Tuesday, April 9th

I guess now (two thirty AM) is as good a time to continue my last entry as any, as I need to brush my teeth before I lay down but the bathroom is occupied. This last week seems to have passed by much quicker than the last one. There's no seriously big updates since my last entry, so I might as well move onto those more mundane updates I didn't add last time.

As anyone could have guessed, I did end up giving up on Memorization March, but I got a decent amount done, so I refuse to feel bad about my failing, especially when so much has been going on. I just felt too exhausted to add more words one day, and the next I didn't finish all of my reviews, and then the next, and so on. The review count just kept skyrocketing... But it has evened out to the point that I get maybe a hundred and fifty new reviews a day, which isn't too bad. Once I have the energy, I'll start adding new cards again, but not nearly as many as before.

So, I did end up buying a copy of Ulysses, although I did read A Diary of the Artist as a Young Man first on Project Gutenberg to see if Joyce's writing appealed to me, and it does, so I shelled out for a physical copy of Ulysses. It makes it feel more real. I'm partway through episode six right now. While I was reading A Diary, I kept a tab open to Sparknotes so I could check it occasionally to make sure I was understanding what was going on correctly. I planned on avoiding doing that while reading Ulysses, but I got curious and took a peek, and it seems like there's so much stuff that just flew over my head. There's just so much I don't know about the world. I haven't decided yet if I should continue consulting notes while reading. Perhaps on a second read? I don't think I really have to decide this right now, though, so I won't.

What else has happened... Ah, one of my coworkers I was kind of friends with moved to another state, and another coworker I was kind of friends with got fired for drinking on the job. I always thought of her as being very professional, and I know she has some health issues, so I've been worried the past few days that she was in so much pain that the only way she could deal with it was by drinking, even at work. But we weren't really friends, so I have no way of contacting her and checking up on her. Life just keeps moving on.

I don't really have many friends, and I never have. I'm sure that almost everybody I work with likes me and enjoys my presence, but I only have two coworkers who I have ever talked with outside of work, and I only talked with one of them for maybe... twenty texts maximum. I've gotten much better at being likable, but I still struggle with being friends with anyone. I can't reach out to them unless there's a "reason" to talk to them. I could want to be closer with someone with the strength of a thousand suns, but if I can't think of a reasonable excuse to start a conversation with them, then I feel almost paralyzed. Unable to step any closer. This trait of mine has only gotten more obvious as I've left school and gotten a better grasp of the "rules" of conversation.

For a moment, I thought to myself "gosh, do I really not have a positive note to end this on?", but quite luckily, I do. My other coworker that I talk to sometimes outside of work and I agreed to start playing a new game together, and while that doesn't fix my issues with communication, it does give me that excuse I need to keep talking with him without talking only about work. And, of course, I have my girlfriend and family, who are so close to me that they never ever need any kind of excuse. I'm not alone, and I'm certainly not lonely, and I'm very grateful for that.

I should probably get going now. The bathroom has been free for the last twenty minutes, and I have a doctor's appointment in the morning. I hope everyone sleeps well.

Wednesday, April 3rd

Ah... What to say... I went quite a bit longer without writing than I meant to go, but in my defense, I've been having a bit of a weird time. I've (unwillingly) started working a different shift, and I haven't been interested in studying Japanese as much recently, and and I've started taking some asthma medicine that has me feeling more anxious than usual. Well, that's all weak sauce, though... Really, I've felt oddly for a... week? I had to check my phone to be sure. It feels like it was longer ago. At least a week and a half, maybe two. I suppose that doesn't get me off the hook for the first week and a half that I went without writing, then.

Well, a week ago, something odd happened at work. Not exactly something pleasant. As I started typing up this entry, I realized that it felt exactly like the kind of incident that would happen near the beginning of a horror novel, one that marks the tone as very decidedly ominous. But this isn't a horror novel, and the story isn't mine to tell, so I've only told close family and my girlfriend and just a detail or two to two coworkers. But nobody is reading this page, and I don't intend to show it off to anyone, so...

