Inspired by this post by Rose and this post by Crimson.

1) Planning

I like to plan little outings every so often when I need something and then just go on them once the day comes – mostly involving hunting for specific things at the shops and/or library trips. However, I don’t plan everything to the letter and sometimes throw entire parts of plans out, depending on my mood, the weather and such.

Likewise, it sounds a little weird but I maintain a Google Keep note with a list of food or drinks I want to get around to eventually (for example, if I have a craving for something, but think it’s too late to bother walking 10 – 15 minutes to the shops). I tend to make different trips depending on this list and what’s available in each area – for instance, I’ve been trying to find an umaibo at certain Asian grocers after seeing one in a mochi Jakurai comic (see point 6), so I’ve planned trips around “a quest to acquire an umaibo” (“umaibo quest” for short)…i.e. I’ve done 2 umaibo quests so far and have failed on both attempts.

2) Matcha

I think I started becoming obsessed with matcha lattes because I got the smallest possible size of matcha latte from a small coffee joint for my birthday in my first year of university and have since been going around, trying a bunch of matcha-flavoured drinks and food – aside from lattes, over the years, there has been mochi, smoothies, doughnuts, cakes, buns, crepes and taiyaki. I guess it doesn’t help 1) I basically gave myself an excuse to learn more about matcha by making a character a master of the tea ceremony and 2) this lil’ dragon (which I occasionaly use Discord emojis of) is also called Matcha, eh?

3) Lonely Planet

Ever since my sibling started dangling the promise of Contiki credit (left over from a trip that couldn’t be taken previously due to COVID), I’ve been reading a bunch of travel blogs…and Lonely Planet-type guides from the library…about things to do in Japan. Lonely Planet second-hand tends to have the maps taken out, but otherwise they can be kept in fairly good condition. Speaking specifically about getting it from the library, the books are far too much for just a single loan period…

(Note if I ever take the credit, I’ll probably do that after I know I’ve aced the JLPT. That’s a carrot I’ve decided to dangle for myself.)

4) Travel blogs

Likewise, reading travel blogs is the next-best thing to watching the Amazing Race and/or actually travelling. I only really read content on places I’ve been to or plan to go to one day, so I probably won’t read a travel guide on, say, South America any time soon…Weirdly enough, I only started reading travel blogs and Lonely Planet in earnest after travel started picking up again in the last year or so.

5) The Amazing Race Asia

Speaking of the Race, DryedMangoez does some recaps of international Amazing Race seasons, so I’ve been going through the Asian season 5 ones. Also, some person thought it would be nice to share that entire season via YouTube after the official channel allegedly didn’t share past episode 2 via streaming , but…that’s between you and me.

…The flip side of having a bunch of Asians (and one Pacific Islander) fluently speaking English on my screen is it’s proof of something deeper; namely, how deep the roots of colonialisation go…but that’s a discussion that’s far too long for this post.

Update: Originally, I thought I was going to have to rely on my rusty Chinese for TAR China and China Rush, but turns out they’re in English too.

6) This fanartist

Jakurai’s birthday was earlier this week, so I can’t help but see the fanart going around. I’ve particularly become fond of this fanartist’s depiction of mochi (<- short for “mochikororin”, a particular style of plushie) Jakurai because mochi Jakurai versus desserts is never not cute.

Context note: I started writing this post in early January 2023, hence the reference to Jakurai’s birthday (January 9th). It has since become February and I now have a mochi Jakurai doujin. Although I don’t have a Jakurai mochi to enjoy it with, I do have a Rosho mochi I shall use as a substitute.

7) Saving money

This seems a little counterintuitive given some of the previous points are about spending money on things, but…there have been a bunch of price hikes in recent months and occasionally it makes me a bit worried about how unaffordable things will be in the far future. I’ve had months where I try to spend as little as possible, so things I miss out on during these months are written down and go into planning for the other months.

8) Alice Oseman books

After reading Loveless, I ended up chasing everything else down. As of the time of writing, I’m only missing 2 volumes of Heartstopper (I know, I could read it online instead, but I gotta support the library somehow…) and the novellas, i.e. This Winter and Nick and Charlie, which I feel would work better if I finished Heartstopper first. My favourite was Radio Silence and I feel like reading Heartstopper and Solitaire simultaneously kind of ruined the former, even though ostensibly you can read any of the works in any order except the Heartstopper volumes have to obviously go in sequence.

