, choosing my words carefully. I watched discreetly as my words sank in and Monty’s face pinched ever so slightly.

“See? What did I tell you? Girls care about these things. Now why don’t you all run along and try to be decent human beings for another hour until lunch.” Jeff laughed.

“Ugh. I need to run. Don’t want my English assignment to be late. Later Justin. See you Jeff. Boys.”

Walking to lunch as I read a not school related novel, I was shocked when a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me into an empty classroom. I let out a quiet shriek reflexively. “Relax, it’s just me.” Monty said, letting me go.

I took a deep breath as he wrapped his arms around me. “Hey.” I sighed against his chest.

“Missed seeing you this morning.”

“Me too. I had some stuff to do before school.”

“It didn’t have anything to do with the list? I thought you and Alex were friends.”

“No, it didn’t. And we aren’t friends necessarily. More like acquaintances. After this little stunt, I’m not sure I want to be friends with him.”

“That’s totally up to you Addison. How was your weekend?” Do I want to talk to him about it? Not really. At least not now.

“It was okay. Yours?”

“It was alright. Spent the weekend with Bryce.”

“Sounds like fun.” I murmured.

“His parents are in Cuba or Mexico or something.”

“Lovely.” Good for them. “That reminds me, my parents are both going to be out of town this weekend for work stuff. You can come over if you want?”

I looked up at him, watching him organize his schedule in his mind. “I’ll have to double check but I think I can come over after the game Friday.”

“Sounds good. Just let me know before Friday.” I gave him a hug and my phone vibrated in my front pocket.

“Damn Addy, what are you packing today? And why didn’t you lead with that when you asked about this weekend?” He joked, smirking jovially.

“It’s my phone you fiend.” I smirked back, rolling my eyes. I left the response in reference to this weekend open ended. You never know what might happen.

Checking my phone, I glanced at my texts. It was from Justin. Did you get locked in the bathroom or something? Where are you? “Shit, Justin wants to know where I am. I’ll see you in chem.” Had to ask Mr. David a question about this week’s reading and we got talking. I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t worry about saving me a seat, I need to talk some sense into Alex before he digs himself into a deeper hole.

Fair.

I walked up to Alex determined to give him a piece of my mind. I cleared my throat and he looked around, cutting Bryce off. “Addy. Hey, what’s up?” He asked nonchalantly. I arched my brow, hoping to convey my displeasure. You’re dealing with a boy here. Justin was watching me from his seat at the table. When we made eye contact, he seemed unsure if he should be standing up to stop this or if he should sit back and watch the show. I glanced towards the cafeteria door when Monty walked in, waltzing to his usual seat at the table. I felt myself becoming ballzier as the boy’s attention was caught.

“That was a really shitty thing to do Alex.”

“What was?”

“Don’t play stupid with me. The list.”

“You care enough to talk to me about it?”

“Awe, is the little bookworm upset she wasn’t included?” Bryce mocked. Justin’s head twitched towards him quickly, readying himself to step in.

“Shut the fuck up Walker. I’m not in the mood for your sexist bullshit today.” His and Alex’s eyes widened at my response, not used to me speaking my mind like that. “I’m not friends with Jessica or Hannah, but that doesn’t matter. And there were other girls on it. Comparing girls is a fucked up thing to do. I get you’re upset or whatever because of whatever happened between the three of you, but that kind of thing can ruin people’s lives.”

“It’s just a list Addison. It was for fun.”

“This time it was. It’s only fun until someone gets hurt. For your sake, I sincerely hope no one does.” Having said my piece, I turned and walked away. I noticed Tony Padilla watching the ordeal unfold with his boyfriend, Ryan Shaver. Nodding to them, I scanned the room for a place to sit. My eyes skipped over Hannah sitting by herself at the end of a table. They landed on Jeff sitting with Leah and Clay. I walked up to them and waved to sit.

“Hey Addy.” Clay greeted. I took the proffered seat and pulled out my chemistry textbook.

“Hey Clay. How goes the tutoring?”

“It goes.” Jeff responded.

“He’s more interested in Clay’s love life than the material.” Leah added.

