Season ONE: Dazai Osamu, Daffodil

Day 11

May 1, 2025

Picked up this evening with the ている episode…

Last night I’d gone through the two videos in this module and spent a bit of time trying to make sense of things, but as I noted…, the evening was more about unwinding than studying. My approach to making a goal pay off is to recognize in the beginning (and at all points throughout) there are times when it’s just impossible to put in a really solid effort. And that is okay. My goal is to, at the very least, show up. And, that’s what I did last night.

I got this idea from P90X creator, Tony Horton, and some other cats I can’t recall… all of whom suggested it is important to go to the gym every day EVEN if you don’t work out; following their advice paid off in spades years ago when I’d spent a decent amount of dough to join Kobe’s Gold’s Gym in order to get my butt back in shape.

At first, I would commute a few hours before I needed to be in the classroom, and if I wasn’t feeling it, or simply running late, I’d just take a shower and head into work. A few times in the very, very beginning I’m pretty sure I’d maybe just do the bike for ten minutes, or do a few curls… stuff that was so insignificant as to not matter. But, at least I was THERE. That was kinda the idea last night as well. Just show up.

Today, I was here to actually “work out,” and that is what I did! It was a long session, and my brain hurts with all the kanji I had to hand-write to make some sense of the practice sheet exercises. I had three questions to address, and got two out of three wrong. But (!) Reiko reviewed things with me when I was done to let me know my mistakes, and to go over some of the sample verb conjugation this section of the exercise had me playing with. You can see them in the picture. Additionally, writing out all that kanji and thinking about what it was I was reading and writing placed those words in me in ways I won’t know until I see them again, which… will probably be really soon. This effort of writing things down and going slow works. JUST like in the gym, actually.

Re: the conjugation Reiko and I were doing together… I remain impressed with how much our verb conjugation course has helped me make sense of conjugating Japanese verbs… I’m very much still learning, but it has helped tremendously. It’s like verbs, supporting verbs, auxiliaries and particles leap out at me now, whereas before I’d be hard-pressed to know where a word began and ended. It’s incredible, actually. Still learning…

This ている episode was and is informative, and as I alluded to yesterday, there is a lot to it. You can see most of the takeaways in my notes if you’re in need of a refresher. I have two more exercises within the practice sheet to go… I’ll do them tomorrow. I think it’s two?!

So that’s it for tonight. Cheers until tomorrow.

D

P.S. My pal, Andy, has finished Week ONE! He’s going through the course with me right now as well. He’s great support and amazingly dedicated. You will want to work with him if you live in England and looking for a private instructor or tutor of Japanese. Find him here. He is fantastic.

Time spent: @ 1.5 hours
Completed Anki deck: Still, no. I will fix this problem next week. It is 100% a planning problem.
Start time: 9:00pm
End time: 10:35pm