Sam's Japanese Journey: Day 29 — The Night Before

1:47 AM#

I cannot sleep.

The Yor Forger cosplay is hanging on the closet door. The wig is on the dresser. My convention badge is on the nightstand, next to my phone, which has JIVX open because of course it does. SakuraCon is tomorrow and my brain has decided that sleep is optional and anxiety is mandatory.

I keep running through scenarios. Ordering food at a Japanese stall. Introducing myself at the cosplay meetup. Complimenting someone's costume. Asking where the bathroom is. (I should have practiced that sentence. Why did I not practice that sentence. Add it to the list of things to panic about.)

Mochi is on the bed, curled into a perfect circle on top of my study notes. She is asleep. She is calm. She is the only creature in this apartment who is not vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass.

I told her "Ashita wa SakuraCon desu." Tomorrow is SakuraCon. She did not respond because she is a cat and it is almost 2 AM, but also because she already knows. She has been watching me prepare for thirty days. She has heard me talk to the mirror, the fridge, the garden, and her. She is, by conservative estimates, the most Japanese-literate cat in the Pacific Northwest.

I picked up my phone. One more practice session. The last one before the real thing.

The Mantra#

The first sentence was the one I needed. The one that has been my background hum for weeks now, the sentence that plays in my head when I water the garden or walk to work or stand in front of the mirror in an assassin dress.

I practice every day.

I know this sentence the way I know my own name. Mainichi renshuu shimasu. Every day, practice, do. The suru-verb pattern. The adverb up front. The polite ending. I have said it so many times that the words have worn grooves in my brain, and tonight, at 1:47 AM, they came out smooth and certain.

Twenty-nine days. I have practiced every single one of them. Through excitement and boredom and frustration and breakthrough and a streak break and a rebuild and a real conversation in a break room. Mainichi renshuu shimasu is not just a sentence I can say in Japanese. It is a sentence I have lived.

I whispered the casual form to myself in the dark: "Mainichi renshuu suru." The desu drops away and what is left is a bare statement of fact. I practice every day. No politeness marker needed. Just truth.

Late Night Library#

The second sentence made me laugh, because it is exactly what I am doing right now. Sitting up at 2 AM, surrounded by notes and flashcards and a sleeping cat, reading everything I can get my hands on.

I typed "Toshokan de hon wo yomimasu" on the first try. The library, the de particle for where the action happens, the book, the wo for the object, reading. Clean, correct, no hesitation. If my bedroom counts as a library -- and with the number of manga volumes in here, it qualifies -- then this sentence is literally describing my current situation.

The de particle. I remember when particles were my nemesis. Day 5, specifically, when は and が first appeared and I wrote "WHY DIFFERENT?" in my notes. Now I am using de, ni, wa, ga, wo, and mo without even thinking about it. They are just... parts of sentences. The way prepositions are parts of English sentences. The way you do not think "in" is a weird concept when you say "I read a book in the library." You just say it. That is what twenty-nine days of practice buys you -- not perfection, but fluency of the basics.

Proof of Work#

The last sentence was the final piece of the puzzle. The capstone. Because I looked at the English -- "I studied for 3 hours" -- and thought: yes. Yes I have. Literally just now. It is after 2 AM and I have been reviewing for three hours and this sentence is describing my exact life at this exact moment.

Past tense. Shimashita. I studied. I did the thing. It is done. Three hours tonight, and thirty minutes every day for twenty-nine days before that. If I do the math -- and I have done the math, because I am the kind of person who calculates their FSI fluency percentage -- that is roughly 17.5 hours of active Japanese study. Out of the 2,200 hours the Foreign Service Institute says I need for professional proficiency. That is 0.8% of the journey.

But you know what? My 0.18% fluency calculator from Day 7 is now sitting at 0.8% and climbing. And the sentences-per-minute rate has tripled since Week 1. And I had a real conversation yesterday. And tomorrow I am going to a convention where I will use Japanese with real people in the real world.

The numbers are small. What they represent is not.

One Last Fridge Order#

I went to the kitchen for water. It was 2:23 AM. The apartment was dark. Mochi was still asleep on my notes, which meant I was not getting those back tonight.

I stood in front of the refrigerator.

"Mizu wo kudasai," I told it. Water, please.

The fridge hummed. It did not give me water, because it is a fridge and not a sentient being, but the hum sounded supportive. This was the running gag that started on Day 6, when I first ordered the fridge to give me coffee in Japanese. Twenty-three days later and I am still doing it. The fridge has never once responded. I have never once stopped asking.

I opened the door, got my water, said "Arigatou gozaimasu" to the fridge, and went back to bed.

Mochi had spread out across my pillow. My study notes were under her left paw. She was purring softly, the way she does when she is deeply, genuinely comfortable, and I did not have the heart to move her.

I lay down on the other side of the bed and stared at the ceiling. The Yor cosplay was a shadow on the closet door. The convention badge reflected a sliver of streetlight. Somewhere outside, the world was going about its business, not knowing or caring that in approximately eight hours, a person in an assassin dress was going to walk into a convention center and try to speak Japanese.

I am terrified. I am ready. I am both of these things at once and I think that is exactly how you are supposed to feel the night before something important.

Mainichi renshuu shimasu. Tomorrow is Day 30. Tomorrow it counts.

Oyasumi nasai.