Meanwhile, I was that person who would bring a book and attempt (and fail) to stealthily read it during class, because I was bored. A completely different vibe 
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May 4 completed. It’s only day two on Jonathan’s journey and already people are praying for him… Note: today, day two, marks the first day I’ll have read but be unable to update my natively page count. My Kindle copy doesn’t track pages, and my percentage read went from 1% to… 1%. 
I recall last year my updates being really inconsistent; sometimes it takes a while but you’re able to update a ton of pages all at once, and sometimes you’re reading a single paragraph.
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I’m with you there. My reader’s screen is usually about 2/3 of a real page, so I’m just approximating as I go along.
Right now, I’m enjoying the odd vocabulary since this is my first 19th century novel, words like enaguas ie petticoats and other archaic bits of clothing.
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I actually have a flashcard for enaguas after finding it last year, haha. I don’t know why; how many other times am I going to see that word, really?
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That’s the problem with making flashcards, it’s easy to become a bit overzealous and add random words that you’ll realistically only ever encounter a couple times in your life at most.
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… unless you’re a fan of historical romance novels/bodice rippers … then enaguas/petticoats is a very important word.
this is one of the reasons I’ve come to believe in extensive reading as you figure out what’s import or not just by whether or not you see it often enough for it to register.
the downside is that there are all sorts of wonderful, half forgotten words that should be used more often but only show up in 19th century novels … one of their many pleasures!
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A long one today. @.@ Lots of good mood setting, though, and we’ve arrived at the castle!
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Yeah, long. I’m going to have to plan ahead for days like this.
Poor Keanu, every time he describes his meals I can’t help but think he’s fattening himself up for slaughter.
With apologies to the nonspanish folk, the language was fun again if more difficult than the previous two days with lots of descriptions of the landscape that were new to me, along with a few words that I very much liked, such as pescante … the coachman’s seat. Sharing an origin with the spanish for fish, pescado, and to fish, pescar, it’s perfectly evocative of what it looks like with the coachman hunched over that bench with his whip like a rod and line. It’s also something for which I don’t know, or can’t think of, the english equivalent.
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Finally some interaction. 
Lots of food and descriptions up until now. (Which I always find more difficult than interactions with other living beings…)
but also, it makes me hungry…
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so far I’m reading through the daily mails I’m getting but I’m honestly considering reading in my native 
if not maybe the japanese version urikk added (bless you 
)
since it’s my first time reading it I’m more inclined to try it in English first though (I like doing things like that, later reading translations gives me a lot of things to think over, differentiate, consider and etc, it’s fun)
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I reserved 2-3 versions from my library to see which one is easier in Japanese and then will decide if I can proceed. I have pretty much zero interest in the book other than the historical popularity perhaps, so Japanese language learning will add a layer of interest to it.
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I put 2 audio versions on hold in my library and will do a parallel thing… I find the Japanese quite challenging at times. so much description.
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Okay I like the ISBN 4488502016 version has a little bit of furigana but is dense as F. I could potentially try this tome next year… Optionally 9784334100858 version has footnotes for cultural explanations so this is a contender for choices at over 800 pages! Of course I will opt for the children’s? version 9784591173503 only 197 pages with some illustrations and plenty of furigana this time around. Way too many books going on at the moment.
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Oof, some of these loooong paragraphs are starting to hit me.
May 7 spoilers
Anyway, Count Dracula seems like a great host; I wonder if he does all the cooking himself, or has a bunch of terrified townsfolk locked up in the kitchen or something? That’s something you don’t normally think about: Dracula cooking.
Another thought occured to me while reading: Dracula has amassed tons of books on England, and has been striving towards fluency while reading. Just think: there could be vampires among us, gearing up for that move to a nice new foreign country. 
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shhh, … don’t give me away…
It’s also worth noting that if dear drac can make a mistake and want to improve, we don’t need to worry about being perfect right away either, I say to myself since I make so many.
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Time to make motivational posters: even Dracula recognizes that he’s not perfect and embraces improvement!
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storywise, I had hoped for more from a jump to a new character, alas, no.
but it did finally allow me to figure out taquigrafia/taquigrafiado means shorthand/written in shorthand (I can’t believe it took me this long … It’s only the first non date word in the novel).
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Playing catch up since I fell behind for reasons…
May 8:
about the count talking about transylvanian history:
…まるで目の前でそれを見て来たかのようですらあるのだ…
why could that possibly be…
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May 9th: And so the jumping around begins! That’s one thing I’m not a fan of for this challenge: doing it digitally. I definitely prefer a physical book with 10+ bookmarks scattered all over it.
We have to appreciate the different levels of tension: here Mina is, enjoying what is probably a beautiful day, writing a letter to her best friend Lucy, and thinking about her wonderful fiancé. And here we have Jonathan, slowly losing his mind after finding out he’s locked up alone in a crumbling old castle with a man who hates mirrors and has a penchant for housework this is the setup for a BL, isn’t it.
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and there I was, thinking may 9th was just about the awesome power of shorthand!
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