more blog (and habits) updates

So, I clearly haven’t been keeping up with my once-a-day goal despite the blog being on my mind a lot. I’ve been thinking about this for a bit and I think the main reason is because I haven’t made the “why” component of the blog as clear to myself as much as the “how”. I will often spend idle time throughout my day thinking about what I want to write, but when it comes to actually writing it down, I find it difficult to effectively convey what I’m feeling or thinking while also trying to capture what I’ve been doing, and on top of all of that, in a way that people who have been reading my blog might find interesting or entertaining.

I’m still pretty excited to try to write every day to capture my thoughts and feelings in real-time, but I think I need to make it clear what aren’t currently goals for this blog (which I think I’ve been trying to force subconsciously perhaps, but it hasn’t been working):

1) this is not a polished travel or a how-to-move-to-japan blog. I think I was potentially hoping to turn this blog into a guide for people who may want to move to Japan at some point, or even for visitors who may be curious about some more niche spots to visit or the experience of getting around without knowing Japanese. I think the challenging part for me at this point is that I could probably make a travel guide if I wanted to, but it seems like I need to pick a lane, and I would prefer to capture some raw thoughts and feelings frequently, even if it means it’s much less polished (not that the blog is currently polished or anything).

2) this blog is for me, not for any specific audience (especially an audience I’ve fabricated in my head). I think it’s important for me to just focus on myself while writing instead of constantly wondering if people are going to think my writing is bad or dumb. I honestly would still really appreciate feedback because I want to get better at writing, but I think stopping myself from writing because I’m worried that it isn’t good is the least helpful option. There’s a famous quote/parable about two people who try to make the perfect pot over the course of a year, and one person spends the entire year perfecting a single pot, whereas the other person makes a pot every single day, and over the course of the year, the second person’s pot is way better.

On the other hand, a status update for the other two habits I’ve been trying to track:

• Keeping the apartment clean: it’s certainly not perfect, but it hasn’t degenerated much (garbage/dirty laundry hasn’t been accumulating) which makes less-frequent cleans much easier.
• Running: I did slip for about a week, but other than that, I’ve been pretty on-track with my running plan. I still hate running, and the training plans are just getting longer and longer which not only sucks physically, but because I’m so slow, the workouts are taking forever now. If anyone’s got tips, let me know. It’s been pretty easy to stay active outside of running too - lots of walking just from living in a super walkable city and involving myself in social activities that are also some form of physical activity (I guess this is something I developed while living in the Bay Area that I’ve carried with me).

Sorry if the blog is about to get kind of boring and mostly picture-less (that’s the other thing - I still haven’t found an easy workflow for uploading and referencing images), but on the other hand, hopefully the updates are more frequent and consistent!