“I see. Love life? What does the love life of Clay Jensen look like?”

“Hannah Baker.” Jeff smirked.

My eyebrows raised, impressed. “Justin says she’s sweet.”

“Justin is an ass.”

“He’s my best friend. And he’s not an ass. He’s just… selective about who he likes.”

“Addy, that’s polite for ‘he’s an ass’.” Clay responded, turning his attention back to Jeff. “Focus Jeff….” I tuned out the educational bits of what they were talking about, instead focusing on my own schoolwork. Justin texted me, breaking my concentration.

Bryce says you need to stop hurting his feelings.

Well tell Bryce and his tiny dick… I mean ego, he can grow up and if he didn’t say stupid shit, I wouldn’t have to. I looked up to watch his reaction. He ducked his head and bit his lip to hold back a laugh. Bryce tried to grab his phone to see what I said, but he slid it in his pocket quickly. I caught Monty quirk his brow at me and smiled softly at him. Pulling up his contact, I shot him a quick text. Don’t worry about it.

On my way to chemistry after lunch, I ran to the washroom to change quickly because I was starting to sweat. “Addy.” I vaguely heard a voice call behind me. I wasn’t sure if I was hearing things or not, so I ignored it. “Addison.” The voice called again. Again, I ignored it. “Yo. Hawthorne.” This time, it was much closer. I pulled out an earbud and looked to my left. Montgomery was walking beside me, trying to fall in step.

“Oh hey. Since when do you say ‘yo’ to me?”

“When I call you like four times and you don’t say anything.”

“Sorry, I was listening to a new album. Got a little too into it.” I turned to him again and he was scanning me appraisingly. “Hey. My eyes are up here buddy. Also I’m Justin’s friend so I don’t know what you think is going to come of you looking at me like that.” I chastised, noticing a couple of people stopping to watch us. When they looked away, I smiled at him brightly.

“Well I was thinking something along the lines of those little cookie sandwiches you make Justin all the time.”

I smirked. “Macarons? Try again in three months. Need to make sure you’re worth the effort of those delicious little hell circles.”

“Don’t worry, I will.” We arrived at our chem class and before he walked to his seat, he slipped in one more comment. “Nice shirt by the way.” I thought nothing of it until I was changing into my pyjamas that night. No wonder people were looking. Hopefully we don’t need damage control.

The rest of the week passed with few incidents. Hannah and Jess’ not talking was even more strict now. My dad was preoccupied with getting ready for his trip, so he left me alone for the most part. Monty and I continued as we had been, discussion of Monday and the list set aside for now. He had confirmed plans with me Wednesday night. I heard him confirm to Bryce that he had family coming to town this weekend, so he had to be home. I smirked into my book as I passed them. If Justin noticed, he didn’t say anything.

Friday morning, I was digging through my locker for my biology assignment, which had mysteriously disappeared from its place in my binder, when I felt someone beside me. “I told you Justin, I’m fine by myself this weekend. I’ll probably just watch SVU reruns or something.”

“Not Justin, but SVU doesn’t sound like a bad time.” Monty laughed. I jumped, not expecting him.

“Hi.” I said, still digging through my locker.

“What are you looking for?”

“My biology assignment. It’s due in like fifteen minutes and I can’t find it anywhere.” I heard him rummage through his bag briefly.

“You mean this biology assignment?”

I whipped my head around and frowned at him. In his hand, was my worksheet, slid neatly in a sheet protector. My frown softened and I looked at him questioningly. “Where did you find that?” He held it out to me.

“You left it on your desk in chemistry yesterday, so I grabbed it for you.” In my relief that my assignment wasn’t gone, I hugged him quickly.

“Thank you thank you thank you. You are literally a life saver right now.”

He chuckled before coughing slightly. “School.” He muttered to me.

“Shit yeah. Sorry.” I mumbled as I let go of him. “Justin isn’t making me go to the game, so is it okay if I skip it? I’ll make you congratulations dinner.”

“Sounds fair. What’s for dinner?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Depends what we have in the fridge. Also how do you feel about boardgames?”

“Love them as long as I’m not playing with Scott.”

