three months left

My work contract finishes in less than three months, and I still haven't worked out exactly what I'm going to do yet... I know I want to stay in Japan and study Japanese, but I'm not sure if I want to try and work part time while I'm doing that or not... I also just had my last vacation before I finish my contract, and I have to go back to work tomorrow ><

Lately, I've been trying to read more in Japanese. I've been working my way through some of Roald Dahl's easier books, but they're kind of hard in translation. I also discovered the cutest manga over Golden Week called Chi's Sweet Home. It's about a kitten that gets adopted by a family who isn't allowed to have pets in their apartment but doesn't want to abandon her. It's a really easy read, and it's all in color.

For some reason, even though I watch a lot of anime, I can't seem to get into the manga as much. I think it's because I like to watch the action too much, so I have little patience for when I can't really tell what's going on, especially if I don't have time to look up everything that I don't know. And then, if I've read the manga, I already know what happens in the story, so I don't want to watch the anime anymore. I always hear that the manga is better, but my excuse is that I learn more Japanese when I'm watching it rather than just skimming through reading it...

In any case, instead of reading manga then, I end up reading children's books. Or manga that I can understand almost completely, like Chi's. It's more satisfying, even if I don't understand everything when I'm reading the books. It's like Mrs. Phelps told Matilda (which I'm also reading in English with one of my students), "...don't worry about the bits you can't understand. Sit back and let the words wash around you, like music." I'm pretty sure that's what I did when I read in English when I was little, so I don't see why I shouldn't do it in Japanese as well. I forget a lot of what I look up, but if I see it enough, I'll eventually remember it. Mostly vocabulary. Grammar is really hard to pick up this way, but some of it helps. Some things just take longer than others...