As I was leaving work that day, I was met with a hysterical woman who said she'd been attacked. I don't know if she really was attacked or not, but in the moment, it was difficult to discern what she was shouting about, and I worried that someone was hurt, so I called emergency services (only after she said it was all right). That is... everything I feel okay typing here as far as the incident itself is concerned. As I said, it isn't my story. My story is more about the full hour it took me to calm down properly once I got home, and wondering whether I did the right thing or not, and half-avoiding my manager, who was there at the time but didn't really say anything to me.

By now, it feels more like something that happened to someone else rather than me. It's more like I imagined it up, I guess. So I'm trying to remind myself of little details so I don't forget it. One of those things that sticks out to me is how I, half-dazed by the adrenaline, accidentally said "sit down" instead of "park". Just one of those little things.

I don't feel right going right from talking about that to talking about the more mundane parts of my life that I would recount in this diary, so I think this is it for now. I might write some more later tonight, but I feel a migraine coming on, so maybe not. I hope everyone has a good day. Treat people kindly when you can.

Thursday, March 14th

It's been a little while since a proper update, huh? I've just been so exhausted lately. I realized my new glasses are giving me awful headaches, so I ordered some new ones. Hopefully they'll be here soon. And even more hopefully, they'll help. But I took some meds and I'm feeling better now than I was four hours ago, so I won't waste time with any complaints. I've been keeping up, for the most part, with my 4o cards a day goal, although I did have one day where I only did 30 cards instead of 40. I'll try to do an extra ten cards later tonight to make up for it. And I'll do some more grammar over the week, as I'm only working a few days this week.

I really feel lately like I can't stick with anything. Always starting things and dropping them again. I'm trying to tell myself that it's okay to have hobbies that don't "amount" to anything, but it's still annoying, especially when these headaches are preventing me from having the energy to do much.

I still don't have much to say... Well, mostly, I'm just distracted because my parents are watching House. Bye for now.

Saturday, March 9th

This is gonna be another short one. Had a relatively good day. Nothing exciting, really, but I got my 40 cards done and I played some Pokemon. Gotta go to sleep very early, though. I'm opening tomorrow and we're losing an hour tonight, plus it took me forever to get to sleep last night. Hopefully I sleep fine tonight. Ah... I'm starting to feel more awake now >_<. Well, I kind of enjoy the process of going to sleep, anyways. I can just lay in bed and imagine things. It's nice. Anyways, I hope everyone has a good day.

Friday, March 8th

Another day gone by... The last in my little three day weekend. It was relaxing, and I got a few things done, including some laundry I've been putting off and some babysitting. I might not finish my forty cards for today, we'll just have to see, but I've still got some time. Oh! And, た形の日本語を勉強した. That probably isn't totally right... Well, whatever.

I'm not in the mood to talk much right now. I don't feel bad, really, I feel pretty good, but I don't have much I want to say. Have a good day.

Thursday, March 7th

I'm doing quite a bit better than I was yesterday. I haven't lost my brain, at least, and I'm not exhausted (although I am quite hot). I got my forty cards in earlier today, and now, I'm thinking about doing some more Genki. I want to move on to Chapter nine so I can use casual speech while talking about my day on here. It might come across as a bit weird, given how I type in English. Do I come across as formal here? I don't exactly shy away from swearing, and I do use silly language sometimes, but I do go to the effort of writing in (normally) complete sentences and using proper punctuation and capitalization. I'm used to typing much, much more casually online when I'm on social media, but I wanted this space, at least, to be coherent. Once I can actually be bothered to make another page on here, I'll probably be writing so sloppily it makes your head spin.

Ah, I was just wondering if I had anything else to say today, when I remembered that I wanted to talk about something last night, but was too tired to put it into words.

