22:03 2026-10-18

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hello hello

thankfully, this diary has no rules, so it doesn't matter if I don't use it that often, no? what? it does? bummer.

I have been doing rather well. well, very well. my treatment isn't perfect, but eating and sleeping properly just does a lot. willpower doesn't magically grow you an appetite... I'm more cognitively available for stuff and I have been using it to do stuff I enjoy, mostly art. I keep forgetting to update that on here!!! but it goes to very small things too. more cognitive ability? I can have the energy to seek out more music, research stuff, try out shit for fun, watch youtube videos... life isn't defined by the amount of shit that is done, because it's an arbitrary made up concept, but when I was too tired to do things I enjoy, there was a problem.

otherwise, I realized that I must absolutely learn japanese. I have some valid reasons to consider japanese universities in around 2 years, but I also got scared by the advent of AI. if people are just gonna MTL shit with no willful artistic intent on the choice of words, then I don't want to read much translated stuff anymore. sure you can direct it using prompts, but it seems like a waste of time to keep reviewing each line and see if your intent was followed through and the AI understood the proper context. doing it yourself is less of a hassle. I think these tools mostly help people who can't translate or understand the original language rather than proficient translators, and thus people who I don't trust to direct translations, as their level of japanese and experience in translation is not enough. the AI shows one way, so the "translator" doesn't have to toil at a sentence, and thus doesn't learn to convey it in other ways and weighting those options together. many problems like that...

well then, why don't you read only human translations? I'm basically afraid of people not disclosing MTL usage or lying about their proficiency, and I wouldn't be able to tell because I don't speak japanese. so the solution is not to give up, but to learn it and stop worrying about this forever, helping me in my own future in the long run.

but, how does one learn japanese?

I'm learning it the hard way: jump in the ocean!

wait, first of all, learn your fucking kanas. I learned them years ago, and because japanese is something I come across often, I never forgot them. but really, it's not that hard. for a week keep writing them on paper or something

anyways

there are one trillion guides for setting up anki, yomitan and textractor and such (ex: learnjapanese.moe, donkuri, and so on). these are paramount and should be installed and ready. get a vocabulary deck like kaishi, read a grammar guide (ex: yoku.bi, more exist, I'm lazy), and then immediately jump into reading. but, but! I haven't finished kaishi! I can't understand this sentence at all! I'm not ready! ahhh!!!

unless what you are reading is absolute noise, this isn't an excuse, but actually the thing holding you back severely. I never learned english from textbooks and tutorials. I learned it from loving video games as a kid. I downloaded video game roms in english because I was too stupid to figure out that there are different roms for the french version. stuff like that. as a kid I didn't stop when I didn't understand a sentence, I kept playing, and thus exposed myself to more sentences. maybe even eventually understood what I didn't understand through the words being in different contexts and sentences. as a kid I was okay with uncertainity, and as an adult, I have to be too. fear of failure, of the unknown, defines us adults too much, killing our curiosity and ability to create from little. I doubt I had the perfect setup to learn english as a kid, but I learned it anyways. it's all concepts like that. of course, if you meet an unfamiliar word that helps you undersand a sentence, or similarly to that, a grammar point, look it up, add it to a mining deck, and keep reading. you will reinforce it in your memory using anki later. the more you read the less you will be afraid, and the more you will learn to swim in the ocean. you can't learn swimming in the ocean by watching swimming tutorials, although they can help.

you have to jump! gambaro!

(also be consistent of course... do it every day, even a little, and you'll make it...)