Such a good point! I hadn’t thought of it but you’re right, I don’t feel like I have to worry about filtering what I write and it is so interesting to see the different takes
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Probably the best I’m going to get 
This is so true! I’ve really got to spend more time working my way through new (to me) issues. I usually do it while exercise biking these days, so maybe I will consequently also get really fit. 
Oh wow, I hadn’t even put those two together yet, but you’re right. … I’m so glad I had wk book clubs during those years …
Interesting food for thought …!
3 Likes
June 9
No books finished this week, so no pretty pictures, and no tsundoku score update.
Mostly a pretty low energy week (not in a medical way, just in a life-y way. yay, small victories!) EXCEPT that I had an amazing run on the Cocoa-san book towards the end of the week and finished two chapters in three days! One chapter only took me a day. It was only 13 pages, but still. 
day to day + notes
June 2
- 木曜日にはココアを 2 pages
- クラスで二番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった 1 page
- 霧島くんは普通じゃない 12 pages
- ゆるキャン△ 30 pages (おぉ this chapter had multiple little scenes that didn’t appear in the anime and they’re so good! Especially the very last page. I’m so happy I started reading this again.)
June 3
- 木曜日にはココアを 2 pages
- 霧島くんは普通じゃない 2 pages
- ゆるキャン△ 6 pages
June 4
- 木曜日にはココアを 9 pages
- 霧島くんは普通じゃない 12 pages
June 5
- 木曜日にはココアを 6 pages
- ひとりぼっちの○○生活 5 pages
June 6
- 木曜日にはココアを 10 pages
- ひとりぼっちの○○生活 8 pages
June 7
- 木曜日にはココアを 13 pages
- ハルタ 15 pages
- ひらめきはつめちゃん 8 pages
June 8
- ハルタ 33 pages (finished a long yomikiri)
- 木曜日にはココアを 2 pages
Totals
Prose: 71
Manga: 105
I should probably make a graph with my scores … Now I suddenly realize that I haven’t made a graph in AGES possibly since grade school. @mitrac must be getting to me hehehe.
7 Likes
That’s awesome! I’m curious, did it feel like something clicked in your brain? I distinctly remember that happening for me in German - still waiting for that in Japanese
haha I’m so sorry 
buuut, spreadsheeets and graphs are so fun!
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I think my Japanese “click” maybe happened a while ago and without my noticing? I was reading along one day and then suddenly realized that in the distribution of “things making Japanese hard for me” grammar had gone from around 98% to about 2% without me even realizing it.
In any case, my run on Cocoa-san felt more like a wall coming down. Before, every time I reached the end of two pages it felt like I reached a wall. Then all of a sudden for a few days the wall was gone! Sadly it is back now, but I appreciate that it at least went down long enough for me to catch up haha.
Any suggestions for an aspiring graph-maker? Such as favorite programs/applications? I recently started using a mac for most of my computer stuff, but I do still have access to my old windows computer.
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That’s just like Japanese to have multiple levels of clicking or walls 
That sound amazing. Now that you mention it, maybe that happened to me too without realising it! Grammar was tough, then suddenly grammar was not the issue at all. And now the wall for me at 2 pages is definitely vocab. Reading novels makes me so aware of it.
At least you got a mini respite from the wall, I bet the next one will be longer 
I’m aware of not being very sophisticated with new tools, I just use what I have since school and that I’ve used for work ever since😅. There’s probably new nifty programs now that make everything prettier, but I like to collect my data in MS Excel (if you have an office 365 subscription it should be part of it) and do my graphs there. I’m so ignorant about macs - do you use office or something else? Or using Google sheets in browser is actually almost the same!
The normal plots are fine, but if you want a fun tip to look into - Pivot Tables and charts have been fun to learn about. This is how I make my more complex plots and it gives me the option to sort through my data in different ways at a click. Let me know if you’d like help on that!
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I recently saw https://www.pacemaker.press/ mentioned in the context of tracking language learning goals even though it’s not the intended purpose judging by the marketing. Looks flexible enough though and creates graphs for you.
