Okay so it’s been… way too long since I’ve last posted on here and been at least somewhat consistent with my japanese reading. But that’s going to change NOW (yes, this time for sure…) so I’m setting up this log to hold myself accountable.
I’m planning to use this to track my progress and goals but also to talk about my thought regarding language learning and maybe occasionally dabble in other languages (Mandarin is looking really tempting right now…). I don’t think I’ll manage to do weekly updates but maybe monthly? I don’t know, we’ll see I think.
Feel free to comment on anything I post and let’s hope I can get back to building a study habit!
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Log #1, 12/2024
How did things go since the last update?
Since there wasn’t really a last update I will just say how things went since the start of the year and well… the answer is terrible, at least if we are just talking about my language learning. Looking at my stats page you can see that my logged reading did an absolute nose-dive and came to a halt around March and hasn’t recovered ever since.
There’s a bunch of reasons for that which can be summed up as major life changes that just completely demolished my habits and also a change in priorities, some of which I regret more than others but alas.
Details on my life changes for anyone who might be curious
I quit my fulltime job in March to start university, which I’m so so glad I did. I was absolutely miserable mentally and although my degree is very challenging it definitely feels like I’m doing the right thing. (And no, my degree actually isn’t related to languages at all 
)
I also ended up getting involved in various forms of activism (not through uni) which kind of knocked down language learning in my priorities for a while but I’m ready to find a balance between those hopefully.
The part of this year with the least positive consequences was me getting into a relationship for a few months, realizing that it really didn’t feel right and then (still) dealing with the aftermath of a fairly ungly breakup. Sighs. Anyway, guess I’ll be smarter next time.
Last point is that I also started a new part-time job to earn some money on the side. It has been pretty chill because my team is nice and I’m not too busy most of the time but I still had to get some new time management skills.
Meeting my 2024 goals or filling my bingo card is definitely impossible at this rate but I’m not too upset about it considering I really didn’t expect to have to deal with all these altered conditions. Still would have been nice to get at least a little closer to my goals but that’s life.
The only way I still kept in touch with Japanese after March was through social media and a long-running hobby project that I thankfully managed to finish recently to free up more time for proper studying again. I feel like my overall skills haven’t deterioated much but I definitely forgot some words…
What is the plan for now?
I’ll try to ease myself back into reading at first and see if I can motivate myself to actually read on the train every day. First step is to finally finish the last bit of 准教授・高槻彰良の推察4 そして異界の扉がひらく | L31. I also bought 無敵の犬の夜 | L29 today which seems easy and short enough to not be daunting to read.
I think I won’t add more unknown words I encounter to anki for now. Right now I just want to focus on getting back to reading and the thought of having to go through my kindle dictionary file for sentence mining would definitely hold me back at the moment. Maybe that means I’ll forget some words again after looking them up but that’s fine for now. Small steps and all.
I’d say the goal until the next update is to finish the books I listed and maybe get some listening practice in even if it’s just one hour or something.
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Log #2, 03/2025
How did things go since the last update?
Well… Not that great considering I wanted to do monthly updates, but good considering it didn’t take an entire year for me to come back this time.
I didn’t finish 無敵の犬の夜 | L29 yet because I’ve been reading other books instead, but I will come back to it. I did finish vol. 4 of 高槻彰良の推察 though!
I also did not manage to read on the train every day but lately I’ve been doing it at least some days and most of the time I at least do something productive during commutes, even if it isn’t reading.
I have gotten a little bit of listening practice but I will have to find a system for that that works for me to keep going. Maybe I will become an audiobook guy as well 
What I’m noticing about my reading at the moment is that I’m looking up more words than usual, but less because I actually forgot/don’t know a lot of these words and more because I’m kind of insecure about getting something wrong, even if I’m like 95% sure about it (and even if I did misremember a reading then it isn’t that big of a deal, so I don’t actually want to disrupt my reading for that). I think that willl probably get better as I get more used to reading in Japanese again but I’ll try holding myself back from looking up every word just because I’m not 100% confident about nuance or readings.
What is the plan for now?
Trying to get more used to reading again and properly getting into the flow of it as well. Will try to just do necessary lookups for understanding.
I will continue reading 消滅 VANISHING POINT | L31, I’m not very far in but loving it so far and it’s also my first 上下 type novel. Will read bits of 無敵の犬の夜 whenever I can and hopefully finish it (c’mon it’s so short).
Other than that it’s been fun to plan my reading according to the bingo, so I will try to stick to that 
Also maybe I will actually make some new flashcards for words from 消滅 VANISHING POINT, I already found a bunch of words that I really don’t want to forget.
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