Daniel Santos

✱ I watched the last episode of Loki last Sunday. Season two was way better than the first one, and this last episode… was… amazing! I didn't expect the story to turn the ways it turned, but I'm glad it did! The writers seem to have thought the ending and everything else from the first episode in season one — maybe making Loki the best Marvel story ever made to date. Despite knowing that Marvel has no plans for a season 3 because the story they wanted to tell was completely told, I'm going to miss Tom Hiddleston's character very much. He's become my favorite (sorry, Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man — you're now #2) and at least I have the fact that he's certainly become the most powerful being in MCU to comfort me. Oh, and I'll miss Miss Minutes, as well… ☺️

✱ Back in September we had a very bad heat wave happening where I live. Things got really hot then, to the point of making me think that nothing could be worse than those days. Until this week started. Last Sunday temperatures hit 41°C (105°F) by noon and Monday greeted us with 38°C (almost exactly 100°F). I hate the heat, as I've said it already a couple of times… the fans and air conditioning at home have been on most of the time this week and yet it felt we were at the edge of comfort. Too bad.

✱ On the bright side, my father celebrated his 73rd birthday last Tuesday. Me, my wife and my sons joined him and my mother, along with my sister and brother-in-law for a small, cozy and simple night reunion, at it was nice to be around him on such a special date. I love my father and I'm so thankful for his health and happiness. Godspeed him, always.

✱ On Thursday I did something I had not been able to do in sometime now. Me and a couple of good friends from work went out for some afternoon coffee and good conversation. It made me really happy to be able to do it, because it so much helps with making work and its challenges more smooth. It's really good to have nice friends to be around.

✱ I'm sure I have already mentioned it here that I'm not exactly the kind of person who talks a lot about soccer. But this last Thursday our National Team, Brazil, played against Colombia in a match valid for the FIFA Men Soccer World Cup qualifiers. And their performance was so… lousy. Yes, Gabriel Martinelli opened the score right at 4', but then, it was just that. We attacked little and defended yet less… so much so that Luis Diaz scored both the tier and the score turner goals, at 75' and 79', defining the result as 2–1 for the Colombians. Brazil's campaign so far is one of the worst I can remember and I'm seriously questioning myself if this will be the unprecedented time we'll be off the World Cup. That would be a bummer.

✱ I'm pretty excited about this site as of lately. I decided to move my hosting to Pikapods. The performance is so nice so far that I believe this is a decision I should have made much earlier — but better later than never. I have also been able to migrate a considerable lot of my notes to the site from Blot.im, where I still have an account but will close it later this year. More migration and some adjustments before I can do it.

✱ Having recently made peace with my reading was one of the best things I've done recently. That made me finish my fifteenth book this year, Elven Star, the second part in The Death Gate Cycle series. With only five books to go, even amid November right now, I'm confident about beating my 20 books read goal for 2023.

✱ At work my week was interesting. I finished organizing a benchmarking material soon to be presented to our team. From such material I expect to show some valuable insights and lessons learned. Another thing I did was to work closer with the Value Proposition Canvas methodology, something I had not worked with in years — it proved to be very interesting and potentially useful to a case we are currently working with. But the most interesting thing I experimented with this week was mixing that canvas with an obscure lean methodology tool, called Makigami, that a friend taught me about around 2010, and that seemed like a perfect fit for what we're trying to achieve. Next week or so I will call some people and show them a mix of these methods to gather feedback. If everything goes well, I'll implement the idea.

✱ As it happened last September, when even Lucifer was using a fan here in Brazil, an orange alert has been issued this week because of another heat wave strike, that will apparently have its worst temperatures recorded in the Brazilian South region states and the interior of the São Paulo state — where I live —, with temperatures likely passing the 40ºC (104°F) and beating 45°C (113°F). Man, I hate the heat (except for this one), so I'll try to prepare for this damned thing as best as I can… Heaven help us.

✱ Having decided to catch up with some Family Guy episodes this week, I binge watched the show, which I'm doing according to the season and episode order. This led me to watch S08E17, “Brian & Stewie”, which was different, to say the least. That episode was a special, a 30-minute long episode marking the 150th episode aired of the show. In it, Brian and Stewie (both voiced by Seth MacFarlane, creator and producer of the show) get locked in a bank vault overnight and are forced to deal with each other on a whole new level. There is no opening. There are no cut-away gags nor parallel stories. No music and no other characters show up. Just a deep dialogue about values, life and even a couple of sensitive themes. Given that this show is generally trying to take laughs out of you, this episode is unique and has so many positive user reviews that it's safe for me to say that a comedic show is perfectly able to be dramatic and impose a more serious tone if the crew wants. Give it a try.

✱ I feel that with the new organization I'm trying to give my site, I have been able to write more often, and this is making me very happy. It's not so often yet, but more than I usually do. Weeknotes like this, journal entries and notes, these written in Portuguese, and more subject to change over time, all have their own reserved spaces. Ah, there's also some essays. What worries me most is the way RSS feeds will look like. If you read me via RSS, I could use your feedback. Are notes cluttering your experience?

✱ This week didn't start as the brightest one of the year. Far from it, actually. I went to work in person again on Monday, as the final presentation of the Obeya room we had been working with — to our CEO — was finally going to happen. While on the one hand everything went smoothly and turned out well, thanks to a nicely executed work during the past weeks, culminating with much praise received from him, on the other hand I was struck by a very unwelcome and unneeded depression attack. Looking back on it I do know where it came from and why, and had I had this knowledge then, it would have avoided so much unnecessary misery. Thanks god someone noticed what had happened and talked me out of it in time to avoid ruining my day — and week.

✱ With heatwaves coming and going in my city all the time lately, I finally decided to take action and improve home life quality a little bit. I bought a gigantic — if you can call a 60 cm diameter gigantic — turbo max fan, which thankfully arrived overnight and, as soon as I had it assembled, took it to my living room which currently doesn't have air conditioning setup and turned it on. This purchased proved worth from the first refreshing seconds. And, as it's portable, I can carry it around freely, as much as I want. It will be very welcome, because the only two air conditioning devices I have are in my bedroom and the children's.

✱ I'm a true crime genre fan. This week, along with my wife, I've watched the Suzane von Richthofen's real crime movie trilogy. Suzane murdered her parents in 2002, during the Halloween night, helped by her boyfriend and his brother, in one of the most shocking Brazilian murder crimes. As a result she was sentenced to 39 years and 6 months in prison, leaving it on parole in 2023. The 3 movies were created as biographical representations of the period around the crime, based on information collected by the Justice department and the police during investigations and trials. The Girl Who Killed Her Parents and The Boy Who Killed My Parents, both released in 2021, tell the facts according to Suzane's boyfriend's and Suzane's point of view, respectively. The last movie in the trilogy, The Girl Who Killed Her Parents: The Confession, was filmed in 2022 and released in 2023, depicting the first days after the crime, the investigation, the confession and trial of the perpetrators. All in all, I liked the movies and learned a detail or two about the crime.

✱ I reviewed my reading list this week, as I started to feel overwhelmed. To me, a person who would swap non-fiction for fiction anytime, this sensation was worsening because of the growing number of non-fiction books I was simultaneously reading. I needed to make peace with my reading, so I ended up declaring one book finished with and (temporarily) abandoning other two. That not only opened time for resuming my fiction reading — what I desperately needed as a much welcomed scape valve —, but also and mainly brought me peace of mind.