I personally just have spreadsheets to track my progress but do no visualizations with the data
5 Likes
June 16
So I waffled this week on whether to push to finish books this week. First I was like “yeah! I need pretty pictures to keep me motivated!” Then I remembered this situation:
I finally completely filled my shelf of Japanese books that I have finished reading!!! 
So before I finished any more books I needed to make some adjustments. At first I thought I’d just wait til next week, but then I needed a moment of calm so …
I made more space! I moved some series around so they could live together. I put my favorite and ongoing series in front. I removed the one book that I had finished but just did not particularly like and had zero emotional attachment to. Eee, the newly empty shelf looks so nice and welcoming!
Someday I will do a move where I put all my reading-in-bed appropriate books in a bedside shelf, but probably not until I run out of space again. (Especially because I don’t have a bedside shelf yet.)
Anyway, thank you all for joining me on this little journey. And without further ado …
last week's day to day tracking
June 9
- 木曜日にはココアを 2 pages
- ハルタ 18 pages
June 10
- 木曜日にはココアを 3 pages
- 夜の名前を呼んで 15 pages
June 11
- ひとりぼっちの○○生活 8 pages
- 舞子さんちのまかないさん 12 pages
June 12
- 木曜日にはココアを 7 pages
- ひとりぼっちの○○生活 3 pages
June 13
- 木曜日にはココアを 3 pages
June 14
- クラスで二番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった 4 pages
- (45 minute conversation lesson - not reading, but still good!)
June 15
- 木曜日にはココアを 2 pages
- ゆびさきと恋々 38 pages
Totals
Prose: 21
Manga: 94
Not a very productive week, reading-wise.
reasons/personal/political
As at least some of you probably know, I live in the US, and shit is getting rough here.
a depressing rant from yesterday, double hidden in details because of how depressing. I thought about even using <!-- --> to completely hide it, but recently witnessed the power of ... not hiding ...
So, spoiler alert, my pages read numbers tomorrow are not going to be very exciting.
Things are rough around here. Right now I mostly feel numb.
I learned this morning that yesterday a man disguised himself as a policeman in order to assassinate democratic government officials in the beautiful state of Minnesota.
I went to protest yesterday feeling worried for my fellow protesters all across the country who were putting themselves in harm’s way, whilst I went to a safe little town where the worst thing that happened was that one of the speakers had the crowd chant “WE ARE CONCERNED”. My little group pretty much lost it at that point, listing all the times (most of them decades ago) when we were simply “concerned”.
But there was unexpectedly little violence against protesters. And meanwhile …
Every time I try to write something about Minnesota my fingers choke up.
We are concerned … Are you fucking kidding me??? I am in a fit of violent rage on the inside, while my brain numbs itself in order to prevent the violence from coming to the surface because I am a goddamned PACIFIST.
This helps. This is what it feels like right now.
What It Feels Like, Right Now – Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds
Luckily for me, and perhaps because of my lifelong struggle with depression, when I bounce back from the depths of despair I tend to bounce back HARD. I went out and played music yesterday and let myself disappear into it a little bit. I read a little bit of Aoyama Michiko and a chapter of a cute shoujo manga. I commented on study logs and brought myself back to the place of “joy is resistance”.
I’ll keep that rage with me, but in a locket. When the time comes to act, when the next protest comes around, when I need it, I will hold that locket in my fist and let it fuel me. Until then I’ll resist with joy, community, love, and healing.
Welp, this has been fun.
Thanks @mitrac and @cat for the graph recommendations! I will definitely be trying this stuff out …eventually haha. 
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Woohoo! Congrats! And it’s always a good day when you get to organize books; your shelf is looking great!
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やった！お疲れ様
How would you say ゆびさきと恋々 compares to the anime, if you’ve seen it. I watched a portion, and really enjoyed, but for some reason lost motivation/focused on other things midway through
Also what do you think of 舞妓さんちのまかないさん? That’s one of my periodic “maybe I should read this” titles that I’ve never quite gotten around to
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double hidden replies
yes really
We fucked off to Canada in 2023. It was mostly a cost of living calculation–my partner had a job offer here or in LA, and even on tech salaries LA would have been tough. But we were moderately concerned about election results. Given all that’s happened to LA in the past two years this was absolutely the right choice.