A few days ago, I remembered a book that my third (or maybe second) grade teacher read aloud to the class. It was about a young boy who eats so much chocolate that he begins growing spots made of chocolate. The nurse can't figure out what's wrong with him, so he gets sent to the hospital, where a doctor is excited to discover a brand new disease. Terrified of being experimented on, the boy runs away and wanders the streets for the day. I don't remember this next part well, but he hitchhikes with a truck driver, the truck gets held up, he gets a gun pointed in his face, but they end up just fine, and the boy meets a candymaker who happened to get that same affliction as a child. The candymaker gives him some vanilla medicine and some advice on moderation, and he goes home and lives happily and moderately ever after. The end.

The book itself was... fine, I guess. A silly, lighthearted story to teach children not to have too much of a good thing. But from what I remember of that time, I really, really didn't want it to be exactly that. I couldn't put it into words so well back then, but looking back, I was very annoyed at the ending. He just got some medicine and went home and everything was fine?! That was annoying. Stupid. Any other negative adjective I would have known as a seven to eight year old.

I think what really caught me about the book, what led to the dissonance between what it was and what I wanted it to be, was how... close to reality it was. Which sounds silly (obviously, I didn't think children could grow chocolate spots, even back then), but let me explain. I was a voracious reader back then, but still, most of the books I read fell into three categories:

1. books in which the characters live totally different lives than ours. Usually, they lived in a fantasy world, or they were an animal or inanimate object in our world,
2. books in which the characters live more mundane lives in a world exactly like our own. Usually, the plot was about interpersonal issues, or (owing to my hunger for puzzles) rated G for general mysteries about stolen homework or missing class pets,
3. books in which the characters live mostly mundane lives in a world like our own, but have some connection to more fantastical elements, which they have to keep secret. Think like Secrets of Droon, or the Rainbow Fairies books, or Sailor Moon.

The point is, these book characters all led lives that were either mundane or fantastic. I hadn't yet really experienced a book in which a person, a totally normal person, suffered awful, but normal, things. And the chocolate spots were silly, of course, but the consequences (running away, being forced to avoid other people) were serious enough (until the truck hijacking, that is), and I was entranced with it. I wanted that boy to continue suffering so I could read about it. I thought to myself that he could never return to his home, and I was excited to see how the story could possibly end. I'd never encountered a story with a bad ending yet, and I only then realized that that was even a possibility.

So, of course, when the story ended and he was cured and with his parents and his life lesson, I was incredibly disappointed. I didn't know how else it could end, just like I didn't know the dangers of living on the street or the reality that several children do live on the street, but I felt cheated. Maybe I wanted to see him overcome dangers and struggles, or maybe I wanted a grim open ending of him accepting his new life, but the book was always going to be a short chapter book meant to teach children a simple life lesson in a somewhat silly way.

I think I might have been... a strange eight year old. Or perhaps a strange seven year old.

Anyhow, now that I have that all out of my brain, I'm going to go study some simple Japanese grammar.

Wednesday, March 6th

I am... absolutely befuddled by how I managed to miss a day on here. I could have sworn I wrote out an entry yesterday, but that last entry there was definitely written on Monday, based on my work schedule (which I had to think very, very deeply about to figure out). This confusion isn't helped any by the fact that I feel exhausted, physically and mentally. I didn't do much today except go to my doctor's appointment and go back home, but thinking for that long about my health and my difficulties obtaining the medicine I want... has got me feeling so drained. Faithful readers may remember that I mentioned forgetting to refill my antidepressants, and that by now I surely have them again... I forgot them for a few more days and only managed to take them minutes before opening up Neocities text editor, so that's about where I am now. I must remember to be kind to myself; my confusion over the mysterious missing entry of yesterday proves that my head isn't entirely here.