✱ November second was All Souls' Day in Brazil. Thus I've had a shorter work week, which ended on Wednesday. This year, as I usually do, I remembered my maternal grandmother, Amélia, who left us in 2012. She helped raising my sister and me while both my father and mother worked. I have so many good memories of her and I miss her so dearly that I'm lucky to be Brazilian and, this way, be able to use the word saudade, maybe the most Brazilian and Portuguese word, to describe what I'm feeling. Love you, granny, and I always will.

✱ Good news coming from my cardiologist this week. After my blood exams results came back he said my general status is as good as it was back in 2018 — specially my glucose index, which thankfully came down to 85 from 109, causing me instant relief. Also I've lost 1.5kg in weight, what I'm not at all complaining about. The idea is to keep taking care and go back for another appointment with him within 6 months.

✱ This week I'm completely worn out. I have gone to work in person again because of the work I mentioned in my previous weeknotes, which is still in progress. The difference this week is that I could meet some work colleagues — and very good friends — in person after a very long time. Really, being able to talk face to face to people that I didn't meet in years was really awesome and felt rewarding in many senses. Still, I'm thankful for being able to WFH most of the time.

✱ Due to the fact of being so tired this week I ended up accumulating two unwatched Loki episodes, meaning that now I'm officially behind in terms of second season — although I might have listened to some disturbing spoilers, specially in regards to episode 4. I do intend to get up to date during the weekend, though. And for the same reasons, my progress watching One Pieceis also temporarily stalled — not to mention Spy x Family, whose second season started airing without me watching even a single episode of it.

✱ According to my sons, "that time of the year when dad does nothing except for watching TV is back". They are, of course, referring to the return of NBA, now in its 2023-2024 season. They aren't completely wrong about it, as I do like to watch games whenever I can, but I have, of course, my preferences. Miami Heat goes on occupying the spot of my favorite team, but I also like to watch Lakers, Celtics, Raptors and Bucks (although depending on the day, any game will do). And after so many years, it's the first time I'm following a new NBA season from day one. I'm happy! ☺️

✱ This morning I took the kids to play soccer. They love doing it — going to the soccer field at least 3 to 4 times a week, normally taken there by my wife while I'm working. But this Saturday morning it was my turn. I'm not at all a great soccer player (I'm a lousy one, believe me), but I took advantage of the fact not only to spend some quality time along with them, but also to exercise. It was really worth the while.

✱ I've gone to work in person a couple more times this week as week, as the works with the Obeya room progress. It's very likely I'll need to drop by in person next week too, although maybe less often. As much as I appreciate the idea of visiting the company's premises — after all, I've spent 19 years going there everyday —, I have to admit that working from home is something I appreciate as well. I guess what I'm trying to say is that a little balance every once in a while might be good, but I wouldn't appreciate it very much to have to go to work in person every week… and I thank God everyday for being so lucky as not having to. It's wonderful!

✱ Following doctor's prescriptions, I've gone to the lab this week in order to have my blood tested — as part of an upcoming routine appointment scheduled for next week. If I'm not mistaken, I've already said it here, in a previous weeknote of mine, that I was lucky to find a good cardiologist again. And I'm somewhat anxious about the appointment itself, as I've been looking forwards to see how my body is, generally speaking, as to perform the needed route corrections: I'm pretty sure there are route corrections to be made… 🙈

✱ It was my birthday this week! 🥳 I'm thankful for completing another round around the Sun being mostly healthy, satisfied with the way my life and my work are doing as of recently, and with no significant reasons to complain about. I hope this new cycle reserves me nice surprises and challenges.

✱ I've been gifted with a new pair of cargo shorts and a very nice fleece jacket for colder days for my birthday. They were exactly what I needed! ☺️

✱ I've had this wish to play a certain board game from my childhood that just won't go away for the last couple of weeks now. The game is Interpol, released in Brazil in the now far-away year of 1983 (now that I think of it, making it 40 years old!!) with this name, but known mostly everywhere else in the world as Scotland Yard. I know of digital versions of this game created for Tabletop Simulator on Steam, but although fun, they're not the same as playing on the table with friends. With the game out of production and sale for years here in Brazil, I tried looking for an used box set, but with no success, as the games I found were either missing pieces or too pricey for something used and/ or in bad state. When I was about to give up, it occurred to me that maybe some company somewhere around the world could still be producing it. And one eBay search later made me very happy! I found the game still being actively produced and ordered myself a copy — hey, it's my birthday after all, right? This will certainly give me and my folks at home lots of guaranteed fun.

✱ I've written about experimentations I have done with Blot.im for the past weeks, as I fancy both the idea of posting without being stuck to a timeline as it is the case with conventional blog posts, and also to finally set up my digital garden notes with proper backlinks support. I've even set up a very satisfying automated workflow for posting to Blot, using its git repo hosting option and connecting it to Obsidian using the obsidian-git plugin. But then… I came across Winnie Lim's website and learned about how she's using pure Wordpress to create a learning and reflection tool, mixing journal, digital garden and commonplace book altogether — all with the help of a single (yet fantastic) plugin called Pods. This made me realize that with proper time and acquired knowledge I'll be able to create something similar, what is actually my objective. So I'll probably postpone leaving Wordpress just yet.

✱ The Wordpress theme bug bit me this week — and I have to confess that I hate it when that happens, because I'll just start going in circles trying to find a theme that will fit my taste. The problem is nobody makes good Wordpress themes anymore. Of course, there's Anders Norén who is the man in terms of nice looking themes nowadays. Also, Matthias Pfefferle created the fantastic Autonomie theme, which I was using so far. But if I intend to create something in the likes of a digital garden, I just need it to be almost bare. Text only. And they don't do it these days. Fortunately, I remembered Raam Dev and his Independent Publisher theme, which I used for years and… it still works nowadays! So I instantly activated it again here — how did you like it?

✱ This week I spent 2 days working in person at the office. We are preparing a set of materials and information for an upcoming presentation to our VP and other board members, which is being laid out in a Obeya room, so all information we would normally exchange virtually needs to be placed on the walls of a room so it's presented, discussed and reviewed. I have experience with Obeya rooms but it had been sometime since I set up the last one, so it was very interesting and exciting to get my hands dirty with it again. Next week me and a couple of colleagues will be repeating work in person for at least two more days to get things finished.m — and as Obeyas require a continued updating routine, some governance will need to be established, as well.

✱ Speaking about work, I finished reading Plataforma: a revolução da estratégia, a very interesting book about the business of digital platforms, its strategies, governance and a lot of other interesting information. Unfortunately I had to postpone the reading many times and for many reasons in recent months, but this week I was finally able to finish it. It gave me a lot of good and helpful insights to be discussed with my colleagues. Lots of notes to reread, rewrite and review, too… 😅

✱ My son and I finished watching Only Murders in the Building season 3 in only 4 days. It was nice to see Mabel, Charles and Oliver investigating yet another murder, this one set in a Broadway show environment. After 3 seasons I can't say I'm tired of it, and thank God it has been renewed for season 4, a move only natural after Hulu said it had the most watched season finale in 2023. Personally, I consider the greatest quality of this mix of comedy and crime show the ability the writers have to keep us from finding out the real crime perp to the last minute, and misleading us all the time, making us come for more episode after episode.