Following the election I disengaged pretty entirely from politics. I was a multiple blog a day reader and pretty avid podcast listener, with some late night shows segments on YouTube thrown in for flavor. I went entirely cold turkey and 7 months later am still mostly not back. I used to be concerned about not being informed, but when the information is quite literally an attack on your psyche designed to get you to shut down, it feels less important. I absolutely have the privilege to do that not being in the US right now, but having been away for this long, right now I’m somewhat rejuvenated. Look, the shit’s still a dumpster fire, but from my political leanings it’s been a dumpster fire for a lot of my adult life, with a few respites of closing the lid for a few years so we didn’t see the fire, but it was in there, smouldering, and ready to leap back into fire as soon as the lid was reopened.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but if you’re feeling completely in despair just remember, that’s where they want you, and it’s better for you, and probably the big picture, to step back when you can as much as you can. Joy is resistance, but so is rest. I won’t offer any suggestions bc you didn’t ask for them, but I will say just generally that it’s ok (and probably necessary) to take care of yourself, now more than ever.
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Awesome congrats 
love the pics, thanks!!
standing together
This is heavy stuff so i don’t have the right words, but I’m 100% by your side 
double hide territory
I hear this from a few people, these times are so overwhelming. I feel this too and your words about taking care of yourself and healing are so important for this. Thank you
WTF??? I’m sorry but 99% of Americans seem to have zero clue about politics, as in, how to identify political movements. That’s speaking as an American. It’s been so disappointing to me how long it took me to learn and how late in life I had to learn these things. I’ve been out for 20 years (whelp) and the piss poor historical and political education I got was so embarrassing as people from all around the world educated my ignorant mind these decades. And now that I finally understand some basic stuff, yeah, this is way more than concerning good grief
I don’t know if this helps but this is normal. We’ve got so many conflicting feelings plus anger. Our brains are going into primal non verbal mode. Making that explicit and verbalising is so tough I think, not just this event, it places us square in the lights of the consequences of this political movement.
A freeze response - yeah, shit’s scary af. I was trying to tell myself, yeah if I was there I’d protest. Really?? Am I brave enough? I can’t know. But I know I’d be terrified
This is your rock 
and helped me massively, and I am sure it will help you channel all this
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I haven’t seen it, but really want to watch it because in the manga they can often only show about one or two words in every sentence when a character is using sign language. I’d love to see what the signing looks like “irl”.
It’s beautiful! And very sweet. Strong iyashikei vibes. Definitely worth getting the physical book due to the quality of the drawing. I like to read it right before I go to sleep.
world stuff
I am honestly just so happy for you that you don’t have to live in the US right now.
This is such a good point. I have the privilege of having someone in my life who can follow the news without constantly losing his shit, and he puts time and effort into figuring out if there is something that I need to know and how to tell me. That has been a huge help.
This is another good point … Sometimes I forget about the necessity of rest …
Yeah, this was part of why I went to the “safe” protest. But after learning the news about Minnesota I got so angry that it overrode my fear response and for a minute I was ready to riot. (I asked my partner “are there any riots scheduled?” ) I didn’t want any of those soft things, I just wanted to break things. I’m glad I’ve gotten away from that mentality over the course of the week though.
The conversation we had recently on your study log made me feel so much better. Being able to connect with people even when they are far away is definitely the best thing about the internet. 
@mitrac @shitsurei Thank you for making me feel so supported! I’m glad both of you are living away from the madness, and somehow just knowing that you are out there, safe(r), and still caring about those of us here in the US just makes me feel a little more … stable.
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world stuff
That is such a nice thing to say 
sometimes I feel guilty for reasons that are so hard to express, so it’s really helpful to know that this weird ‘not there but I still care about Americans’ future" perspective can be supportive.
