I’ve tried keeping an offline journal, but it’s never worked out really. I still feel embarrassed of putting my thoughts onto paper for some reason, and I also felt that I didn’t have enough interesting things happen that’d be worth noting. I write a lot of poetry, and I feel the same there. It’s gotten a bit better, but it’s weird how embarrassing it still feels to make your feelings “known” in a different way. Especially because I never doubt my feelings or feel embarrassed about them as long as they stay inside my brain haha.

I strive to do this too but alas it’s easy to get distracted…

I reason the same regarding emergencies!

Tbh I don’t really have any emergencies I can imagine necessitates me responding in the middle of the night. But I guess it depends on one’s life.

Glad there’s at least 2 of us hah

It’s probably just my brain, but I’m thinking about how everything’s still received even though you can hide the notifications

Very nice. I played it for a bit recently but I quit at the water temple, didn’t intend to but it kinda made me. To no ones surprise I guess?

Is corporate always the only alternative? I’ve been working in the public and non-profit sector, even in IT, and it’s always been much chiller than “corporate”. Maybe small companies are better too. Though I’d like to avoid working at all if possible, which made my returns to the working force always a bit meh anyway.

I don’t really know how they do it, but some do run newer Android versions like Android 14 (Meebook M8, Bigme B7). Anyway, the lack of Play store isn’t really a consideration in China, it’s only for foreign markets they have to include the Play store. This also means that China has many more Android e-ink brands than are available to us (which mostly are Boox, Meebook, Bigme or Hisense).

Still, e-ink is so much better than a regular screen. If one is really strapped for cash sure, but for one’s eyes sake I’d say e-ink is a worthwhile investment if one likes to read. A phone can’t compare.

To be honest I don’t really find them prohibitively expensive if you count the value you’ll get from them over the years. I have both a Kobo Libra 2 and an Android Boox Page, which I bought for different use cases. I see them both lasting me many years. My previous Kobo Aura One lasted me 7 years in itself before I sold it 2nd hand. My reading skyrocketed once I bought an e-reader.

They had DMCA requests for 800+ titles so it’s functionally crippled at the moment and it seems like they’re pivoting to becoming a self-published webtoon platform instead. Check here: https://mangadex.org/compliance/copyright-faq

Great site! Thanks

Check out Comick or Weeb Central!

At least there’s Nyaa, and alternative sites to Mangadex for ongoing releases.

🙏 Absolutely

Yeah HelloChinese I’ve heard is great though I haven’t used it. I’d recommend you to try Pleco’s graded readers which you can buy in their store. DuChinese is another great option for graded readers (paid subscription) which has helped me a lot.

A more unorthodox suggestion is John DeFrancis’ “Chinese Reader”-series from the 60s and 70s starting with “Beginning Chinese Reader”. Those books, written in traditional Mandarin (but with simplified versions in the appendix) will start you from zero and teach you the most common 1200 characters and 8000+ words. He uses a spaced repetition scheme so every character is repeated in a calculated manner, like 10 times the first lesson it’s introduced, 5 times the next etc… They’re really amazing and available on the web if you search for it, or you can also buy them as they’ve been reprinted. I’ve been going through it steadily and even though I knew a lot of the characters already when I started reading, it has increased my reading speed and comprehension of what I’m reading drastically. It’s just so packed with good reading material, even though it’s a bit dated. It’s really hard to find that much graded reading material that progressively increases your skills.

For listening, I’d recommend podcasts like MaomiChinese, Talk Taiwanese Mandarin, TeaTime Chinese and Chinese Podcast with Shenglan. Hope this helps!

Absolutely, I try to avoid having any “zero-day”. There are days where I study a lot less, but it’s never zero. At least I’ll do my Anki cards. 加油 to you too!

Yeah definitely fair enough, I get you. I don’t really care about stressing or putting in the hours for a boss or someone else’s sake, but when it comes to my own personal interests and what I’m doing for myself, I think I tend to pressure myself a bit more.

I’ve already studied Chinese full-time in a Chinese environment actually, and I’m preparing to do so soon again (which is one of the reasons why I’m extra locked in atm, just so I’m fully prepared). But yeah I try to mix it up with language exchanges and so forth where I am atm anyway :)