✱ This week I've also left One Piece's Alabasta Arc behind. That's the fourth season, and first longer arc in the anime series, and my son had already warned me this is, in his opinion so far, the best arc ever (he's on episode 360 or something while I'm just passed 132). I have to agree with him. The plot, the characters that were introduced, specially Princess Vivi, are all very likable… I even wish she had become part of Luffy's crew! Although Nico Robin, who indeed joined his companions, is, again according to my son, the best One Piece character — although I have liked her so far, in that case, this has yet to be seen.

✱ I had a very grateful surprise this week, coming across Web of Weeknotes. As the name already gives out, it is a site where a group of dozens of people posts weekly, individual blogposts about their working week, only for the sake of sharing out in the open. Some of the weeknotes I've seen in the site, which is powered by Medium (IMHO a downside, but that's ok), have got me thinking about the way I myself post them — and maybe, just maybe for now, I could change something in my own notes' organization. Anyway, if you're into weeknotes, maybe you should check that out.

✱ Yesterday, while enjoying a break amid a national holiday here in Brazil, my son asked us to take him to a mall. The reason? He wanted to go shopping, what is, of course, ok. But one of his purchases totally suprised me. He got a wristwatch! And nothing smart or digital — it was an interesting, dark background analog model from the Orient brand, a classical watch manufacturer. Noel I have always used wristwatches myself… even nowadays, there's always one in my wrist. I've survived people's urge to replace it with the cellphone and resisted bravely for years now. But I'd never imagine he's wanting to buy one! When I asked him why, he simply said, “well, I find them nice”. I'm so happy! 😀

(Oh, I'm also trying out Blot.im, as I mentioned in another weeknote… so, this text is also there!)

✱ This week my son received his JLPT N1 Proficiency certificate! It came by mail, a couple of months since he took the test in São Paulo. The delay lies in the fact that each and every test taken is manually reviewed and assessed… but the important thing is that the results are in and he got it! I told him to hang his certificate on the wall, but he refused — too humble to do so. I’m so happy for him!

✱ I had one of the most amazing career and life coaching sessions this week after talking to my manager. I hadn’t had the opportunity yet, but that was an hour and 20 minutes, approximately, that totally paid off. Lots of teachings and insights, specially on the personal side. I could address harmful situations like the risk of burnout and anxiety, among so many other things. Really, really amazing.

✱ Flowershow App developers have added some interesting features to their digital garden publishing solution as of lately. Among these, the abilities to create a blog category and to migrate from WordPress. This is extremely appealing to me, as I’ve always dreamed of finding a tool where wiki and blog could be merged together effortlessly. Maybe that’s the moment, although I couldn’t make Flowershow work with my Github account, yet. I’ve asked for help in their forums, though, and now I just need to wait for a while and find out what I’m doing wrong.

✱ By the way, Flowershow app might contribute, if well implemented, to my digital gardening experience in place of Blot.im, that I mentioned having subscribed to last week. And, best of all, totally free of charge. I’m really excited to try it out as well, so I’m anxious to see what answers I’ll get from the forum question I mentioned above…

✱ Oh… Loki is back for season 2. That’ll be 6 more episodes telling a very interesting story and they’ll be released weekly. For now I’ve watched the first one with my son, and my God… I almost decided to rewatch the first season, as I wasn’t recalling everything that was happening 😅. I guess that’s because season 2 took quite a while to be released: more than two whole years, actually, as S1 aired between June and July, 2021, while S2 premiered only October, 2023. Fortunately, as the first episode of the new season unrolled, memories started to come back.

✱ Last Sunday my soccer team, São Paulo FC, conquered the 2023 Copa do Brasil championship title… for the first time! Among Brazil’s soccer championships’ titles, this happened to be the only one São Paulo had been unable to conquer before, so its corresponding trophy was the only one not in my team’s gallery. The final round, consisting of two matches between São Paulo and Flamengo, ended up 2-1 in the aggregate score, thus resulting in our victory. It was amazing to finally witness this feat, and as a long time supporter of São Paulo, this made me very, very happy!

✱ I’ve watched Reporting for Duty, on Netflix. That’s a Brazilian police comedy sitcom suggested to me by Netflix algorithms, which I’ve decided to trust and check out. Comprised of 8 episodes in its first season, it revolves around Suzano, a police chief in the fictional Rio de Janeiro state countryside city of Campo Manso, where he was also born and raised. After inadvertently helping capture a criminal, Suzano is promoted to chief of the 8th precinct in the capital, Rio de Janeiro, where his new officers are not very welcoming. The series’ teaser trailers made me remember the likes of Brooklyn 99, but it was a grateful surprise to find out it had both humor and a plot of its own. After finishing the 8 episodes in two days, I started to wonder whether there’ll be a second season, as for when Netflix is involved, one never knows. I do hope so, though, and a proper cliffhanger for it was at least provided. Something odd, too, was to find out the name of the series in English so I could mention it in this post — in Brazilian Portuguese, the series’ original language, it is called B.O., acronym for Boletim de Ocorrência, or Police Report in English.

✱ I’ve finished 16 more episodes of One Piece, meaning that I’ve left its second season — Enter the Grand Line, containing the Whiskey Peak & Little Garden arcs — behind. It’s been quite entertaining to watch more of the episodes and I have to admit that it surprised how much has happened in these few 23 minute stories. The imagination of Eiichiro Oda is quite amazing — and I’ll have to read the manga sometime soon in the future. For now, I’m 3 episodes into season 3 — Enter Chopper at the Winter —, where I know, thanks to a little spoiler from my son, that a new crew member, Chopper, will join Luffy and his gang.

✱ The internet is such a big place, isn’t it? It’s amazing to unexpectedly find useful websites in it once in a while. This week I’ve stumbled upon Lunapic, an online image editor where you can add lots of effects to your graphics, such as cropping, scaling, rotating them, but also removing the background, replacing it with another and adding filters. I don’t usually need too many of these features, but from what I’ve tested, it works very well. If you can combine usefulness and free, then, I’m completely sold.

✱ I’ve decided to experiment with digital gardening again, this time by purchasing a Blot.im subscription. I already knew a lot, and had previously paid for a month there, eyeing the amazing support it has for wikilinks, the [[same kind]] used by Obsidian and other notetaking tools. This has made me start to work in connecting both, in a temporary address, where I’ve also imported my weeknotes as a test — two things I must warn you if you decide to check it, though, are that the posts are all in Brazilian Portuguese and that everything is still messy: the dates, the links… I’d also like to mention that while I was deciding whether to take Blot for a second spin, @humdrum‘s The Independent Variable had an important role as he uses Blot and creates one of the nicest sites I’ve seen to date with the tool.

✱ As I finished my previous weeknotes talking about Luke, I guess there's nothing better than starting this week by talking about him again. I've just bought a dog door in order to make both his and my lifes easier: during the day, while I'm working, Luke likes to keep me company, what, while adorable, also makes me have to interrupt whatever I'm working on at the moment to open my office's door so I can let him in (or out). I know it doesn't seem to be much, but the thing is it actually is. So after some consideration I bought this dog door, and while these are normally set up on exterior doors, I'll be placing mine internally… kind of a weekend project.

✱ I have finished reading Perseguindo Adeline, second book in a duology, making me advance to 12 books read this year — still 8 behind my personal year goal. The two books belong to the dark romance genre, something new for me, where dark, normally disturbing themes are openly treated by the author. I have nothing against dark romances, but I do have a point against badly written texts. The Brazilian Portuguese translation is awful and made me think more often than not about dropping the book. It's so bad that it looks… either very amateur or totally translated by an automated service like Google Translate. So I can't recommend the book. Not really.