“Last I checked, I’m not Scott so that’s good. I’ll see you at my place. You can finally have a proper tour of the house and see what it’s like coming in the front door.”

“Looking forward to it.”

After school, I checked what we had in the fridge. “Hmm… leftover lasagna, pork chops, ground something. Six different kinds of cheese.” Next was the pantry, “we have like eight different kinds of noodles. Could do mac and cheese.” Hey babe, how does mac and cheese sound?

That sounds good.

Okay. Good luck tonight. He didn’t respond so I went upstairs to change, after connecting my phone to the Bluetooth in the living room. “Hey Siri, play I Prevail playlist.”

“Okay, playing I Prevail playlist.” Instantly, the heavy sounds of guitar and bass riffs filled my home. I changed into the shirt I wore the other day and a pair of shorts, so I was comfortable for the night.

While dinner was cooking, I gathered a few boardgame options and an extra pillow for Montgomery, humming and singing softly to myself. He knocked on the door around seven. “It’s open.” I called from my place at the stove. He walked in and I could feel his eyes on my body, though I ignored it and the butterflies it caused in my stomach.

“I didn’t think you would like whatever this is. It’s also loud. Hear it outside loud.” He spoke into my ear, causing me to jump, yet again. He needs to stop doing that. I might buy him a bell for his birthday.

“Jeez. Hey Siri, pause music.” The music cut off. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. And there is no other way to listen to this.” I smirked mysteriously.

“Somehow I doubt that but okay Addy.” He kissed my cheek softly and I felt the dampness of his hair against my face.

“Please tell me that isn’t sweat.”

“I showered after the game. Don’t you worry your pretty little head.” I caught him reaching out for the lid of the mac and cheese.

“Hot!” I exclaimed, reaching out to stop him. “I took it out of the oven like ten minutes ago and it’s cast iron.” He nodded.

“How’s about that tour?” He asked, patting my butt as he moved to step around me back to the island. I surprised him when my hips followed his hand as he pulled it away. Turning to watch him suck in a sharp breath, I giggled.

“Don’t be getting any ideas there, buddy.” He muttered something under his breath I couldn’t catch. It sounded like something about “innocent�� and “has no idea”. Before he could make any further comment, I clapped my hands together. “Tour. Starting here, I guess. This is the main floor.” I spread my arms, expositorily. Taking his hand, I led him back to the front door. “Front closet. Feel free to hang your coat up here or put it on this… lovely… piece of furniture Gran insisted we keep”, indicating towards the brown antique looking catch all bench that matched approximately zero of our other décor. “Lovely. Sure. That’s one word for it.” He chuckled.

“Mum asked Dad if we could keep it in the garage and only bring it back out the once a year Gran comes back stateside. The trouble is, this thing weighs like two hundred pounds because it’s all solid wood. It lives here because we aren’t doing that twice a year. This is the living room. We sit and watch TV here. The La-z-boy is off limits. Dad will know if someone sits in it before he steps in the house.”

“Noted.”

“You’ve seen the kitchen. Nothing too special here, except the fancy coffee machine we use on weekends or when company is here. Justin loves it. Dining room is there, we use it on holidays or when family is in town. And finally, the main floor powder room. Don’t think I need to explain much here. There is extra soap in the bottom drawer of the vanity.”

“Nice.” He smiled, looking around.

“Upstairs?”

“Lead the way m’lady.” I looked at him, my face melting into a confused frown. He shrugged at me.

“I have my own secrets Addy.” I nodded, leading him upstairs. The upstairs consists of a hallway with doors, so it was easy for me to point out the rooms. “Guest bathroom at the end of the hall-extra soap under the sink, same goes for my bathroom, guest room, office, my room, and my parents’ room is at the other end of the hall.” With the tour finished, we went back downstairs for dinner. We ate in comfortable silence, sneaking coy glances at each other.

“Ready to lose at Monopoly?” He asked, looking at the stack of games sitting on the coffee table.

“Ha! You wish.” We quickly set up the game and got comfortable in the living room. I grabbed the blanket off the couch and wrapped myself up in it. When I looked up, Montgomery was looking at me with the softest face I had ever seen him wear. “What?” I blushed.

