If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about myself during all this journaling about my studies and research, it’s that I’m very much all or nothing kind of personality.l

What do I mean by that?

I mean that when I’m in the zone and studying, researching, working on spreadsheets, analyzing data, I’m in the zone and it’s hard to snap me out of it.

On the flip side, when I get sucked into YouTube videos, I can also get sucked in for hours at a time. 

I think I’m going to have to literally just talk to myself out loud to remind myself what I should be doing.

Also, I need to just say out loud that what I’m doing is either a good use of my time or a waste of time.

I think just getting the idea out into reality instead of keeping it inside my brain will be helpful.

I finally caught up on a lot of vocabulary and Kanji flashcards yesterday and need to catch up on my Kanji writing practice flashcards tomorrow.

I ate a lot of junk food tonight and stayed up really late and totally messed myself up. 

Too much sugar, processed food, messed up sleep, body feels like crap.

Why do I do this to myself?

Man i need to control these sugar and snack urges, they totally mess my nights up, which in turn mess up the following day for me.

Sole good rules to follow I think:

1a. By myself, don’t eat after 6pm

1b. With friends and family, try not to eat so late, and if so, limit the quantity as much as possible and try to drink a lot of water instead of indulging and eating.

2. Sleep by 10:30pm

Okay, this is weird.

I was doing well regularly studying my flashcards, but now that I’ve incorporated the video and audio lessons, I kind of fell off off track.

I think I need to start the day off right and just knock the flashcards out of the park, then I can get to the easier video and audio lessons.

The thing is, I’m just passively listening to the audio and video, whereas the flashcards are more active and require more focus and energy.

So I should aim to just do them as early in the morning as possible when I have the most willpower.

Today was a very productive day!

I did a lot of analyses of Japanese verbs and Japanese helping verbs and came up with so many discoveries!

If you have ever studied Japanese before, you might be thinking “WTF helping verbs? We never learned about helping verbs in Japanese class!”

Well, I drew a lot of inspiration from YouTuber Cure Dolly’s videos on Japanese grammar and played with Pahanngana (my modified Korean alphabet).

I also found a lot more direct comparisons between Korean and Japanese, things that no one else has ever talked about before.

I’m so excited that I just want to make a lot of videos about my discoveries.

However, I’m kind of waiting for Apple to launch their new Apple Silicon 13 Inch MacBook Pro . . . They need to hurry up!

I’m studying my Japanese video and audio lessons on a spaced repetition schedule, which is  very different than a normal study schedule.

Most schools and curricula are basically like this:

Unit 1

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Unit 1 (Lesson 1-3 Review)

Unit 2

Lesson 4

Lesson 5

Lesson 6

Unit 2 Review (Lessons 4-6 Review)

I’ve taught at schools before with textbooks like these and have used textbooks like these before, and the best ones use information from previous lessons and build on top of each other so that you are reviewing what you already learned while at the same time learning new information.

At worst, the lessons are completely disjointed and do not have any kind of logical ordering, structuring or progression.

(I would  say that most English textbooks in Korea are like this.)

So what I’m doing is actually something like this:

Day 1: Lesson 1

Day 2: Lesson 1 (review), 2 

Day 3: 2, 3, 

Day 4: 1, 3, 4

Day 5: 2, 4, 5

Basically, I’m not only reviewing the immediate past lessons, but I’m also reviewing lessons that I studied a long time ago.

For example, my future plan might look like this:

Day 30: 1, 9, 17, 24, 26, 28, 30

The lessons all before 30 would be kind of like skimming reviews, not as intense as the initial first lesson, but would still be good to keep the information in my mind.

Okay, so today I finally got back on track with a very clean diet.

I made sure to prep all my meals and everything first thing in the morning and I had much less urge to get snacks and stuff when I was out and about during the day.

However, for some reason, my energy that I used to spend on studying flashcards seems to have disappeared.

I think I need to just schedule it in and stick to it.

So I’m going to study my flashcards from 4pm to 7pm. 

Well, at the very least, I should study from 4pm to 5pm.

I’ve been watching a lot of videos of Japanese lessons these days.

It’s really easy to do since all I have to do is press play and just listen.

Today, I listened to lots of video lessons and audio lessons.

However, I didn’t really study flashcards today.

I need to think about what conditions are ideal for studying and what are not ideal for studying.

When I sit in front of the computer, it’s hard for me to study my flashcards.

Interesting, I find it really easy to study while lying on my bed.

Maybe I should just schedule that out – like 4pm – 6pm studying on my bed.

So my study plan is getting more solidified and all I have to do is just follow it.

If all goes according to plan, I should be a high JLPT N4 / Low JLPT N3 by December.

That’s actually a pretty good pace.

It feels so strange to finally actually be making progress on Japanese.

I had always wanted to learn Japanese to a high level, and I kind of started learning back in middle school or high school, I don’t remember exactly, but I didn’t know anything about learning languages and I guess I never had a system to stick to to ensure that I would follow through.

So the tentative plan, it seems, is to get to an unofficial JLPT N4 by 1/1/2021, and then definitely get an N3 when I take the official test in July 2021.

So far I have my N5 to N4 schedule planned out until January 2021, and I’ll have to make a new JLPT N3 schedule once I get there.

I’m not sure what books or materials I’ll use, but I’ll probably have to use some JLPT N3-focused textbook or online learning materials since I need to ensure that I pass the N3 test for sure.

Wow, tonight was an absolutely phenomenal night! 

I was doing some Japanese grammar and sound pattern analyses while listening to some really great Japanese grammar lessons online and I came up with some amazing breakthroughs and discoveries!

I really want to share them with people, I have so much to do it’s driving me crazy @_@

The crux of what I’m trying to explain to people is that my new alphabet, Pahanngana, is the best tool out there to really clearly and concisely explain how the sounds Japanese language really work.

And if you know how the logic of the sounds work, the grammar naturally falls into place.

The catch is I first have to teach people how my alphabet works . . . hahaha

Oh no, I did it again.

I ended up staying up really late but not accomplishing as much as I should have today.

So what happened?

I spent a huge chunk of my time today watching some esports games.

It’s the finals, and I’ve promised myself that I’m going to stop watching after the finals are over.

The finals ended around 11 pm, and I felt hungry.

I should have just gone to sleep, but when it’s late at night, my willpower is very weak, and worst of all, I live next to several 24 hour convenience stores.

I’m going to have to promise myself to just go to sleep or drink water instead of getting a late night snack.

Also, when I do get a late night snack/meal it takes me 15-30 minutes to get everything and prep it, 30 or so more minutes to eat it, and then when I’m done, I can’t sleep for a couple more hours.

Then I end up staying up even later without having accomplished anything.

I need to retrain my brain to associate that feeling of night hunger to my brain telling me to just go to sleep.