✱ While I'm speaking about books, this week I've come across Why Flying Is Miserable: And How to Fix It, an upcoming book to be released in November by Ganesh Sitaraman, an American legal scholar from whom I've read an article in where he speaks about how modern airlines have become more similar to banks than to transportation industry options, all due to detailed regulations. This is a subject which interests me so it was very nice to enjoy the article and find out about the book. Already added to my "Want to read" queue.

✱ I'm not the biggest fan of rainy days. But these last days have made me reconsider it a bit as it's been hot as hell here in Brazil. Temperatures can still rise to over 40 degrees Celsius (104°F) in the days to come, all due to greenhouse effect gases and El Niño combined. I guess I can call myself lucky as I've been working from home and I don't need to be on streets all the time, but still. No fan or air conditioning seems to be sufficing… so either rain coming, or this heat wave going, I'd welcome any.

✱ I had an appointment with my cardiologist this week. First things first, I went through an echo doppler exam to see how things were going after more than two years without undergoing this same exam. It made me very happy to find out that, fortunately, as it happened before, everything is still fine with my heart for my age. Then I've run the treadmill for many minutes, while performing an exercise electrocardiogram: this kind of routine usually exhausts me, but there's something good in it, as for years I was unable to finish the whole procedure due to feeling tired or feeling pain, except when I ran the treadmill two years ago and beat the exercise, although very tired: I did it again this week, that is, completed the treadmill routine again, what was praised by my doctor who said although I still need medication and exercise (who doesn't need exercise, after all?) I did very good in the treadmill. But the apex of my appointment was when based on these exams' results, he dismissed the upcoming need of performing an ambulatory blood pressure monitoring exam, the one I hate the most in terms of cardiology as it has you attached to a device hung from your waist during 24 hours in a row, even disturbing your capacity to sleep well. My doctor also adjusted some of my medications dosages and that certainly contributed to improve my well being… 😊

✱ I've fallen a little behind my 2023 reading goal — although there's still time for me to recover. Even so, this week I could finish reading Assombrando Adeline, a book whose details, as a librarian, I've personally contributed to Literal.club, by the way. This was the 11th book out of 20 I want to read this year, and it was a story different from anything I had read before. It just didn't prove better than it was because of the translation errors that showed up… maybe a pet peeve of mine, but still enough to impair the whole experience… still, finishing the book made me start reading the second volume right away (the author told her story in a duet) and this means soon enough I'll reach 12 books read 📚.

✱ Luke really got me scared this week. Normally a very active little Yorkshire dog, always after us and willing to play and keep us company, this week he spent two days whining as if he'd got hurt, yet for no apparent reason. It looked like he was feeling pain in his rear legs. He usually jumps up and down our sofa and beds but he just didn't during this time. After observing him for some time I even set up an appointment with the vet — only to see him recover after my wife gave him a small spoon with two drops of anti inflammatory medicine, following a previous' back pain episode he suffered a couple of years ator for which we kept the vet's prescription. Thank God this made him better. Luke's been with us since 2017 now and he's as part of the family as all of us. We all love him and felt very relieved as soon as he came to his old self again. Nice to see you well, buddy.

✱ I can finally say, 61 episodes later, that I've finished One Piece: East Blue Arc, the equivalent to the anime's first season. When watching so many episodes in a row it is impossible not to deal with filler episodes, such as the Warship Island arc, but luckily One Piece is known to have few episodes like this — little less than 10% of the 1,000+ aired so far. Besides, the story is so amazing and filled with charismatic characters, and all the main ones have solid background stories, what is very appealing. In short, I loved it. And this means I'll keep on watching Luffy and the Strawhat Pirates' adventures.

✱ I've watched All Quiet on the Western Front, much because of my younger son's insistence, as he loves history, geography… and war related subjects. This movie tells the story of Paul Bäumer, a young boy who enlists the German Army with his best friends to fight during World War I, only to find that his romantic view of the war — glory and heroism — is soon replaced with the realities of war, that is, deaths, despair and hopelessness. Paul then replaces his dreams of becoming a war hero with his best efforts to survive. This type of movie is not my cup of tea, yet I need to admit that it looks very pleasing to watch, and it narrates war in a way I've never seen before, I mean, from the POV of common soldiers, what contributes a lot to its antiwar message. I can recommend it.

✱ Brazilian food is filled with unique dishes. From brigadeiro to coxinha — both delicious, by the way, there are so many goodies that you can taste here. This week, though, me and a couple of friends from work decided to eat pastel prepared in a street market, something that I hadn't done for some time. As delicious as difficult to explain in English, its Wikipedia description says pastel is a Brazilian street food consisting of half-circle or rectangle-shaped thin crust pies with assorted sweet fillings and fried in vegetable oil (equal to the picture I placed above). More than the delicious taste of pastel, though, the most important thing to me was to collect yet another good memory with my friends. Amazing.

✱ I've accumulated 10 books that I'm currently reading and maybe, maybe not, you're going to believe I've gone completely out of my mind. I also think so… it's a real exaggeration, I know, but all of this happens because I'm addicted to reading and I cannot keep this impulse of buying and starting to read new books at stake (again, tsundoku). I've bought Holly, the newest book from Stephen King — who, by the way, I believe is maybe the greatest storyteller alive — in pre-ordering because I just cannot pass without reading anything he publishes, but ended up buying and reading… Assombrando Adeline, which called my attention for being at the #1 place in Amazon's psychological thrillers list (a genre that I appreciate reading) and made me debut . I haven't finished it yet but this decision of reading the book made me debut in the dark romance genre as well. This is not a genre for everyone, as it deals with things like death, mobs, kidnapping and many other disturbing themes. I'm liking it so far — although the Brazilian Portuguese translation of the ebook sold by Amazon is sufferable with all its errors, typos and machine-like translation, making me believe that Google probably translated it —, to the point of having read 80% of the content in 2 days, a real page turner.

✱ I can finally say, 61 episodes later, that I've finished One Piece: East Blue Arc, the equivalent to the anime's first season. When watching so many episodes in a row it is impossible not to deal with filler episodes, such as the Warship Island arc, but luckily One Piece is known to have few episodes like this — little less than 10% of the 1,000+ aired so far. Besides, the story is so amazing and filled with charismatic characters, and all the main ones have solid background stories, what is very appealing. In short, I loved it. And this means I'll keep on watching Luffy and the Strawhat Pirates' adventures.

✱ I've watched All Quiet on the Western Front, much because of my younger son's insistence, as he loves history, geography… and war related subjects. This movie tells the story of Paul Bäumer, a young boy who enlists the German Army with his best friends to fight during World War I, only to find that his romantic view of the war — glory and heroism — is soon replaced with the realities of war, that is, deaths, despair and hopelessness. Paul then replaces his dreams of becoming a war hero with his best efforts to survive. This type of movie is not my cup of tea, yet I need to admit that it looks very pleasing to watch, and it narrates war in a way I've never seen before, I mean, from the POV of common soldiers, what contributes a lot to its antiwar message. I can recommend it.

✱ Brazilian food is filled with unique dishes. From brigadeiro to coxinha — both delicious, by the way, there are so many goodies that you can taste here. This week, though, me and a couple of friends from work decided to eat pastel prepared in a street market, something that I hadn't done for some time. As delicious as difficult to explain in English, its Wikipedia description says pastel is a Brazilian street food consisting of half-circle or rectangle-shaped thin crust pies with assorted sweet fillings and fried in vegetable oil (equal to the picture I placed above). More than the delicious taste of pastel, though, the most important thing to me was to collect yet another good memory with my friends. Amazing.

