Long time no see, I’m finally back!

I feel a little ashamed because in the last post I wrote “There will definitely be a new update post next Sunday”, but there never was a post. The days before the Denmark vacation were really busy with work, in Denmark my mind was somewhere else all the time, and after Denmark I kind of needed a vacation after the vacation. 🙈 But that’s how life is.

There are a few things I’d like to talk about today. Let me start with something that I already mentioned.

Denmark

In 2010, our group of friends from school and some classmates went on a kind of farewell vacation to Denmark. We rented a house there for a week and had a good time relaxing, going to the beach, watching movies, and so on. That was the start of a great tradition. Every year since then we’ve been going to Denmark with our group of friends. The group always changes a little. Some people stop coming, new people join us, sometimes people join again after a few years of absence. This year we were a group of 32 people, exactly double of our initial group size in 2010! We were a little worried about the amount of people, but everything was surprisingly calm and everyone was getting along just fine. Of course there were a few issues that are nearly unavoidable with this many people, but none of those were a big problem.

I really love this tradition because we have an amazing group of friends and most of them I only see a few times a year, so it’s great to spend a week with them. The house we’ve been renting (we haven’t changed it in the last 4 years I think) is really nice and big, the beach is awesome, and everyone is having a great time. I’m looking forward to our next Denmark vacation!

Denmark group photo

JLPT

I finally applied to take the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) this winter! I wanted to do it this summer, but I missed the application deadline. Because of the additional six months of preparation (well, only two are left now…) I decided to try the N2 which is the second highest level out of five levels. It’s definitely ambitious and I still have a lot of things to study, but I believe I can do it. The test is on Sunday, 3 December 2017. Wish me luck!

Plans for October

I addition to studying Japanese a lot, there are a few things I’d like to tackle this month:

  1. Veganism
  2. Getting up early
  3. Learning iOS programming

Some remarks on each of these:

  1. Veganism: In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to eat vegan more and more. The catalyst was talking to a good friend of mine when she was visiting me at the end of July. I’m mostly eating vegan already, but I’m doing a lot of exceptions, like ordering pizza or eating cake and sweets. This month, I want to be a little stricter with this and only eat vegan food. The only exceptions will be on family events. There will be at least two family birthdays I’m attending and while I already told them I’m not going to eat meat, I won’t be super picky about strictly eating vegan while I’m there. I’m already the only vegetarian in the family as far as I know, so I don’t want to be the annoying person who has to ask what’s in there about every single piece of food (well, not yet at least).

  2. Getting up early: At the beginning of this year, I managed to start a great morning routine. I always got up at 6:30, went for a run, took a shower, ate breakfast, and did my Anki. Except for the last part (sometimes I did Anki later in the day), this was consistent for most of January and February. And it felt great! For some reason, it’s a relief to know that you’ll get up at a certain time no mater what. But ever since I had a running setback in the beginning of March (due to my knee), I haven’t been able to get back into this routine. Running is not really an option right now, but I want to wake up early again. My goal is to be able to consistently wake up early, let’s say before 7.

  3. Learning iOS programming: At least two times already, I have tried to learn iOS programming, making iPhone apps. Every time it starts out pretty well, but then something comes up and I don’t have the time anymore. But because I have so many app ideas and I really want to be able to make apps, I’m going to try this once again this month. I’m going to make a rough plan today, look up some online classes to take, and make a list of some simple app ideas I can try out. I also want to set specific milestones, something I haven’t done in earlier attempts. For example, I want to publish my first app to the App Store until the end of the year. It’s probably going to be a very simple app, but I really want to be able to say that I have an app in the App Store. 😁 I’ll definitely keep you updated on my progress!

In general, I want to create more. Make apps, make YouTube videos, blog posts, etc. But maybe not everything at the same time, I think that’s a bit much. 😅

I feel a little bad about the lack of blog posts recently, so I want to write more posts really soon! I especially want to continue the “Japan Journey” posts as it is a way for me to refresh my memories. If I’m behind on posts again, hit me up on Twitter or Telegram and tell me to get my shit together, please. 😆

Talk to you soon!