Weeknotes: week 30, 2023
✱ 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.