✱ I've accumulated 10 books that I'm currently reading and maybe, maybe not, you're going to believe I've gone completely out of my mind. I also think so… it's a real exaggeration, I know, but all of this happens because I'm addicted to reading and I cannot keep this impulse of buying and starting to read new books at stake (again, tsundoku). I've bought Holly, the newest book from Stephen King — who, by the way, I believe is maybe the greatest storyteller alive — in pre-ordering because I just cannot pass without reading anything he publishes, but ended up buying and reading… Assombrando Adeline, which called my attention for being at the #1 place in Amazon's psychological thrillers list (a genre that I appreciate reading) and made me debut . I haven't finished it yet but this decision of reading the book made me debut in the dark romance genre as well. This is not a genre for everyone, as it deals with things like death, mobs, kidnapping and many other disturbing themes. I'm liking it so far — although the Brazilian Portuguese translation of the ebook sold by Amazon is sufferable with all its errors, typos and machine-like translation, making me believe that Google probably translated it —, to the point of having read 80% of the content in 2 days, a real page turner.

✱ I've decided to digitally acquire Brotato on the Nintendo eShop this week. That's a game I already own on Steam, and that I very much enjoy playing (whenever I have time to). In case you don't know Brotato, its concept is very simple: you are a potato 🥔, fighting hordes of space aliens and trying to survive for as long as you can while being able to use up to six weapons — one crazier than the previous one — because, as no one had ever determined the total number of arms a potato can have, the devs decided to give them six ones. Now, not only did I buy this game out of knowing and enjoying it quite a lot, but also because at home we've come to the feared stage in parenthood where you start to dispute your own computer's screen time with that of your kids (in this case, my younger son). So as to have no conflicts, why not play Brotato wherever he's not using the device, right?

✱ At work, this week our director came from the United States, where he lives, to spend some time with the team. He's Brazilian and whenever he needs to be at his home country, he appreciates creating this time for all of us to spend together. So, 3 whole days were reserved for presencial workshops, team building_s and _lectures, all of them always enjoyable on their own. I specially loved two of the activities during this period, and will now say why.

✱ First activity. Listening to one of the scheduled sessions during this week's time with our director, I got acquainted with The Five Love Languages, a book written by Gary Chapman, an American author who addresses human relationships. I had never heard about the book but, to my complete surprise, many of my coworkers had read it. All of who did highly praised its contents and one in particular even testified that it had changed her relationship with her significant others. The speech we were watching to was meant to demonstrate how four of the five love languages can be applied to a normal, work relationship (thus excluding physical touch) — and through some drills we performed during the time I was able to discover a couple of revealing things about myself and the people I work most closely with, and, as I told my leadership later, this alone would be worth all the workshops' while; but the thing is I immediately added the book to my "to read" list, as it can be really helpful in strengthening one's personal relationships, too.

✱ Second activity. This was a guest talk with a personal old acquaintance with whom I had professionally worked before. I didn't know, though, that he was an expert in mindfulness and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). During almost one hour he took me and all of my colleagues through a real self-knowledge journey. Consisting of three parts, the speech addressed thre principles: what is the most important thing in our lives — mindfulness, that is, clearing out minds by archiving everything and everyone that is not ourselves or isn't under our direct control to change; concentrating on being the best possible person to whom or what we have archived once our mind is free and in peace; and figuring out that the most important person in our lives will always be that one who's nearest to us in the present moment. It is very difficult to summarize everything I've learned this week in this single paragraph, and I won't try to do it, but one thing's for sure: that one set of three principles is certainly life changing.

✱ Some weeks ago I was in São Paulo with my son, as he was going to take the JLPT test. Now, 7 weeks later, his results came in by e-mail: he's been successfully approved in JLPT N1 level! This has been a very nice way to start the week, both for him and for me. I'm very much proud of yet another positive result in his path towards living in Japan… ☺️

✱ This week, another reason for happiness in our family was my younger son's birthday — he's just turned 12. I can't believe time flies like this, and that he's just all growing up! We got the family together to celebrate and to make his day even more special with cake, candy and a lot of delicious treats! 😊😊

✱ My sister and brother-in-law moved from their apartment some months ago and we finally could make it to visit their new house. It's a very nice two-store house with a pool and a fireplace and I could see how much my sister appreciates having been able to move there. That's the kind of place all surrounded by nature that we all in the family know is what she loves. Besides, we had a meal together and the kids got to meet… the cats. I mean, they met them before, but Nick and Chica are with my sister for quite sometime now, and it was the first time my sons played with them in a while. Quite a memorable, fun night we all had together.

✱ I feel specially worn out this week, and the culprit is no other but work. Don't get me wrong, I simply love doing what I do and working for the company I'm working for. It's just that this week, in particular — and I foresee that the next one also, likely —, consumed a lot of energy. In the end it has all paid off, but it required extra work and dedication, not only my own but the one of some good friends. On to learning even more and to mastering these activities. I'm sure every cloud has a silver lining… 🙏

✱ In my continued Japanese studies I've been experimenting with many different techniques in order to try to memorize what's got to be memorized. Despite many things that I've tried, I hadn't yet taken mnemonics seriously. But that was before I started to use jpdb.io to learn at least some kanji. Developed by a single developer, it uses a technique similar to that used in Heisig's hugely popular Remembering the Kanji book to teach kanji, but using different keywords… and mnemonics. And the thing is, after using mnemonics for only a few days, I was successful in learning my first kanjis. That's when it occurred to me that I maybe could use it to learn katakana. Man, do I hate katakana… they just don't stick to my memory… but mnemonics could well be the answer… so I'll try them and see if they work as well as they've been working for kanji… yet to be seen.

✱ I've watched a couple more episodes of One Piece this week and came to the 25th in the East Blue Arc, the story's first act. The story keeps very interesting and it's been nice to find out the past stories of some of the main characters. This makes me want to keep on watching the series. Oh, and I've also watched Uma Quase Dupla, an average Brazilian comedy movie featuring Cauã Reymond and Tatá Werneck, both famous actors here in my country. The popcorn I prepared to eat along it, though, proved to be better than the plot.

✱ Last Sunday it was Father's Day here in Brazil. I'm lucky enough to live at a walk's distance from my parents' house, so I visit them often, almost on a weekly basis, and have plenty of opportunities to talk to them and to catch up with whatever is going on. Even so, last Sunday we all got together — my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, my wife and kids to have lunch and spend some family time together. It is always nice to do such things because I love my family. If it was Father's Day where you live too, last Sunday, I hope you had the opportunity to be with your kin and with whom you love, spending some quality time together… 😊😊

✱ I used to love watching Takeshi's Castle! It aired during the late 80's and early 90's here in Brazil — although in a licensed version, locally developed by Rede Globo, one of the Brazilian TV broadcasters — and made me laugh lots and lots. Later I found out that the original, Japanese produced show, aired in Brazil on cable, too, during 2018, on Comedy Central. The thing is Amazon Prime just released a remake of the show, currently a single season composed of 8 episodes. I've watched the first episode with my children and I could relive all the laughs I had with the original programs. Pretty nostalgic for me.