Oseman has this particular way of writing action scenes where once the action picks up, the rollercoaster doesn’t stop until said action is over – I was quite bugged by it in I Was Born for This but then it happened again in Solitaire, so I feel like I wouldn’t like an action series by them (<- apparently Oseman uses she/they pronouns).

Sidenote: Why do I keep reading LGBTIAQ+ romance, when I was so opposed to reading heterosexual romance in the past? (Aside from Heartstopper and Nick and Charlie at the time of writing, I’ve also got Red, White and Royal Blue and Felix Ever After in my library TBR.) …well, I guess the best way to explain it is it’s my own way of being comfy in some of the more progressive spaces I’ve come to call home, since both books were recommended by members of the Sounds Fake but Okay Discord.

9) Cleaning things out

My Master’s degree only just finished a week ago, as of the time of writing, so I’m still in the New Year’s/”end of a big life event” cleaning phase. Sometimes, I don’t like cleaning out my old stuff because I remember the stories behind the items I collected and then I get sentimental about it, haha…but some of this purge makes me realise I actually don’t keep a lot of stuff, in comparison to most people, because I’ve been taught to use everything until it’s been fully used (using old clothing as rags, for instance).

10) The Dual Life

I feel like there’s almost a dual life of me as a translator, because now I’m not a student anymore, I’m just a glorified waitperson until I break into the full-time job market (…or so my parents think, ORZ). All my translation is a labour of love until I get the local qualification and/or the JLPT N2 and/or I break into the translation industry some other way (getting a translation-related job, entering a competition etc.).

If you’ll excuse me getting confusing, “Aria Noyed” – the online persona – is a more competent translator than [real name redacted] is. “Aria” has the chance to do more research, to look into the Anki deck, to think more about translation choices. In real life, constraints are added – deadlines, editor’s changes and so on. On top of that, I was dissuaded from having a research project by those above me, whereas other people in my cohort of JPN <-> ENG students would’ve gone on to use theirs (and their internship experience, of which I have none because I substituted it for volunteering with TED and similar sites) as a selling point for potential employers on top of the chasm caused by the hiatus in my Japanese learning in my 3rd year of undergrad.

There are times – including at least once during my Master’s and another just yesterday (as of the day of writing this bit of the post) – where the resulting negative thoughts had a toll on my overall mental health. There’s an imposter syndrome probably running through every translation I do and every pun I dissect, even if I don’t pick up on it…

Actually, much like the time I got my (first and current) job and didn’t believe it to the point I thought I was being stood down when a public holiday happened to occur at the start of the week (prior to this job, I’d been volunteering for a few months shy of a decade, which is where the idea “I don’t deserve to be paid for my work” came from), that fear – that constant need to practise in the semi-public internet sphere because “I’m just not good enough” – is probably still in there somewhere. (Also note the “probably”s – even I’m not sure it’s there.)

Furthermore, “Aria” is louder in terms of the whole “asexuality” and “supporting LGBTIAQ+ causes” things. Sure, [real name redacted] also reads all the books and does all the research, but I’m under “she/her” pronouns in meatspace and “she/they” as “Aria” – an extension of attempting strict internet anonymity in a time where gender-neutral “they” was less accepted.

(There’s a lot more that could be said for comparing asexuality, as “the invisible orientation”, and translation, as “an invisible profession”, but I’ll stop there. There’s probably enough content in that topic alone to fill an academic essay or two!)

Despite all this griping, I was stuck on what to put in these last two spots for about a month and put these here because, despite these challenges, they do still indeed bring me joy. One day, I’ll be able to bridge my online self with the self in real life – maybe such a reconciliation is not as dramatic as other people’s stories (because “Aria” is “just [real name redacted], but better”), but nonetheless I still await that day.

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…I almost didn’t publish the last point. However, I remembered something in the past I said about being more honest online and, as you can tell by the final product, reverted that decision.