So one thing that I’ve been thinking about is how my thought process is when I stay up late at night.

I’ve been thinking about the story I’m telling myself – why do I keep staying up late at night?

I came to realize that if I’ve ended up staying up late at night, I’ve made some terrible mistakes.

By terrible mistakes, I mean:

• My diet was was off
  • I ate a ton of junk food
  • I didn’t follow my diet plan
• I didn’t start my day off right
  • I watched videos and read lots of random internet articles when I should have just started studying
• I kept on saying to myself “Oh, I’ll do it later, I’ll do it later”

So today I started my day off by studying the Korean-Japanese vocabulary flashcards.

Normally I do the Kanji flashcards first because they are more fun and interesting to me.

Basically, studying Kanji flashcards has become effortless to me.

However, I find that I tend to put off studying the vocabulary flashcards until the very end of the day – when I have the least amount of energy and willpower left in me, and then I find that even just getting through 5 to 10 minutes of vocab flashcards is a willpower struggle.

I think I’m going to keep up this vocabulary flashcard study first thing in the morning.

They are really important, not really difficult, just time consuming.

And I think I need a lot of that morning willpower to power through them.

Hopefully as time goes on, it will become easier and more of a habit, and I won’t have to rely on willpower to get through them.

One concept that I’ve known about for a while and that I have been implementing for my studies is spaced repetition.

This is the idea where you space out your studies in an optimal way so you don’t waste time with your studies.

You review the information right at the point you are about to forget it.

I’ve been using the flashcard app Anki for many years for my Korean studies in the past.

So what I’m doing with audio lessons is that I’m going to space out audios from 2 Japanese lessons playlists – Minna no Nihongo and Cure Dolly Japanese.

2020 has been a pretty crazy year, to say the least.

It’s been a pretty tough year for me as well.

In any case, I was watching some YouTube videos made by some fellow content creators, and I happened to watch a really funny video which was basically the Zoom call version of the Bachelor.

It was basically one full hour of nonstop belly laughs.

I think that’s one thing that has been missing for me throughout this 2020.

The laughter, the connection, things like that.

In the video I watched, the bachelor is part of a group of streamers and content creators that all live together and basically work together.

I keep thinking to myself – man I need that kind of group, to keep myself motivated and keep myself going, working, studying, and creating content.

I guess I’ll just have to make it myself.

So one thing that I’ve been pretty successful with is bets.

I did two weight loss bets last year and I won both of those bets.

Not only that, but I helped several friends lose weight.

However a lot of those same friends who joined me I’m that bet have since gained a lot of weight back, plus change.

So I’m thinking of maybe starting up another weight loss bet to make sure that everyone loses weight for 2021.

Also, I think I have solidified a more solid study and research plan.

I think I need to add publishing (pages for my website, YouTube videos, Instagram pictures, etc) to the schedule as well.

One thing that I’ve been thinking about for a long time is just attending an actual language school.

I’ve met a lot of people who went to a Korean language school, Japanese language school, etc. for 1 or 2 years and then they came out really fluent in the languages that they studied.

For some reason, I’ve never done it myself, but is something that I’ve thought would be interesting and beneficial to me.

Well, we’ll see. 

If I can get a scholarship to study in either Japan or Korea, I may end up going to a language school anyway.

But maybe I should have done it earlier.

Oh well, it’s no use to regret or dwell on the past. Just gotta keep moving forward.

I was talking to a friend recently on a call about how our personal projects are going.

We’re kind of working on our own projects separately, and while we have been making progress, we were talking about Twtich streamers who live together, college students living at dormitories, and digital nomads who rent a house together and how great it must be to have like minded people next to you.

And while everyone may be working on their own separate projects, they can still bounce ideas off of each other and help each other and motivate each other in person. 

I think I need to find more people like this.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that the rest of my day is very much affected by what I do first in the morning.

So for example, if I each junk food in the morning, I tend to eat more junk throughout the day.

Also, I tend to do a lot of bad and lazy habits such as watching YouTube and reading random websites.

Also, when I start the day off with my studies and listening to Japanese audio, I tend to keep studying throughout the day.

So I need to make sure that every day I start the day off right and strong, and then keep that positive momentum going throughout the rest of the day.

I’ve been studying a lot of flashcards and it’s really interesting to see your progress happening in real time.

The more fun and enjoyable flashcards to me are the Chinese character flashcards, and the more boring ones, or the ones where I feel like I’m just slogging through them are the vocabulary flashcards.

But I think that it’s just because they are so new and I’m trying to cram as much information into my brain and quickly as possible.

I’m also surprised at how little basic Japanese vocabulary I actually know, but it still feels good to see the progress I’m making.

One Japanese resource that I’ve known about for a while is “Cure Dolly.”

If that name sounds strange to you, you’re not alone.

A quick google search will also yield similarly strange results, since the creator of the Cure Dolly YouTube videos and website uses a digital character to narrate the videos, instead of showing herself.

I remember the first couple times I watched Cure Dolly videos, I thought it was one of the weirdest and most surreal things I had ever seen – the weird part of YouTube.

However, I’ve been watching a lot more of her videos and they are by far some of the best videos and explanations about how the Japanese language really works.

The way she breaks down the “logic” of Japanese, step-by-step, and builds upon each lesson on a very logical progression – it’s truly genius.

I’m actually taking a lot of notes from her videos and i think I can apply her method of breaking down the Japanese language to breaking down the Korean language.

I think her methods and explanations will be useful for to compare the Korean and Japanese languages in more detail.