Not everything today was bad or exhausting, though. I surprisingly had a fun conversation with my doctor about a book we had both recently read, although I'm a bit embarrassed looking back by my less than insightful contributions. I should reread that book... That reminds me, I think I am... giving up on my Ulysses reading, just for now. That feeling of being all over the place and trying to do too much at once won't be helped by adding something else to it. I hope I return to the book later, but not now. For now, I should keep reading "Always Coming Home", by Ursula K. Le Guin. After I finish reading Always Coming Home, then I'll give the copy to my girlfriend to read, so I do have that incentive to convince me to read it now rather than later. I'm about two hundred pages in, and I'm constantly concerned that the book is too smart for me, but I'm still doing my best to enjoy myself exploring this world and people. And after I finish Always Coming Home? I dunno what I want to read next. I have a whole list of books that I want to read, as well as some other stray recommendations I've heard here and there, but I think I should let myself decide that when I come to it.

Ah yeah, last night, I opened up Muramasa again and... watched? played? read? some more. I missed these little freaks and their freak antics... I think I'll be watching/reading/playing Muramasa more in the upcoming weeks... They're so weird silly.

Lots of ellipses in this entry today... I'm feeling both pensive and tired. I feel a bit better with this all out of me, though. I hope everyone has a lovely day. Me? My day was made when I learnt the word 消化不良. Almost certainly going to be using that one a lot.

An Update from the very Next Day

Ah. My brain certainly was scrambled yesterday. I'd somehow managed to miss the entry I made on Tuesday and bumped it up above the entry for Wednesday. Well, what can I say except "whoopsies"? Anyways, that's fixed now.

Tuesday, March 5th

I am, once again, tired. A relatively okay day, though. I had the annoying assignment at work today, and I began getting a hell of a migraine, but after my meds kicked in, I was in a fairly good mood for the rest of the day. I already got my 40 cards in today, so Memorization Monday is still going strong. Tomorrow, I have a doctor's appointment, which should be boring, but fine, hopefully. Ah, my mom has got a bit of a health scare going on, but we don't know for sure how scared we need to be until she gets some tests done next month, so I haven't started worrying yet.

I'm in a bit of a weird mood right now, I think. I dunno, though. Might be a tiny bit worried, tiny bit bored, and pretty tired, and that's all adding together to make me feel so... meh.

I think... I'm going to stop playing the Zelda game I'm on right now. I'm emulating it on my phone, and trying to use the buttons without feeling them is making the whole thing more frustrating than fun, overall. I think I'll carry a Pokemon game around with me all the time. Time to download Universal Randomizer...

Have a good day, everyone.

Monday, March 4th

Tired... I didn't end up reading nearly as much Ulysses as I thought, but I did read another little chunk last night. I think I should probably lay off the "reading aloud" thing, as I've been waking up with a sore throat for the past week. It goes away once I get some fluids down, but still, I probably shouldn't be speaking that much if I don't have to. I have work again tomorrow, but I have the three days after that off. They're cutting hours at work all over, it seems, and I've heard rumors of layoffs. But I am lucky enough that I don't need to rely on work to survive, so I just see those empty days and think about how I'll be able to rest and study and read. I think I'll try to set another goal... By Saturday morning, I want to have read the first two chapters of Ulysses. If I can do that, then I will buy for myself my own physical copy of the book. Ah, this is getting me excited.

I haven't quite finished my vocabulary study for the day, but I'm almost there. A lot of fun words here, like 骨格, and 下着, and even 性病. Perhaps I'll try to use these upcoming free days to finish that chapter eight of Genki. There's only two sections left, and I've already encountered 何も while reading, so it really shouldn't take very long at all, I bet.

I... don't have much to talk about today. Didn't have work, and I took another multiple hour nap, so I didn't do much. Heh. And will I do more tonight? Well, don't expect much of me. I'm tired again already.

Have a good night and a lovely day. Rest some if you haven't already. Bye.

Barely Ten Minutes Later...

Yep, vocabulary finished. Just wanted to say that.