“You look cozy. It’s cute.” He muttered. I smiled softly and ducked my head to hide my deepening blush.

“Shut up and pick a piece.”

“Ladies first.” I quickly grabbed Scottie Dog. He chose the race car and so began the most intense, hilarious game of Monopoly ever played. There was swearing left and right. We laughed at each other when we got crappy Chance cards. There may also have been some cheating, but we pretended not to notice if we caught it. Monty won unfortunately and I sulked for a minute before grabbing Ticket to Ride Europe. Again, it was intense and close until the final tally. He got longest route for ten extra points, smiling triumphantly to himself. That is, until we counted up cards and I had over a hundred more points. His smile dropped of his face immediately.

“What? How did you do that?” I handed him my cards.

“Many, many small routes I already had.”

“Mhmm.” He squeaked. After a few more games, we decided to call it a night and head up to bed.

[rigelmejo]

march 3/15/2021

im trying to read through tae kim’s grammar guide right now because i’m officially further in the nukemarine LLJ  memrise decks (there’s tae kim grammar guide sections in there) than i am in actually reading the grammar guide. And obviously these example sentences in the memrise deck would teach me more if i CLEARLY understood why they’re like how they are. which i... need to read the grammar guide section to understand lol.

my goal rn with japanese is? to get further in the nukemarine LLJ decks than i did last time. I’ve already mildly accomplished that (have done officially MORE of the tae kim section than before, have NOT redone the 190 common words i did last time i did this though). there are about 400 more cards in this tae kim section (LLJ 4) and then 1000ish cards in the common word section (LLJ 5). I would love to get them done. 

it would be sweet if i could get them done before April 22?/24? whenever Nier Replicant comes out because then I could play that baby in english and japanese! Then Nier Automata! ToT The Entire thing that kicked me back into wanting to study japanese was my old love for certain video games and desperately wanting to know what their stories/characters are like before translation/localization. So it would be cool if I could play them a little ;-; or at least check out lets plays. 

(which, checking out the kh2 lets play has been going pretty well so far... also that part where namine says “we aren’t meant to exist” and roxas says “how could you say such a thing? even if it were true” he says in japanese like “thats brutal/harsh to say. even if its true.” ...great to know that line is equally raw and heartbreaking in japanese lol. KH2′s localization did real good on like equal vibe to original just like ‘less nuanced’ if that makes sense. also thanks to the chinese hanzi i know now watching the KH2 lets play means i can figure out a lot of noun’s writing even though i don’t catch the pronunciation... also i’m catching a lot of words that mean like ‘beautiful/good’ as in like ‘great move’ and ‘dang’ lol.)

i had to stop myself from redoing the chinese flashcards i’ve done in the past! because i get ‘into a zone’ lol. And i really don’t need to waste time redoing those 2000 cards. i also needed to stop myself from doing the hsk 5-6 cards. because realistically? i know half of them, i should just set a lot to ‘ignore’ on the computer but im too lazy, and i’m learning a lot of vocab from reading right now. i don’t need hsk words to pass any test. The words i’m learning right now in reading are a lot more applicable to the actual shows i watch/things i listen to/things i read. its more useful to me to keep reading. and also to not sidetrack my japanese lol. i have read... 39 chapters this month... this month is only half over! hanshe is truly motivating ToT it also helps the story CONSTANTLY ends on cliffhangers so i keep clicking next chapter. who knows, maybe hanshe will help me kick up my reading speed. it already shaved off 10 minutes per 20 pages - now my 20 pages are down to 30 minutes to read, which is better than a few months ago. hanshe has 155 chapters so i HOPE it speeds up my reading lol.

hanshe is increasing my vocab though, its definitely noticeable over time. and hanshe has really good repetition of vocab which helps with learning and later the payoff means i never have to look up the word in future once its learned while it remains useful to me and i keep being reminded of it. after i get bored of hanshe OR i finish it, whichever comes first, its either back to a priest novel or into another pingxie fanfic written by hanshe’s author. The author did one fanfic that’s only 33 chapters so that would be NICE to do after this one lol ToT

summary of what’s turned out to be my studying methods this month:

