Weekly Weekend Thread – 08 December 2025

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1. Installed a series of hooks for coats/hats in the genkan. Got a bit of a surprise looking for studs as there were only vertical members anywhere that I could find. That section of wall is only 180cm long and has the outside on one side and a double-sized door on the other so that felt a bit odd to my sensibilities.

   We put the fields to bed over the weekend. We had our first snow and days are getting shorter so it was unlikely we were getting anything else.

2. I’ve been sleeping like absolute dogshit. As in 4-5 hours a night waking up 1-2 times during that 4-5 hours and then not being able to get back to sleep. I’ve gone to the 2-1-0 routine (no drinking 2 hours before bed, no screens 1 hour, only use bedroom for sleeping) and it’s not helping. Wound up napping all day Saturday, didn’t sleep well Sat night again so I chalked it up to all the napping and didn’t nap at all and last night fuck…

   BUT on to happier news (for me). When I was in my early 20’s I got huge into keeping salt water fish. Being an avid scuba diver back then (50-100 dives a year on average) and living in Florida I could catch my own fish and keep them in aquariums to watch at home. At one point I had almost 1000 gallons of salt water tanks in my apartment. I scaled that back to 1 75 gallon and 1 29 gallon after college and starting to work. Then I scaled it back again to just my 29 gallon when we had kids. Then we started doing international moves and I stopped completely and gave all my live rock/tanks away. I miss being able to just sit and chill and watch fish swim about and do fishy things (sort of like my chickens but quieter and less poop to clean up).

   So I found a good sized aquarium, bought it, bought a stand, ordered a bunch of hardware off Ali and I’m going to set up a fishtank. Since Izu is close by and I want to do more camping I’m giong to try to get it set up and cycled before summer and see what I can catch since there are actual hard coral reefs off a couple of spots on the Izu pennensula and the fish are most of the ones you’d see in Okinawa (there are a couple that don’t follow the Philippine current up here but most of them do – damsels angels clowns butterflys tangs triggers even the occasional harlequin ghost pipe fish and lion fish). I’ll mostly just be snorkeling but I’ve had better luck catching fish that way anyway.

3. JLPT over the weekend.

   The Bad: Test center was an hour and a half away from home, and I had an 8:30 am start, which meant an ungodly early Sunday morning. Couldn’t find my transportation pass, so I missed the bus I was hoping to take. Skipped breakfast thinking there would be a combini near the university campus, but there wasn’t, and every campus store was closed because it was Sunday. Listening was really tough for me personally (I should have practiced for this section a lot more).

   The Good: When I looked up the transport times the night before, it was set to PM by accident, so missing the bus wasn’t a big deal. The campus where it was held was really nice. Reading went better than I expected, to my surprise. Everyone in the room was very well-behaved, better than in previous years.

   The random: There was a new rule that you had to seal your phone in an envelope until the end. They checked at the end before giving the all clear to open them up, and two people had broken their envelopes and got written up at the end. I don’t think they were cheating, just probably didn’t understand the rule, but still, at N2 there’s no excuse. Kinda sucks to have your score invalidated like that.

4. Put the winter tires on my wife’s car.  My 6yo nephew was there so I let him help.  He had a blast jacking up the car and replacing the nuts.  He did three of the four tires for me and then I tightened everything up.  Took waaaay longer than I wanted to but he enjoyed it so all good.

   Christmas package from back home arrived.  Raw honey, licorice, chocs, and princess stuff for my daughters – good times!

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