Sunday, March 3rd

What a day... Well, it's done and over with, and I think I've reached the first skip day of Memorization March. I vaguely mentioned having some issues with my medicine, and I'm still not going to go into the details of anything, but this kind of thing has a heavy impact on my emotions, so I've spent most of my free time today playing video games to distract myself. Just thinking about this now is upsetting me. I was actually in a good mood for most of today, like some kind of freak, but after I left work I remembered that I have a physical body, which is having issues, so I haven't done much. I have gotten 19 new cards done, though, and after I finish this diary entry I think I'll try to study a bit more, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't finish all the reviews or if I don't add all 21 remaining cards. Just a part of life.

I don't want to complain for this entire entry... Well, I don't really think of this as complaining, since I'm just reporting what happened, but I don't want to be so negative for the whole entry. And I did have many good moments today. I told a joke that made my manager laugh, someone told a joke that made me laugh, I had an unexpectedly interesting conversation with someone I didn't previously think much of. I had pizza for dinner and played video games with my girlfriend, and I made people smile. But... I think I'm forcing it now.

Ah...................

I just remembered that I didn't take my antidepressant yesterday, as I forgot to refill it. I feel a bit silly now. No wonder my emotions felt so quick to change today. None of it was too severe, but I definitely felt off, even when I was in a good mood.

Well, I most certainly won't continue to try to force any kind of a mood right now. I'll just move on and continue to feel whatever I feel. Tomorrow, I plan on studying more vocabulary (maybe add in a few extra cards to cover whatever new cards I don't do today? just a maybe) and then perhaps sitting down and reading more Ulysses. I saw someone recommend that first-time readers try to read the first few chapters in the same day or even the same sitting, and well, that train has already sailed. But maybe I can finish up this first chapter tomorrow. I'm currently about 30% of the way through it, and I haven't been reading all that much, so I think it should be plenty doable. And as for tonight... Well, I'll see if I can stomach a bit more studying (perhaps with a show playing in the background so I'm not thinking too much), and whenever I stop, I think I'll play some video games solo. I'm already tired though, so maybe I'll just go to sleep as soon as I can... The world is awash with possibilities. Have a good night.

An Hour and a Half, and a Lot of Procrastinating Later

Alright, I... obviously, I shouldn't be proud of myself for procrastinating, but I still managed to forge on ahead and keep studying and I finished those 40 cards anyways, and I'm proud of myself for that. Really, it's already tomorrow, but that doesn't matter. I stuck with it. It was maybe silly of me to come back here just to say this, but I'm doing it anyways. Now, finally, I'll sleep.

Saturday, March 2nd

Say what you like about me, but I made it through another day. I had a migraine that made me somewhat nauseous for a good portion of the day, but the pain wasn't too bad, at the very least, and I've managed to get some food in me, so no point in complaining anymore.

Another day of forty new cards, done. Forty cards sounds like a lot more than it actually is, since each new word has two cards devoted to it. Still, it takes some time to do, and I've gotten it done. Ah! I only just now re-read my previous entries. This is the seventh day, huh? Completed my original goal. I don't really want to drink that coffee now, though. Tomorrow, maybe... If not, then I have Monday off. I want to have a bit of time to hype it up, so I really enjoy it (or, mostly likely, so I can be more let down when I drink it).

Yesterday, I happened to watch a video about books that are difficult to read, because I was curious, and now I think I'm reading Ulysses. I say that I "think" I'm reading it because I'm not entirely committed yet. I considered getting an epub copy of the book, but I felt that it was the type of book you need to really feel in your hands, feel the weight of it and the roughness of the paper, so I requested the book at the library. I figure that if the book catches me, then I should buy my own copy. But then I felt impatient anyways and "borrowed" a digital copy. I've only read the first three or four pages, but I like reading it so far. I usually read pretty quickly, so I've been forcing myself to slow down and mouth out the words. The rhythm and sound of the words are really very nice. It kind of feels like reading Shakespeare, reading it and not entirely knowing what's going on but getting the vibes of it all. Very nice. I hope this isn't another thing I pay attention to for only a few days and then forget. I have a habit of doing that, because there's so many things I want to do, but I'm so bad at keeping up with things. It takes a conscious effort to continue doing something, no matter how much I'm enjoying it. That's kind of one of the reasons I wanted to start a difficult book that would take me a while to read. I want to get rid of all the other little things I've tried to keep up with and just focus on a few things.

