Hello! How have you been, folks? It's been a while. I finally have some time to sit down and write something for Journaly. I've had lots on my plate, but I'm on a week off from working out again. I try to take a week-long rest from exercise every two months or so, along with updating my workout plan. I took one in March and another in June. Then, I was going to take one in September but, I ended up with an unexpected earlier rest week due to the back pain. I strained my back, I suppose, from doing an intense sumo squats sessions. My Japanese heritage is thoroughly disappointed-- I couldn't work out for almost three weeks. Why didn't I take the time to write a blog entry back then? Well, I couldn't sit for more than five minutes straight, y'all🤪, so how could I? I mostly spent my downtime standing like a robot, walking around awkwardly, or lying miserably on whatever surface available.

Well, I actually scheduled this rest week to time it with the week of the security camera maintenance, which I knew would take a whole day or two. Whenever some workers are around my house, I always have to help them in certain ways while keeping an eye on them for security reasons. This time, it took a solid eight hours for them to finish the work, so I had some time to get a few things done here and there. I would've brought a book or my Kobo (yes, not Kindle) to catch up on reading, but I had so may emails to reply to, so I set up my tablet and did some writing tasks instead. Then I seized the opportunity and wrote a Journaly entry as well. So, here I am.

My fitness journey has been going well, by the way, despite the backache ordeal I just mentioned. No setbacks or anything. Well, it definitely shifted my mindset and the changes I made afterward ended up being quite beneficial for me. I'm slowly approaching my second goal, another six pounds down from the last update I made here. I barely have any clothes left that fits me well now, looking pretty ridiculous swimming in most of them.

Language-wise, I'm getting a tad more motivated than I was a few months ago, yay! Well, but with different languages than usual. I'm starting to learn Chinese (Mandarin) more seriously these days. It's worth mentioning that I've been doing 10 to 20 minutes of Duolingo Chinese lessons a week for about five years, lol. As you can see, it was not anything serious-- just a way to satisfy my curiosity, hoping to develop an intuitive sense of the language over time, albeit agonizingly slowly. After watching a couple of Chinese movies in the past few months, my curiosity was piqued more than ever. What happens next was a deeper dive into the language, and soon something clicked.

The small amount of no-string-attached, non-committal Chinese lessons I've been doing on Duolingo suddenly paid off. The biggest breakthrough was that I finally understood the tone difference and how to pronounce them (more or less🤪). It was the biggest obstacle that prevented me to really get into Chinese for me. I know, I know, smart people with intention would have learned this much faster, of course, but this is just my style. I feel like Chinese is finally taking root in my head, and I'm now confident that I can learn Chinese if I want to. At the moment, I'm becoming more inclined to do so. Whether it will grow and bear fruit is another matter since I'm quite impulsive and experimental in nature when it comes to languages, so no promises.

I've been learning Russian, too. Again, this is just like my relationship with Chinese: a very short amount of time dedicated to Duolingo without no commitment or intention of studying it for real. This is solely to test the waters and see if I like it, or if I ever consider it a potential language to learn in the future. I really like to have this getting-to-know-you stage with new languages. I'm already realizing the extent of the complexity of the Russian grammar, even only after a month or so. I feel like it'd be more challenging than Arabic for me. Not that I'm studying Arabic actively, either; it's also in the getting-to-know-you-and-getting-to-know-all-about-you phase for years. (If it reminded you of The King and I, we're most definitely friends!)

Do you see the amount of words I've unleashed? This happens every time I write a Journaly entry. It's endless, and it's not something that people want to spend five minutes reading and correcting. Sorry, folks. Long story short--I'm alive and well.

Happy October🎃👻