Let's not talk about real life in this post!

1. Since I don't* listen to Johnny's groups other than Arashi, but am not averse to the idea, and also since there are a bunch of groups that debuted after the last time I tried non-Arashi groups, I am doing an experiment! I gathered the latest album from each group (THERE ARE MORE THAN I REMEMBERED) plus the singles of the new ones that don't have albums yet, and I put them all in one playlist and hit shuffle. I also changed my settings so I am not shown the artist/album name of the song playing unless I explicitly seek it out. What songs by what groups will catch my ear?? There are almost 200 songs, and I bet I'm really going to like some of them~

* I have had a few short periods, all years back, of trying someone or other, and then sometimes I end up getting things for random reasons, like somehow I got and really enjoyed NEWS's Epcotia? If I watched a drama and it had a Johnny's theme song, I might've gotten that, too. But for almost every group, I had nothing of theirs going into this experiment. GO.

2. Since I've been dabbling (again) in Mandarin study, I decided to pick up watching Guardian. Last time (somehow two years ago...!) I got through episode 5, but I'm going to start from the beginning. I think I was enjoying it, but have few memories. One memory that came back when I started ep1 was that there is one (non-main) character that I truly dislike fjdsfjksal and they haven't even done anything yet but as soon as their face appeared I thought YOU! I DON'T LIKE YOU! and can't even remember why. I feel like I liked everyone else to a greater or lesser degree, though, so the ratio is still pretty good. :D I really, really, really like that the Chinese captions are right there all the time~ (I am a mere Mandarin beginner but I can cheat a bit with Japanese if I have the characters in front of me.)

3. I've been more than dabbling but less than committing to Spanish for the last several months, and I am enjoying it. There are a lot of readily available resources for Spanish, which makes it even more fun. For input/exposure, I am 'reading' The Wizard of Oz in Spanish (via readlang) and watching various things on Netflix, usually dubbed. I have spent several years now trying not to watch/listen to anything in English, and now some of those things are things I can watch dubbed in Spanish, huzzah. (If only there were a dub for AtLA that'd be the best~)

4. I actually wrote some things not for an exchange! I am hoping to keep that up.

5. I am trying to actually be on Twitter and make friends ugh.

6. I turned 35! Good job surviving another year, self.

7. The WNBA is so fun to watch despite/because of the weirdness of this season and the playoffs are soon!!!!

8. I am keeping up with my Japanese book clubs and with my more general Japanese reading goals! I have read 15 novels and 260 volumes of manga so far this year. Bit by bit my speed and ability to concentrate are increasing, though I wish I could read more faster sooner (fjsdakjf greedy).

9. ARASHI ARE SO GREAT LATELY AND ALWAYS AND THEIR VERY ARASHI-NESS HELPS ME GET THROUGH THE HARDEST OF DAYS AND I LOVE THEM.

10. I can't think of anything else but ten is a nice round number.