✱ I don't usually talk about soccer here — although I support São Paulo since I was about 12 or 13 years old. But I needed to do it this week, at least this one time, first because São Paulo played the second of two matches trying to reach the final round of Copa do Brasil, aiming for the only national title it currently doesn't have; and second because Lucas Moura, revealed in São Paulo during the 2010 to 2012 seasons and, to me, one of the best players the team ever had, returned to playing in São Paulo, after 10 years away, during which he played for PSG and Tottenham. It was partially thanks to him that my team won a place at the final round scoring 2-0 against Corinthians, one of its biggest rivals. Lucas scored the second goal, sealing the score and gaining us the opportunity to (maybe) finally conquer this last title. Yet to be seen, but coming this far was really, really nice.

✱ I know very well that one of the important parts in learning a new language is trying to practice writing — and by chance I've come across a very interesting resource online where it's possible to do it… while journaling! I've heard many people praising journals as good means to put your learnings on paper, and Journaly does exactly that. You can write as many posts as you want in your target language in your journal for free, and have them read by people who are native and are there learning other languages. These people then read your texts, applauding them for incentive and also giving you honest feedback and corrections, all things that contribute to making you learn better. I found it very appealing for me and my Japanese learning, so much that I've created an account there, even though I've only had the time to post there once so far. Here's what I've posted, by the way:

みなさん、こんにちは。にほんごのしょしんしゃです。よろしくおねがいします。またね！

✱ Still regarding Japanese, that's not at all an intuitive language for me, as a western person, having been raised speaking an European language, Portuguese, to learn. And knowing English doesn't help either, except for being able to find plenty of resources to learn by myself of course. In that sense it was very fortunate for me to come across Japanese For The Western Brain, a series of small essays describing Japanese grammar in a non-grammar way, that is, quoting Kim Allen, the site's author, "[…] so that people who have a working knowledge of English grammar (such as what you learned in school, even if you’ve forgotten some of the details) will be able to compare and contrast English and Japanese grammar". I've been reading it this week and I can say it's a very spirited text, helping to prepare one's mind to adjust to Japanese.

✱ Keep walking, besides being the slogan of a famous beverage, is something I'm trying to improve at, for health reasons. It's been sometime now that I've heard from a doctor that one should walk 10,000 steps daily — but that is not an easy task for many, me included. What I've decided to do was to adapt to the circumstances… using the 改善 (Kaizen) continuous improvement principles, I've established to try to meet 6,000 steps a day. Still not that easy for me but much more attainable at the moment. This week I got to reach the goal 4 in 7 days. And I still hope to improve in weeks to come… 💪💪

✱ I've never mentioned it here, but, during the pandemics I started a YouTube channel aiming to teach English to Brazilians. This was during the initial months of it all, and my employer at that time advised us all to remain home, for our own safety. But working from home was not a possibility for them, as they lacked the proper IT infrastructure to allow us to do so, and it ended up exposing us all to a situation where you'd stay home without being able to work at all. As I taught English as a Second Language in the past, it occurred to me that sharing my knowledge would be a nice way to keep my mind active. I ended up producing 40 videos from May, 2020, and reached a little more than 700 subscribers what, for me, is a real milestone. After these achievements, though, I quit it altogether by December, 2020. The reason? I was feeling stressed… totally caught in the net of social networks, I felt panic because I received no views, or not enough views, even though this is totally relative and actually doesn't mean anything or doesn't matter at all, and felt several other negative effects as well. After I quit, I thought about continuing to help people to learn English and a couple of ideas sparkled on my mind, although I never had the impulse to turn them into reality again. The reason I brought this up this week is because while studying Japanese with YouTube videos, I had some new ideas and I guess I can make this work again, probably without all the stress load I underwent sometime ago. I'm really feeling excited to create at least a pilot and a couple of follow-up experiments, so stay tuned if you wish, for more news soon.

✱ I'm really sure everyone has already played at least one mobile game that got on their nerves. I have played several, but this week I decided to remember why Don't Touch the Spikes (iOS, Android) used to irritate me so much, all because my younger son has been playing it for some weeks now. If you don't happen to know the game, its goal is pretty straightforward: tap the screen to make the little bird jump higher, release your finger to make it fall. Whenever you hit the wall the bird changes direction and you score 1 point. It is all endless — until you touch the spikes on the wall, when it's game over. The goal is to score as high as you can. My son's high score is 83 (at least by now), whereas my personal best is only 66, a score I got I don't remember when, and that I'm aware of only because everything is recorded at Apple's Game Center. This week I couldn't get past 44, but I could clearly remember why it all got on my nerves: as with any games of this kind, you just… lose, for no apparent reason… you jump too short, or too low, or too high, but always at the right measure to hit the spike, and lose. But that's ok (and expected, after all). This game's most annoying feature, though, is the lack of an option to turn its sound off. There comes a time when this also gets on your nerves (and on your wife's nerves), so you gotta stop to keep your marriage going… 😂

✱ I'm really decided to commit to learning Japanese. Thus I've paid for a month's worth of LingQ content. I've used this app before while learning French and Spanish and I believe it's a good way to find both audio and texts for practicing a target language. That doesn't eliminate the fact that, for languages as Japanese, it's necessary to learn the syllabaries first, before decoding the language, but I'm pretty confident I've made a good choice — and I've already started to have fun with it.

✱This week I woke up to find out that I had been victim of an unauthorized purchase made in one of my credit cards. Someone somehow broke into my Rappi account — one that I hadn't been using for a couple of years and that now, due to the circumstances, I have properly cancelled — and used a card associated to my PayPal inside it to purchase 120 dollars in supermarket goods. So as soon as I found it out, through a notification received straight from my bank's mobile app, I immediately got in touch with my bank, PayPal and Rappi personnel, so I could try to tackle this horrible inconvenience from all the angles I could. Long story short? The purchase was properly cancelled from all three perspectives. I closed my Rappi account, erased all my credit cards associated with PayPal and changed my password there, cancelled the virtual credit card used in the purchase with my bank and replaced it with another, brand new number, and spent a couple of hours changing and updating payment methods in several services I have subscriptions of. These are all securit measures to prevent future problems, but that doesn't make the inconvenience smaller. I felt very angry with myself for this, as I'm usually very protective with my personal data (especially financially speaking).

✱ My two week vacations finished this week, so last Monday was time to return to work. I feel blessed every single day for having the opportunity to work from home — only occasionally going to the office, so I cannot say anymore, for sometime now, that I had the opportunity to stay home, because I'm always home these days. Still, it was very nice to be able to spend 15 days resting from work. Although I couldn't fulfill my goal of finishing the reading of two books I was reading, I used my time to help my son with all the preparations we could see about for his (hopefully) upcoming scholarship. This included a real marathon where we went to medical appointments, blood tests, hours spent at notary publics (again) and translating documents. Now, I know every person has their own notion of fun, but believe me when I say that all of this was fun for me, specially because I know somehow I'm contributing with my son's future.

✱ In terms of work, getting back was… intense. I'm involved in a very important activity which will need to deliver results between the end of this month and the beginning of September, and from day one, right from when I logged in again, I've been dedicated to it. It's been challenging, but in a good way, as it has allowed me to learn a lot, and counting on the help of good friends. As the week went by, I could properly direct matters in a satisfactory way, so I'm both content and thrilled.

