What does that say?

Today is Thursday. Not Friday, not Wednesday, but Thursday...

Just wanted to make that clear with myself. When I woke up this morning, I kind of knew that and was thinking it. But for some reason as I was heading out the door, I rushed back in to grab the garbage and take it out. Garbage days around here are on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

So guess how surprised I was when I took out my garbage and found that no one else had taken theirs out to the site....yeah. I had to re-think it and was like, "Oh yeah, it's not Friday!" Bummer.....I guess I just can't wait for the weekend! But that's natural, right? I mean, most people look forward to the days off when they don't have to work and don't have to worry about anything else except for what they want to do. So, another Thursday has gone by and tomorrow will be Friday!

Today, school was alright. It was pretty slow because I only had 2 classes today! They were both in the morning as well, so by the time lunch was over I had no more classes for the day! It was nice. Since I didn't have much to do and had lots of free time, I decided to study the dreaded kanji! Yeah, I know. Not fun, right? Since I've been in Japan, I have picked up on the basic kanji and am able to read basic things (I mean REALLY basic!) but I guess it's better than no progress at all. So I opened up my kanji book and continued studying. But I find that no matter how much I've been studying or looking at the kanji in my book, it's still SOOOOO hard for me to read any real documents. I can't pick up a piece of paper or a set of instructions and tell you what it says. No way!!! I always have to ask other people, "what does that say?" or "what is this kanji?"

Without other people's help, I'd be lost! I guess it will come with time, but I just want to be able to read anything and everything without having to ask everyone around me what it says. I'm hoping that within the next year, I'll become pretty literate and be able to read documents or other pieces of Japanese without much struggle. I'm 25 years old and it's frustrating feeling illiterate! Haha, I guess everything will come with time. I just have to be patient with myself and do my due diligence in studying. I guess that's where the issue is, though...I don't always have the self discipline to sit down and study kanji. It comes in waves for me. There are days where I will not take a peek at the kanji book and others where I will go through a ton. So I just have to find my pace and stay consistent with it and make sure that I am constantly reviewing what I have learned while moving forward at the same time.

I think another thing that would really help me to accelerate my reading skill in Japanese is to read books or manga. I know, read real books? I was thinking the same thing....seems kind of like a big leap to go from not being able to read to reading a whole story! Although I don't have to know everything, as long as I can get through some of the books and train my eye to read the Japanese characters, then I think it will help. Well, wish me luck! I have a hard enough time getting myself to read books in English! So we'll see how it goes with the Japanese!