Japanese:

reading through grammar guides (the one yue-muffin made and tae kim’s). so just grammar explanation reading.

doing nukemarine LLJ decks (in the ACTUAL order they are in the deck to completion - last time i did like 3 per time and never finished any lol. this is bolded because it’s the primary activity i’m prioritizing). so SRS flashcards. it’s working well right now because i can just put this activity in anytime i have downtime, like when i pause shows (since we know me i gotta take a break from a show every 20 minutes lol). i am bafflingly in a flashcard mood and i’m trying to take advantage of it while i got it. 

*when i feel like it: watching kh2 lets play. so some immersion where i look up words. (and when Nier Replicant remaster releases next month I’m likely to at least a tiny bit try to play it in japanese ToT lol we’ll see)

so grammar reading, srs flashcards covering some grammar/listening/reading/vocab, and some optional immersion.

(a note: i gave up on the japaneseaudiolessons for now because i got bored. its a great resource! i just don’t feel like it right now. and from an efficiency perspective, nukemarine LLJ decks cover vocab, grammar, audio, reading - so I don’t need another resource for that right now).

Chinese:

reading through hanshe. so immersion reading, intensive reading looking up unknown words. (unknown words are happening less so its getting less ‘intense’ lol)

listening to Chinese Spoonfed Audio. so listening to audio flashcards. for building up listening comprehension/repetition to pick up some more common words. (i’ve been doing this during daily walks making it much easier for me to consistently do, doing it mainly to supplement the Reading Heavy study i’m doing, i can drop this and pick it up later if i want since its mostly easy background listening)

*I am slowly rereading the grammar guide on www.chinese-grammar.com for explicit grammar clarification. but this is not a high priority, since I sort of implicitly understand a lot of this and i’m not working on fixing production mistakes yet. i just... miss knowing wtf is going on in the grammar lol.

*when i feel like it: Listening Reading The Glass Maiden/Love and Redemption Novel. I’ve done 2-3 hours of it this past week, but i don’t know when or if I’ll just stop. Thankfully l-r is beneficial somewhat even if i switch up books later. i WANT to L-R you have no idea (to Silent Reading and Guardian REALLY badly lol). But its so time intensive, and requires a lot of focus, and i have to really plan to do it for an hour at a time usually. I am so bad at doing stuff for that long consistently. I was in the mood earlier this week! ToT 

*when i feel like it: watching chinese shows raw. I was super in the mood this month because Word of Honor came out, and Killer and Healer came out, and Rattan came out, and I didn’t want to wait for subs. As a result I watched a LOT of raw episodes this month. However, english subs have caught up and since I’m lazy I’m inclined to just watch the subs - especially since youku ITSELF just put english subs on their most-ahead viewing schedule version of the eps on youku vip. so guess who’s buying youuku vip today? -3-)/ That said... even if I stop for a while, if Rattan subs move too slow I’ll probably watch those raw. And as SOON as 2ha’s drama Immortality drops I am highly likely to watch the raws for that since I likely won’t be able to wait. Watching shows is pretty highly dependent on how much I want to watch something and if subs take a while lol. 

so reading, and listening. and a little listening-reading method too. mainly just working on reading, listening, vocab acquisition. chinese is going good - for a few months now i’ve just had the plan ‘read often while looking up unknown words, and add some listening study activity when i have time.’ It’s simple, and its been working well.  later on down the road i’ll need some explicit grammar clarification again, but this is bare bones enough of a study plan at the moment. i’m clearly picking up words and phrases and hanzi at a reasonable pace. its not the Fastest obviously, but it is causing improvement over time and since i’m enjoying it i see no reason to change it up.

ending things

...who knows WHY i am so well focused this month with so much energy... tbh... i track how many chapters i read a month/audio i listen to/show episodes i watch etc, and this month is like as much as 3 other of my usual months combined. also my japanese has been basically ‘dabbling only’ prior to this month.

 although... maybe in part its how i’ve gotten better at reading hanshe? Reading being easier certainly motivates me TO read more. And watching shows was MUCH easier this month (still not ‘easy’ but following the main plot is) which definitely makes me Want to watch more. Also i am... unbelievably motivated by a challenge. I think i got it in my head that i ‘really want to do more of Nukemarine’s LLJ courses and see how much i understand after them’ and now... i really want them DONE. so maybe the current things motivating me will hold out for a while. 

