Kay > Recent Status Updates

This seems like the kind of book where I’ll only really enjoy the ending, so after listening to Week 0, I listened to Week 6, and now I’m listening to everything in between so that Week 6 will hit me harder when I listen to it again.

This is just a note to myself, that I’m at the story Windseekers, so I know where to pick back up again once the audiobook version becomes available at the library.

I’m technically in the middle of Bakasi Man, but Windseekers is the one story (so far) that I haven’t been able to finish. Maybe I just need someone to read it to me (as opposed to reading it myself).

Spider the Artist is my favorite story of the collection so far.

I have yet to find a short story collection that is comprised solely of stories I enjoy.

Okorafor is, perhaps, a little too good at writing characters that aren’t all that likable, and I honestly really love her for that.

I’m so upset at the idea of this book ending.

A friend introduced me to Charles de Lint when I was in college. His stories weren't for me at the time, but my tastes have since changed and I've also discovered the magic of audiobooks, which (it turns out) are really really great for things you want to read, but for some reason struggle to read.

I've only listened to the first story so far, and I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to consuming the rest.

Judging by just the first chapter, this is going to be a 3-star read for me. I really want more than that right now, so I’m going to pause this for now and try again in the future.

I'm getting a lot out of this, but it's a (necessarily) slow read and I'm not sure I can finish it before it's due back to the library in 5 days.

So, this is me giving myself permission not to rush. I'll finish the current chapter, return this to the library, and buy the paperback version when it comes out on March 16th.

Honestly, this sounds like a dream school.

I've tried to read this in Japanese a few times over the years, and always stopped reallyearly on because I wasn't interested enough in the story to struggle through it.

This time around, I'm interested in the story and (comparatively speaking) breezing through it, which makes a little sense because it's hard to be interested in something you're not comprehending.

Starting from the beginning again today.

I'm almost 100% positive this aligns with my current reading-in-Japanese level, which is exciting after struggling through two and a half books.

My goal is to finish this by the end of the year. In the meantime, I'm going to have to figure out my next book (and try to tailor it to my reading level as opposed to simply choosing things I'm curious to read).

Whenever I reach the 70% mark, my instinct is to power through the remainder of a book.

I was not expecting this book to go in this direction, but I'm still here for it.

I took a really long break from reading in Japanese in the mornings. I don't yet know if I'm trying to get back into a routine or if I'm just taking a short break from my break, but I'm already thinking of what I'll read next.

In English, I'm reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, then I'll probably re-read the rest of The Hunger Games, so I'm thinking of Battle Royale for my next in-Japanese read.

I don’t think the fact that Daenerys is 13 fully registered when I first read this book and got to the wedding night scene.

It’s written like a passage from a romance novel in which both participants are consenting adults, except in this scene Daenerys is a literal child and I’m really questioning how much thought went into the decision to make this scene romantic instead of traumatizing.

I started reading A Song of Ice and Fire a few years ago and never got around to the 5th book in the series.

Given the length and familiarity of the series, I felt it would be the perfect backdrop to packing up my apartment in preparation for a move.

So, I'm starting from the beginning, and half-listening through the 3rd or 4th book, after which I'll probably switch to reading.

I can tell I would genuinely enjoy this if I didn't have to pause so frequently to look up unknown words.

I want to be able to just fly through it, fully immersed.

I'm still literal years from that point, however, and I will only get there if I'm consistent about reading in Japanese.

My current strategy is this:

Each morning...

* complete Anki reviews
* read in Japanese for 10+ minutes
* learn one grammar point
* add example sentences for said grammar point to Anki, to be reviewed the following day

We'll see how long I keep this up. So far it's been two days.

It's frustrating knowing it will be another year or two before reading in Japanese is easy. I want to be able to read easily now.

I suppose I should use this feeling as motivation, but this is a marathon--not a sprint--and I'm going to be living with this intermediate canyon frustration for a very long time.

This book was made to be an audio book.

Maybe I can't actually say I'm 32 pages in when my focus has been only the example sentence section of each chapter and I haven't seen the write version of all the Anki cards I created from lesson one yet, but I just saw the final read version of those cards this morning, and I think that's a thing to celebrate.

Of course, as soon as I decide I’m certain I’m setting down the book, I pick it up again.

As interested as I am in this book, it's not the book for me right now. I'm going to set it aside as unfinished, and try again in a few weeks or months or years when I can give it my full attention and the appreciation it deserves.

As of this morning, I've officially seen all the vocabulary cards from level one of this book at least one time in Anki.

It took a really long time--years, in fact--to humble myself enough to feel okay with learning just 5 new words a day, but I'm making steady, consistent daily progress and have felt confident enough to read actual books in Japanese for several months now.

I'm already thinking of reading this again in a year or two, both to gauge my progress with Japanese and because this is exactly my kind of book and I know I'll enjoy it so much more when I'm better at reading in Japanese.

This book is such a pleasure to read in Japanese!

It's interesting. It's easy to understand. It's quite short, so I feel like I'm powering through it. I don't barrel past difficult sentences relying on my memory of a previous read-through; I really do the work to understand because I've never had the pleasure of reading this before and I want to really enjoy it.

10/10 reading in a second language experience so far.

Not gonna lie--it's a little scary to read a book that was originally written in Japanese in Japanese. It might wind up being difficult, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

J.K. Rowling's being a dumpster fire of a human being again--spouting transphobic nonesense on Twitter during Pride month in the middle of world-wide Black Lives Matters protests.

At this point, separating the author from the work would require repeat-olympic-gold-medal-winner levels of mental gymnastics and I am not here for it.

Audiobooks 112% feel like cheating.

That said, I'm really enjoying listening to this while I'm doing other things--household chores, going for walks.

I do find my mind drifting quite a bit, but it doesn't seem more frequent than when I tried reading a few chapters of the physical book a few months ago.

I'm curious to see if listening and reading in tandem helps me focus.