been trying to read fanfic/short stories in japanese every day, still just working on adding kanji to my pop-up dictionary..... even though i know a "lot", there's still a ton i don't know so it's really frustrating. and even though i can read with the DICTIONARY, that doesn't necessarily mean i can without it.

these two dazai stories were okay, i plan to read more:
• http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/1589_18111.html (i've already practically memorized an english translation of this so even if i were to get stuck....)
• http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/42363_15873.html (read this in school so again, can't really get stuck on it at this point)

this fanfic is super easy; i don't know all the words but since it's really cliché, isn't doing anything fancy with words/grammar/sentence structure, i can figure it out with the dictionary and don't have many problems
• https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=8192324

this one however is too hard for me at the moment (though i'm trying it anyway, it's frustratingly difficult looking up all the kanji meanings and stuff)
• https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=7666616

generally speaking, the news is actually easier to read than fiction. in fiction you have bits of sentences, description etc that's just completely random AND often using poetic/rare words or words in a non-everyday-way in general. the news is "there was a river at x place", fiction is "in the pitch-black twilight darkness of the cold, lonely night there was a dried-up, dusty river at the previously-unknown-to-him x place". sigh. the news has a ton of "rare" words like place/people names, detailed geography vocabulary etc so it's difficult in its own way, but not sentence-structure or grammar-wise.

sometimes i also can't think of an esperanto word to describe the kanji, which is frustrating... for example "murky". apparently no such word in esperanto. i wrote something like "mud-cloud-like unclear" but uh that's not what i want. dict has 1706 entries now, lately i've been adding in a lot of compound words but hopefully after a long while i'll be able to remove most of them by just updating the definitions for the individual kanji they contain.

i keep having ups and downs where i feel like going to japan is impossible, in the sense that 1. something will go wrong and i can't go or have to come back fast (ex. problem with my student loan going into my bank account, problem getting VISAs), 2. something will happen to me in general (ex. i'll suddenly die). i know it's ridiculous, and i'm not DWELLING on it, but the thoughts do crop up. haven't cleaned my room or sorted out my bank card or the disability money yet. i think part of the problem is that my wife's been constantly negative about japan ever since i started this whole process - she doesn't even care about japan so she's not even excited about going there. despite that even if you ignore everything else, she should be super excited just to get out of this abusive house.

on top of that is... i've been dreaming of going to japan practically every day of my life since i was SEVEN. that's almost 20 years. it sort of feels like once i go there i'll have died. like the rest of my life was just a long, bad dream being the prelude to my actual life. not just that i'll have "died" but that in japan i'll also be a "real adult": doing all the stuff adults do (going to concerts? hanging out with friends/coworkers? i can even visit a gay bar or go hang out with old ladies if i want to etc). it feels like my self-reservation and stuff like that will fall away. i'm pretty sure this is just one of many weird symptoms of depression; going to japan shouldn't make me think i'll be a completely different person once i get there, you know? it's not even my first time living in a foreign country.

BUT, japanese IS already "freeing" me. every day i'm talking to normal, non-depressed even, japanese people; something i don't (apparently) do in english or swedish. i really watch what i say ("this is just my opinion but..."), say please and thank you (stuff i really don't say in english/swedish...), and it's just natural. it's not fake. i've started reading the news, i read amateur short stories, manga, doujinshi, listen to music and occasionally the radio. i don't follow the news in any other language. i don't listen to the radio (by my own free will) in swedish. i've already found TONS of similarities between my life and these japanese guys' lives (ex. how their parents treat them, what they do when they're just sitting at home, even their holidays). it's not everything of course, but ex. O Bon is literally just the 4th of July except O Bon has the pretext of your dead relatives coming to visit. you have a fire/barbeque in your backyard, you have fireworks and relatives over, you probably go to a neighbourhood/community party = exactly the same. or, simply just the fact that we've seen the same anime and played the same videogames can go really far. and they, even if they actually hate japan, really like it when YOU like japan and have a real interest in what they're doing etc. so to someone like me who genuinely loves almost everything about japan, everyone's really friendly and nice.

i don't know how i'll feel once i actually get there, or what will happen to me during the exchange. seriously every time i think about it it's like "but i'll be dead then, i can't know the afterlife". but i just feel like... i just have to get there. i honestly feel like my luck with japan has been so good so far, i could probably get a job in like one week as soon as i start looking. (my plan is to start looking in september/december, after i've gotten used to the place... but if an opportunity comes knocking i won't turn it down!)