It’s hard to build new habits, but there’s two I’m finally keeping up with after years, if not months, of constant slacking, forgetting and most of all, a lack of motivation.

I’ve been attempting to learn Japanese on and off for a couple of years now. I started with learning hiragana which I memorized most of last year sometime; after relentlessly writing and rewriting them until it almost became muscle memory. In the recent six months, I’ve been using Duolingo more but hadn’t been able to keep up a streak longer than a week. I’d practise every day for a week and then give up for 3.

Today I’m at my longest streak ever of 24 days, and I’m determined to make it a month! (Hopefully more too^^).

The other habit I’ve been working on is reading a little bit every day. I learnt in my first year of uni not too long ago how important it is for any writer or aspiring writer to read as much as they can! I read a lot as a young teen, but the longer school went on the less I read and in college and from thereafter I don’t think I read a single book until I started my university course. I eased myself in by starting with a set of small books ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I didn’t manage to read every day and, in fact, I was slow getting through them.. it took me about 8 months to finish “the increasingly inaccurately named trilogy of five”. I did however enjoy the books greatly and soon after finishing the last one started the first book of Game of Thrones which I’ve read every day for the past 16 days and gotten halfway through already! (For some perspective one Game of Thrones book is about the same length as all 5 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books!) So there’s a big improvement there already!^^

I’m aiming to finish reading the first book by the end of this month so I can move onto the next one^^