My body's been bothering me a bit... I'd rather not go into the details, but I'm low on some of my meds and the process of getting more is... difficult. And the March pollen isn't helping me any. Benadryl might be my best friend for a while. I'm lucky enough that it doesn't give me any side effects, but still, an annoyance.

That's all I have to say, really. Have a good day, everyone.

Friday, March 1st

Another day gone by... Honestly, I spent most of today sleeping. Just so tired. I was planning on staying up somewhat, but then I found out that I was wrong about family visiting today, it's tomorrow that they're coming. And I'll be at work for a good portion of that, so at least I won't have to suffer through the initial small talk phase.

僕は今日とくさん日本語の言葉勉強しました. So so many... Yeah, this definitely isn't a pace I can keep up everyday, but we'll see how far I can get into Memorization March. At the very least, it's keeping me motivated.

Got some new tea today. Vanilla chai, but with "extra spice". It was definitely more flavorful than the last vanilla chai boxed tea I tried, but I expected a bit more cinnamon... Well, that's a me issue. Also, got some new nuts. Honey roasted cashews, almonds, and pecans. The pecans are definitely my favorite. Cashews? Pretty good. Almonds? I could take them or leave them. And I don't like to waste food, so my only choice is to take them.

About Half An Hour Later...

I don't remember who I was before these nuts. I just ate about half of the tin. God... I'm gonna have to buy some more tomorrow, aren't I? Just so easy to keep eating them and keep eating them and keep eating them.

I'm so sleepy... So stupid that oversleeping makes you just as tired as undersleeping. I love sleeping.

I really don't have much to say today, do I? I just feel... Kind of shy, and tired, and not particularly insightful.

I hope everyone has a lovely day, anyhow.

Thursday, February 29th

Happy Leap Day, everyone! Well... actually, I'm feeling too sleepy to really celebrate this event. Felt energetic all day, but my stomach's full of pasta and I'm tired...

I feel like I thought of a lot of stuff I wanted to write down here throughout the day, but now that I'm actually here, they've all flown out of my head. I'm just too tired to remember, I suppose...

No work tomorrow, but I do have some babysitting to do. I think tomorrow I might finally learn some coding and perhaps test it out by adding a poorly designed page here.

I already finished my vocab study today, hell yes. This pace is... not nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I know it'll get more difficult as I accumulate more reviews, but still... Imagine how much I'd have learnt by now if I aimed for this goal all the time? No use feeling bad about that, though. So, this is my fifth day, done.

I think I'm going to take a nap now. I know post-dinner naps aren't particularly popular, but I'm tired, and I want to stay up late... My only choice is to take a nap now and then stay up when most people are going to bed. This is most certainly a good choice.

Later. Sleep well, everyone.

A Little While Later...

So, technically, it's already tomorrow in my time zone, but I'm ignoring that. I just wanted to add, before I forget, that I started going through Mozilla's HTML course. I more or less knew most of the stuff in there, as I've fiddled around with HTML a few times, but it was still enlightening. Mostly because I learnt how to set the character encoding for a document, which apparently is set to UTF8 by default in Neocities, but when I copied the HTML for this site, I somehow managed to cut off the first few lines, and Neocities was kind enough to ignore the lack of DOCTYPE and <head> for me. (I also learnt how to insert < and >, if you were wondering.) So, now that I have that fixed, I can type in Japanese. すごい！That makes my life easier. Expect to see lots of poorly written, simplistic Japanese from here on out.

I should really be going to bed now... I have family visiting tomorrow. Hopefully isn't too much of a hassle. And, hopefully, I'll have some more time to learn a bit more HTML. It's pretty dull reading about it, but fun enough testing it out.

