Hey!

Last week, I kind of messed up because there were a lot of things going on, but at the same time I didn’t have much to write about. So instead of posting just a short update (as I should have), I posted nothing. At least I posted a new Japan post a few days later.

“My Japan Journey” - Behind The Scenes

I wanted to have a little meta talk about writing the “My Japan Journey” series. As I have written at the end of the last post, most of the things came from my memory so far. But starting from the first actual day there, the memories get kind of hazy. I remember a few things, but not much to be honest. But in today’s world, there is some kind of record of nearly everything. So for the future posts, I will try to find as many clues about what I did, use those to get back my memories, and write it down as a blog post. I’m talking about schedules given out by the university, photos, chat logs, calendar entries, stuff like that. I hope I will be able to reconstruct a lot in this process, and I’m also looking forward to kind of live through all that a second time.

Journaling

In the last couple of days, I spend a lot of time thinking about and researching journaling. This was partly triggered by not having a proper record of my time in Japan, even though it was such an important time for me. I went down a rabbit hole of trying journaling apps, reading lots of Reddit posts, looking for blog articles that help start this habit, and so on.

One of the blog posts I found is called I wish someone told me to start journaling sooner.. Here is a quote taken out of that post:

For me a journal is more than a history of my thoughts. It’s an act of reflection, and a way to live deliberately. I journal to avoid being an aimless zombie. Before journaling I had nothing to do with my hopes and goals. They were just ideas that resurfaced every once in a while. Journaling gives you a place to better understand yourself, to plan your goals, and to followup.

This and a few other posts made me realize how much I want to have this in my life as well. Imagine being able to jump back to any date in the past and know what you have done on that day. There was a girl on Reddit who has been constantly keeping a digital journey ever since 5th grade! That is really impressive.

As for apps, I decided to start off with Day One. It’s probably the most used journaling app within the Apple ecosystem, but it’s also really expensive. I thought there must be a reason why so many people are using it, so I’m trying it out. So far, I really like it, and if I can keep the journaling up for the next few weeks, I will probably end up spending the money for the yearly subscription. At least I know that they have a steady revenue to be able to develop this app and hopefully not abandon it in the near future. Also, even if they shut down at some point, it offers a really good exporting functionality so there’s a high chance that the data can be imported into another app.

I can also recommend a series about journaling on their blog for anyone starting out to journal. Most of it is applicable to journaling in general, not only to Day One.

Update on Living Vegan

If you followed my blog, you might know that I’m trying to live vegan for this month. Apart from the two exceptions I talked about in an earlier post, it’s been going really great! I don’t really miss anything in particular (maybe cheese), and I think I could (and probably will) go on with this after October is over. I might not be as strict about it as I am now, but I believe this is the way to go. I’ve also made sure to take my B12 supplement every day, as it’s the only thing you really can’t get on a vegan diet (although there are a few other nutrients to keep in mind as well).

The only thing I’m kind of concerned about (in regards to living vegan) is going back to Japan. Before going there, I was basically vegetarian, but I quickly gave up on that and just ate everything after arriving. I don’t think it was necessarily a bad decision because I was able to taste most of the typical Japanese dishes (and nearly all of them contain fish or meat of some kind). But for the future, I want to at least stay on a vegetarian diet even when I’m in other countries. I know it’s possible even in Japan, but it’s way harder than for example here in Germany (Germany has had a huge growth when it comes to vegetarianism and veganism). It’s also harder to socialize because you’re always the one who needs special treatment when going out for a meal (imagine going for shabu-shabu as a vegetarian). But, if I really want to commit to this, I will be able to deal with that as well. (Let me clarify here already that I WILL make exceptions for sushi. Sushi is Life. ❤️🍣)

Getting Up Early

This week, I managed to get up at 7 every day. I’m really proud of that and I hope I can keep this habit from now on. :)

Running

I went running twice this week, which is a lot compared to the recent weeks. I’m completely out of breath after 3 or 4 km already, but I guess that’s to be expected after not really running for so long.

Japanese

First of all, my Japanese studying is going pretty well! I should be ahead on my kanji studies for the JLPT and vocabulary is also going well. Today, I also finally started on grammar, and I will incorporate grammar into my daily Anki session from now on.

I also finished another Anki Japanese notebook! This is the third one I’ve finished since starting the first one last summer. You can see it on my Instagram post.

I will try to write the next Japan post soon, but as we have a big family event on Friday, I’m not sure when I’ll get it done. I’ll make sure that there’s at least one new blog post until next Sunday. ☺️