(On the listening-reading front meanwhile, that activity takes SO much concentration its hard to do if i’m tired, BUT i have so many TRANSLATED novels i want to read recently and honestly its fun hearing the chinese narration and audiobook actors so like... i very much Want to do l-r so i can hear them as i read the translation... immovable object of me tired versus how much i’m interested in them lol ToT).

also thank u thank u @a-whump-muffin for sending me those lets plays because honestly it got me so excited again and its so cool to see them!!! <3 <3 and its so much easier to watch them versus committing to playing a whole game myself just yet ToT 

[etto-etto]

Do you have any tutorial on learning the characters (kanji, heragana and katakana) easily for the very beginners?

(I’m apologizing in advance, because I didn’t realize I would end up writing something this long! I also linked my reference page, which I’ll organize and add to soon—promise.)

It’s not a tutorial, but I was recently asked for help regarding hiragana memorization and I talked about how I learned it here. I hope it may be of some use to you! The only new thing that I can think to add is to find a means of exposing yourself to kana and kanji in a way that is convenient to you. I mentioned using phone apps, which I did when I first started learning, but I also see/read Japanese with

studying — it’s unavoidable when you learn from a Japanese textbook, complete workbook pages, and write notes (handwritten or digital). this is also why I say not to worry about memorizing kana 100%. as long as you study consistently, you will see and reference characters at least several days a week, and the longer you keep this up the less you will need to reference the kana charts.

sites like satori, NHK web easy news, Japanese IO, and other places listed on tab three of my resource page!

follow Japanese natives/accounts on social media (: (This is my twitter list, for example.)

books – for me, I have checked out children’s books from my local library in the past. I also have some additional sources linked on my resource page.

have a Japanese song that you like? learn the lyrics! (bottom of tab five of the resource page for lyrics sites.) 

for the very beginner, looking at content like this may feel frustrating since your vocab is likely limited and there will be LOTS of kanji that you can’t read. (my vocab is limited and I don’t know lots of kanji either, so I’m with you.) but the point is to expose yourself to the characters and hopefully pick up some new words along the way. 

as for kanji specifically, they say there’s around 2,000 characters to learn until you can consider yourself literate. you can start learning kanji before you begin grammar or pair it with grammar. I spent some time learning kanji characters before I started Genki I, and I was glad to have some pre-exposure even if I didn’t recall the readings. so to recap what I did/am doing:

shortly after finishing the kana charts, I started to learn stroke order and the meanings of kanji characters with Remembering the Kanji. I paired this with Kanji Koohii for SRSing but also referenced Jisho to find out the readings. (If you’re unfamiliar with on and kun, Tofugu’s got you covered.)

I chose to halt RtK and switched to Kanji Garden as a beta tester. last I saw, it costs $5 USD per month—a cheaper option than WaniKani. I think it’s a great SRS alternative to pricier options that also provides a small vocab list with context as it doles out new kanji.

currently, I am only learning kanji as I learn vocabulary. I pick up new words as I study each lesson in Genki + I write random stuff regularly at my JPN twitter where I kind of hammer in certain words and grammar structures!

I also use this anki deck to help me learn Genki vocab. It drills you on character recog, audio, spelling, and the english meaning. it’s seriously an amazing deck.

there is a lot of kanji out there, so it will be an ongoing process throughout your studies—don’t wait to start grammar because you want to cover a bunch of kanji or vocabulary first. you can take some time before picking up a textbook like I did, but I don’t recommend waiting too long. I have found that as I learn more Japanese grammar, the more I am able to communicate and understand—and this is ultimately a huge part of what helps me memorize new words and their respective kanji. 

I wish you the best of luck starting out in your Japanese journey!! (: Always feel free to shoot me a message if you’re having difficulties.