Sleep even better, everyone.

Wednesday, February 28th

Another day, another dollar. Let's scream and shout and yell and hollar.

Today was mostly a good day. Shorter day at work, but I had some positively obtuse customers that balance the day out. Can't have one day be too good, you know? But I can't complain too much, one customer was so very sweet to me.

I finished my 40 new Anki cards for the day before I even got to work. I couldn't possibly have expected this, but somehow it's so much quicker studying when I don't keep a Google doc open to make notes of all the new cards. Maybe I should ditch that doc entirely, I almost never use it to check words... I have a dictionary app on my phone that lets me look up kanji, too, so I don't know if I really need this doc at all. I think it probably does help me remember the words a tiny bit better, what with the retyping it all out and all, but just running through the cards a few more times should keep me from losing that bit. I'm actually thinking about possibly extending my 40 card goal. Maybe... I'll try to do 40 cards everyday for the entirety of March. It'll be difficult, but I'll let myself have 2 free days I can take whenever I either can't study or just don't want to. There's 31 days in March, so if you subtract the two free days, that's 29 days of study. 29x40=1160 cards. That's a pretty decent chunk done. I'll do my best to stick to it. (And, of course, I'll still have that coffee after the original week is done. Four days done so far! Should I decide on a reward to give myself if I complete Memorization March? Aah, it's so hard deciding on a reward, because I always let myself give in to desires anyways.)

Last night, on a whim, I downloaded Yokai Watch on my 3DS in Japanese. I haven't actually reached any yokai yet, but I'm having a blast catching bugs in a Japanese suburb. But I do have to say... It's humiliating not knowing what these tiny children are saying all the time :(. Also, my mom saw me on my 3DS and went "Gamer! Gamer!" I never should have let her learn that word.

Have to go now. Dinner time. Later.

Tuesday, February 27th

Today... was a pretty good day. I'm saying that mostly just because I took a lovely six hour nap before dinner, but even ignoring that, it was a nice day, I think. I had a doctor's appointment in the morning, which was relatively quick and easy (just had to say that my current regimen is working and then schedule another appointment in six months), and I waited there long enough that I was able to do my 40 new Anki cards. Actually, I did 50. I'm going to be a little bit of a cheater here. On Sunday, I did 30 cards, but was too tired to do another ten, so I'm going to cheat and say that my extra ten cards today means I did 40 altogether on Sunday. Which means, I'm currently three days through my 40 card challenge. Maybe I'll increase it to another week. (Of course, I'll still let myself have that bottled coffee after the first week is done. Hehe.)

Yesterday night, my sister and I did end up watching a bit of anime and eating some of that pasta. It was nice, but I very quickly got distracted with whittling my time away by watching stupid videos that did not bring me any new information or understanding or even happiness. But that's life for you. In my defense, I opened up Muramasa and it closed again almost as soon as I hit "load". What was I supposed to do? Open it back up?

I don't have much else to say, I don't think... I took a six hour nap today. Didn't have time to do much else. I think... I will take a walk before it gets too late, though.

Have a lovely day. Do something you enjoy today.

Monday, Feburary 26th

What a day... Again. Actually, I was in a pretty good mood for much of today, but something shocking and upsetting happened to one of my coworkers. Refraining from talking too much about it for both their privacy and my own, but it really put a damper on the whole day. I believe they're okay, though, so I won't linger on this. I think that would only serve to satisfy myself that I can react in a normal way when something shocking happens. But that applies to the rest of this paragraph too, really...

I've decided to set myself a little temporary goal. I have trouble setting daily goals, because some time or other I'll have to miss a day, and that just makes it so much easier to miss another day, and then another, and another... So, instead, I like to set longer-term goals (like, instead of deciding to learn five new words everyday, I'll decide to learn 150 words over the next month) or shorter, temporary goals. For instance, for the next seven days, I think I'll try to add forty new cards to my Anki deck each day. That definitely isn't a pace I know I could keep up for longer than two, maybe three weeks, but for just one, I definitely can. And I bought a sweet bottled coffee as a little reward for when I finish it.