✱ It's true I didn't advance with the books I had planned to finish reading during vacations, but that didn't prevent me from starting to read two new ones (yeah, tsundoku, remember?), both related to Japanese. The first one is Making Sense of Japanese, by author Jay Rubin, which while not intending to be a book about grammar in itself, ends up doing a fine role of explaining the language. The second book is 80/20 Japanese, by author Richard Webb — which I started reading later but has proven to be very nice in terms of demystifying the language. Now, I'm not a native English speaker myself, and that could represent a problem to me, as both works are meant to native speakers, but they are very clear and I'm certainly profiting from the new knowledge I'm having access to. If you happen to want to start learning Japanese, I can recommend both books, at least from what I've read so far.

✱ I must admit that I've been getting used to (most of) the ひらがな (hiragana) syllables I'm studying. I'm mostly using the Maru Kana app on iOS now, which I've found the most funny and nicest way to practice. I've also managed to get well used to だくおん (dakuon), small differences in the sound of Japanese introduced when the ゛(dakuten, or ten-ten) or the ゜(handakuten, or maru) diacritics are added to normal syllables, making か becoming が, or は becoming ぱ, for example. I have almost com to the point of starting to practice かたかな (katakana), but I feel I'm still struggling with (actually, confusing) the N (na, な) and M (ma, ま) character columns, as I've highlighted in the image above. Not sure why I'm confusing them at this point, but I'll certainly overcome this obstacle by keeping to practice.

✱ After many, many weeks in a row without playing anything at my computer, I've come back to gaming (even though it was only for a single day). And it all happened because of a new roguelike I came across while watching random videos from Olexa, one of my favorite youtubers when it comes to reviewing new games. The game's name is Another Farm Roguelike: one could say it is all about farming, but it is not… unless you deliberately want to, choosing the farmer to start. You can also be a lumberjack, a beekeeper, a merchant, a wizard… or even a dog! In essence, all you've got to do is to survive for 5, 6, 7 or 8 weeks depending on the difficulty level you choose — what doesn't change is that every 7 days you've got to pay an ammount of money (as if it was a rent) to continue. Failing to do so means game over. In order to get money you can plant and harvest crops, gather resources, raise farm animals, fish and mine ores, among other things. Everything can be sold in this game. And every week, the rent goes up. A lot. Anyways, I fell in love with it while watching the gameplay and, to my surprise, when I went to Steam to check its price, I found out not only it is a very cheap gem, but also that it was in sale, for 50% off. I paid USD 0.66 for it… a real steal!

✱ My son received good news, again, this week. He's now passed the national stage in his quest to obtain a Japanese college scholarship. The analysis process finished last July, 24th, and this means he's now one of the Brazilian candidates who's eligible to travel to Japan. From what I understand, now the only thing between him and the actual travel and scholarship is MEXT's global stage: as this study opportunities are opened on a yearly basis to candidates worldwide, once each country where there are candidates select their approved ones, MEXT double-checks their available budget. As there's not really a maximum number of approved candidates per country, anything from everyone, everywhere being approved to no one being approved could happen. The final answer, coming straight from the Japanese government, is due to be published by December this year. So all we can do here is to keep supporting our son with lots of positive thinking and good vibes.

✱ Parallel to all this waiting that'll take place now, I've spent some of my vacations time this week driving my son around: there were still medical exams to be made, documents to be taken care of and other small details. I wasn't planning on traveling anywhere, anyway, because I already kinda knew it would be necessary, so it felt nice spending this time helping him with what I could.

✱ I've unconsciously stopped reading books this week. I had plans to advance (and maybe even finish reading) two thick volumes I started a while ago, namely The Fiery Cross, the sixth chapter in the Outlander series, and The Elven Star, second in The Death Gate Cycle series, but ended up reading none of them, what will certainly impair my goal. Instead, I've been practicing ひらがな (hiragana) approaching it in a brute force strategy, as to say. To do so, I've used a couple of apps that allow me to see the kanas and tentatively write them on the screen, but also tried handwriting them. There are still some symbols that I forget, but as time goes by, I'm sure that'll improve. Also, I've downloaded an app to help me read Japanese news, as part of an strategy I believe to work well, which is exposing myself to native content, even though I'm currently able to absorve next to nothing. What this has been helping me with is to expose my memory to the kanas I already know, so I can slowly record them. This is not a learning race for me, so I can and enjoy going on in my own pace — and it's been fun, too, what's most important.

✱ I'm not usually (that) interested in Brazilian TV shows, but I've got to admit that The Others, a original Globoplay production, called my attention. That's a suspense story, starting when two kids get into a fight while playing soccer in their condo's court. Their parents disagree on what happened and start conflicting. The lack of communication between the two couples — so common a failure in humanity these days — escalates by the hour and leads to unexpected situations. The story ends up by binding you, and that's why I've binge watched all 12 episodes. I've also learned a second season has already been approved, so it seems the story will go on.

✱ My son received good news, again, this week. He's now passed the national stage in his quest to obtain a Japanese college scholarship. The analysis process finished last July, 24th, and this means he's now one of the Brazilian candidates who's eligible to travel to Japan. From what I understand, now the only thing between him and the actual travel and scholarship is MEXT's global stage: as this study opportunities are opened on a yearly basis to candidates worldwide, once each country where there are candidates select their approved ones, MEXT double-checks their available budget. As there's not really a maximum number of approved candidates per country, anything from everyone, everywhere being approved to no one being approved could happen. The final answer, coming straight from the Japanese government, is due to be published by December this year. So all we can do here is to keep supporting our son with lots of positive thinking and good vibes.

✱ Parallel to all this waiting that'll take place now, I've spent some of my vacations time this week driving my son around: there were still medical exams to be made, documents to be taken care of and other small details. I wasn't planning on traveling anywhere, anyway, because I already kinda knew it would be necessary, so it felt nice spending this time helping him with what I could.

✱ I've unconsciously stopped reading books this week. I had plans to advance (and maybe even finish reading) two thick volumes I started a while ago, namely The Fiery Cross, the sixth chapter in the Outlander series, and The Elven Star, second in The Death Gate Cycle series, but ended up reading none of them, what will certainly impair my goal. Instead, I've been practicing ひらがな (hiragana) approaching it in a brute force strategy, as to say. To do so, I've used a couple of apps that allow me to see the kanas and tentatively write them on the screen, but also tried handwriting them. There are still some symbols that I forget, but as time goes by, I'm sure that'll improve. Also, I've downloaded an app to help me read Japanese news, as part of an strategy I believe to work well, which is exposing myself to native content, even though I'm currently able to absorve next to nothing. What this has been helping me with is to expose my memory to the kanas I already know, so I can slowly record them. This is not a learning race for me, so I can and enjoy going on in my own pace — and it's been fun, too, what's most important.

✱ I'm not usually (that) interested in Brazilian TV shows, but I've got to admit that The Others, a original Globoplay production, called my attention. That's a suspense story, starting when two kids get into a fight while playing soccer in their condo's court. Their parents disagree on what happened and start conflicting. The lack of communication between the two couples — so common a failure in humanity these days — escalates by the hour and leads to unexpected situations. The story ends up by binding you, and that's why I've binge watched all 12 episodes. I've also learned a second season has already been approved, so it seems the story will go on.

✱ I'm on vacations! That'll be 15 consecutive days to rest… from my formal work. With all that's going on with preparations for my oldest son to eventually get his Japanese college scholarship, I'll be traveling a lot, only just inside our city: I'll need to take him to perform some medical examinations, to the notary public in order to authenticate more documents, to his former school to retrieve a translated recommendation letter and to other places as well. Fun enough for me, because I feel I'm watering the seeds of his dream, so to say.