(And yes talking about it all is helping me feel more stable as well! )
I’m also aware being away makes it a lot easier to dial down a big chunk of the emotional intensity on demand. Like around election time when it’s so intense and nuts in the US and I notice this huge gap between emotional states when I talk to people in the US. So I’ve tried to be conscientious not to add to the intensity or bring it up too often in spaces where I think a lot of people might be tuning it out. That one is hard to balance, but recently I felt the balance may have tipped towards - surely we all need a big group hug right now
double hide less light hearted
And not just Americans due to the global effect this stupidity is having. It’s unsettling, we notice subtle things shifting - more military like formation flights, troop visibility, adjustments to key routes and roundabouts presumably to allow for heavier military vehicles. Argh…
Or this, I get it too! →
You went and that’s what matters period. Violence can happen anywhere, I still think it was very brave and you contributed to what is thought to be one of the top few biggest protests in American history.
Not everyone who cares can protest, so those like you getting out there -
It matters a lot to send a big message that people are serious in their disagreement with current policy. The group who is most apathetic/ disengaged wakes up when that happens. It’s the long game
Thanks so much for engaging 
it means so much to me and many other people, and gives me a lot of hope.
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June 23
day to day tracking
June 16
- 木曜日にはココアを 3 pages
- ひとりぼっちの○○生活 2 pages
June 17
- 徒然日和 18 pages
- 霧島くんは普通じゃない 2 pages
June 18
- 霧島くんは普通じゃない 2 pages
- 徒然日和 24 pages
June 19
- 木曜日にはココアを 7 pages
- 徒然日和 2 pages
June 20
- クラスで二番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった 3 pages + 2 pages
June 21
- 齋藤孝のイッキによめる! 167 pages
- 舞子さんちのまかないさん 2 pages
June 22
- 齋藤孝のイッキによめる! 28 pages
- 木曜日にはココアを 1 page
- クラスで二番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった 1 page
- 霧島くんは普通じゃない 2 pages
- ささやくように恋を唄う 4 pages
- ひとりぼっちの○○生活 16 pages
Totals
Prose: 218
Manga: 68
Prose count looks a lot more impressive this week because on the weekend I took part in the summer solstice readathon and revenge-read all 195 pages of the first grade reader that has been plaguing me the last five some years.
Tsundoku score: 5?!
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Tsundoku score update
Congrats on the readathon! It always feels so nice getting rid of a TBR book after so long.
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I watched the anime already and I liked it better than the manga because the sign language could be animated! The story appears to be very faithful, only having read the first volume.
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June 30
I originally got 霧島くんは普通じゃない because I was excited for some “sparkly” vampire nostalgia and … it delivered! The first half was great. The main character (Miu) seemed original and interesting, there was a scandalous scene in the 保健室 (nurse’s office?) and a lot of mystery and intrigue. Sadly, after the (not very surprising) reveal (he’s not normal because … he’s an actual vampire!) Miu started acting in really boring ways and thinking only about really boring things. So the middle part was a drag. There was some more action to keep things interesting towards the end, and I appreciated that, but Miu’s personality never fully recovered from the blow it took when she started liking Kirishima-kun. 
day to day tracking
June 23
木曜日にはココアを 4 pages
ハルタ 12 pages
クラスで二番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった 2 pages
霧島くんは普通じゃない 1 page
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 10 pages
June 24
都道府県のおはなし 2 pages
木曜日にはココアを 5 pages
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 8 pages
June 25
都道府県のおはなし 2 pages
ハルタ 24 pages
クラスで二番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった 2 pages
霧島くんは普通じゃない 14 pages
徒然日和 14 pages
June 26
都道府県のおはなし 2 pages
徒然日和 28 pages
夜の名前を呼んで 20 pages
舞子さんちのまかないさん 2 pages
June 27
都道府県のおはなし 1 page
ハルタ 7 pages + 20 pages
霧島くんは普通じゃない 12 pages + 8 pages
ささやくように恋を唄う 38
舞子さんちのまかないさん 7 pages
June 28
ささやくように恋を唄う 33 pages
June 29
都道府県のおはなし 2 pages
霧島くんは普通じゃない 17 pages
時間割男子 1 page
徒然日和 24 pages
Totals
Prose: 75
Manga: 247
Tsundoku score: 9!
These scores are really great and I wasn’t even really trying the last week! It helps that I haven’t been having high fatigue days recently. Here’s hoping it’s not just a fluke and I can keep having all these normal energy days.
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Yay for good energy
Your Tundoku score is through the roof as well 
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