I haven't talked about how I usually study here, have I...? I'm saying that as though I have written more than 300 words on here. Hehe. Well... I don't currently have a regular study schedule, but I do my Anki reviews every day and I add more cards when I have the energy, plus I have been reading some Graded Readers. Just finished grades 0 and 1, started on 2, and... some of the grammar is already unfamiliar to me. So, I'm going back to working through Genki. I also have the whole textractor+yomitan thing set up so I can play through Virtue's Last Reward again and have that count as studying. I wanted to do 999, but for some reason, it won't load properly... Always something acting up no matter what.

Tonight, I think I'll watch some anime with my sister and have some instant pasta. And if she isn't in the mood for that... then perhaps I will finally take a coding tutorial or two, or maybe I'll keep playing Virtue's Last Reward, or maybe maybe I'll keep playing Muramasa. I'll probably keep playing Muramasa.

I don't think I have much else to talk about now. Trying to add more fiber to my diet. Have a short pile of books I want to read. It feels like there's so much to do and I just don't have time, no matter how much time I actually do have. Maybe it's just because I'm young, or maybe in spite of that fact. I just want to feel satisfied with how I feel.

Sunday, Feburary 25th

What a day... It was kind of just one of those days... So bored at work... The most exciting part of my day was when my migraine made me nauseated. All I could think about was how much I wanted to go home so I could complain online. So... let's just get all those complaints out of the way real quick. I was so nauseous I almost left early! Time went by impossibly slowly! I was stuck with the annoying assignment! The bathroom was out of toilet paper! My socks were too short! My pant legs too! I swallowed my gum! I saw three people with Naruto shirts and not a single one with a Hunter x Hunter shirt!

Now then... Kindly forget that you read all that.

One thing I like to do when I'm bored at work is to think to myself "It might look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm writing the next great American novel up here," and imagine that I tapped my head. This is funny to absolutely nobody except myself, because I do not tell that to anyone, because nobody asks me what I'm doing while I'm at work. Which is probably a good thing. I just know I'd be too deadpan in my delivery and convince someone that one, I am writing a novel (untrue), and two, that I believe it really could be that good (also untrue). I do wanna get back into writing, though... But I don't have any ideas for absolutely anything. Maybe later in life, or maybe just whenever I have a dream wacky enough to kick off a whole plotting session.

Save me Fullmetal Daemon Muramasa... Save me...

I wrote a bit out in Japanese as practice and also to complain, but it got nerfed when I viewed it out of the editing page... As I expected. I wonder if I could use the example text tags to protect it... Maybe later. Too tired to retype it. Anyways, later haters.

Saturday, February 24th

Guess who's been tired all day... I had today and yesterday off, so I don't think I can really "justify" this tiredness, but who cares. Sometimes a bitch is tired. I studied some Japanese today (Genki chapter eight, sections 1-3), and found it very illuminating. I've been reading picture books and visual novels that use informal speech a lot, but didn't really know how it worked or what quite it was. I can just use the dictionary form of a verb??? Feels illegal quite frankly.

In other news, I recently got contact info for not just one but TWO coworkers, and I've talked with them a tiny bit out of work. I've never been good at making friends, so this feels quite nice. I still don't know whether I can really classify them as "friends," though. I'm not willing to take that step first.

I read some Fullmetal Daemon Muramasa today, and had a lot of fun with it. I found out yesterday that it was regarded as one of the most difficult visual novels to translate, and now I wanna make a goal to read it in Japanese after I get (a lot) better at it. Can't imagine how tough that would be... It's difficult just to read it in English. I need a vocab list or something.

Overall... a pretty nice day, although I'm in a restless sort of mood. Might just be dehydrated, though. Never changing my hydration habits.