✱ As for my remaining spare time, if I'm lucky enough, I want to dedicate to reading — maybe finally finish The Fiery Cross, the sixth volume from Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, and The Elven Star, the second one in The Death Gate Cycle series. They're both bulky volumes, so this is definitely going to be challenging, but still I want to try it.

✱ I'm also — still — on my quest to learn hiragana. I noticed that I started to forget some of the most recent ones I had learned, so I'm taking my time on this. I don't have to hurry, after all. I'm also owing people who read my humble posts on this site a brief story of why I'm learning Japanese and other posts on my few discoveries. So this means I'm still determined to learn 日本語 in public… bear with me 😅😅

✱ During the last couple of weeks my son would invite me to watch the melon bread series, which we have finally finished watching this week. Strange as it seems, melon bread would mean episodes from the MIU404 Japanese drama series, where a relationship develops between Kazumi Shima, an experienced, rule-following cop with a secret in his past and his new partner, an impulsive idiot named Ai Ibuki, whose impulsiveness makes him loveable. Only 11 episodes long, the 2020 is very enjoyable, as I surprisingly found out. The two main characters end up having to drive a meron-pan van instead of a normal police, or detective car, due to an incident taking place in episode 1, giving a humorous touch to the story and becoming, IMHO, the show's trademark.

✱ I'm looking for some tool I could use to memorize vocabulary. I need to acknowledge my son's determination for he's been using Anki during all his Japanese learning journey — an app whose UI I find horrible, along with its awful UX. Besides, although his clear results, I'm not really a believer that Anki's SRS is the best implemented one, nor that Anki is the best approach to learn Japanese at this early stage where I'm now… if you've read these week notes of mine this far and have any suggestions other than Anki, I'm all ears.

✱ Last Wednesday I took my son to the Japanese Consulate in São Paulo, where he had an interview following up his MEXT exam approval last week. Due to the interview requirements he needed to come all suited up with formal clothing, including a tie — which is an unusual way of dressing not only for him, but for me as week (I can't even recall the last time I put on a suit). The whole interviewing lasted for about 20 minutes: so it felt to me he came back right after having gone into the room, but of course it must have felt like an eternity to him. He kept studying interviews for the whole week in preparation, and it was wise of him to do so, as he had to face four different people in front of him, asking him lots of questions in Portuguese, English and Japanese, all around and again. Right after the end of it, as we left the Japanese offices and stopped to eat something at a mall in the same building, my son told me all he could recall and it looked really promising.

✱ The following day great news arrived via email. My son did it! He got approved in the interview, meaning now he's one step closer to being apt to travel to Japan, earning his college scholarship. The Consulate representative called him and other approved candidates via Teams for an online post-interview comments and orientations section. He passed the São Paulo stage and now has been recommended to the National stage. Once the analysis is done, what must happen by July, 24th, he'll be eligible to going to Japan. Fingers here, as it's been through all this process, are to be kept crossed 🤞

✱ Meanwhile, I've been working on my own Japanese learning. I love languages, being fluent in English, and having basic knowledge of French and Spanish, but Japanese, I knew from start, would be a totally different animal. From my standpoint it must be because of the three sets of characters that comprise the language's writing system, hiragana (ひらがな), katakana (カタカナ) and kanji (かんじ). As I try to learn the first and most basic (also the most used one), ひらがな, using sites like Realkana and getting retention rates ranging from 87 to 92% in apps like Kana for practicing, I'm at the same time satisfied with my own progress and anxious to learn more. But I have to admit that some of these characters are very confusing, yet the language seems to be simple and structured in nature.

✱ To help me deal with all this Japanese input, besides my son's assistance, I've decided to start logging the little I learn here, in this very same site. I'll probably create a new post category named Japanese (surprise!) and whatever Japanese language learning I make will probably be narrated in Brazilian Portuguese (as it's easier for me to use my mother language to note important and interesting discoveries along the way). It's gonna be the learning in public principle all the way. I've even figured out a neat Japanese name for the posts: 私きょうまなんだこと, which translates to "what I've learned today", or "o que eu aprendi hoje". Stay tuned!

✱ Had my hair cut. It's incredible how it annoys me when it starts to get even slightly longer than the usual. As I'm in a meeting on Microsoft Teams and I notice that single, annoying, strand of hair coming into my field of vision. But nobody notices that, someone could say. I do. I do, and it really gets on my nerves. So there's nothing better than having my hair short, again. It's really a relief.

✱ It had hinted us a couple of weeks ago, and now our refrigerator really did it: it's gone to refrigerator heaven, where it's probably nice and cozy. But as it's done that to us, we needed to buy a replacement, which will take an average 6 workdays to be delivered home. Think of living with a half-working, palliative refrigerator. It's a real hell, driving me nuts. Thankfully, this will all be soon behind us here, and maybe we will even laugh about it someday… 😂😂🙏

✱ My week started in São Paulo again. This time my son took the JLPT test, for which he'd been preparing for sometime now. Before he took interest in Japanese, though, it would never occur to me that there was an exam to determine one's Japanese language proficiency, in the same way TOEFL does for English. The tests are divided in 5 different levels, ranging from L1 to L5, and he took the L1 exam, which lasted for about 3.5 hours. Again, having my son take such a test made me proud of him while I saw him among so many people — several Japanese descendants, but also many Brazilians like me and him. It was very interesting to reckon so much interest in Japanese caused by the JLPT test.

✱ My son also received wonderful news this week: he passed the MEXT test he took last week! Results came in really fast and, with the approval, comes the next step. I'll take him to São Paulo for the third time in two weeks, this time so he can be interviewed by the Japanese consulate, another needed measure in his pursuit for a college scholarship. We are all very proud of him in our family, and excited as well. Should he succeed in the interview, he'll be very, very close to going to Japan soon. So we've all got our fingers crossed for him. 🤞

✱ From watching my son while he plays Zelda on the Nintendo Switch to looking up vocabulary on Jisho to practicing more hiragana kanas, my road to learning the basics of Japanese goes on. I've tripled the number of kanas I know — adding the K column — か, き, く, け e こ — to the vowels I had memorized before, and also their five dakuten ( ゛) variations, therefore adding up to 15 kanas. While searching for good means to practice hiragana (and later, as soon as I feel ready for that, katakana), I've come across the Dr. Moku app and a 2-hour long YouTube video from Japanesepod 101, but I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that getting myself a pencil and a notebook, and writing kanas by hand will probably help me memorize and speed things up a little bit. Although my son tells me the order of strokes doesn't matter at all — and some YouTubers I've watched agree with him —, I'd rather learn things accordingly, including writing by hand… by the way, should anyone reading this want to give me some tips on how to learn, I'm all ears…

✱ We finally got to watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie, something we'd been looking for but were unable to do before. In the movie, that we saw through Amazon Prime, Mario travels through an underground labyrinth with Luigi. When the two of them are accidentally separated, Mario goes in a quest to find his brother, while also trying to save the Mushroom kingdom with help from princess Peach. In little more than 1 hour and a half, we're presented with beautiful and colorful animation and with every Marioverse character imaginable… except for one — and that is the perfect cliffhanger for a sequel. At least, that's what we all Mario fans here came to think. And a second movie, considering we enjoyed the first very much, would be more than welcome.

✱ I paid a much needed visit to my osteopath last Monday. She helped me — once again — to get rid of a very boring and grueling low back pain which was lasting through the weekend. I came to truly appreciate what osteopathy can do to our bodies… it seems to work like magic.