I never realized how being a fan of an artist or group of any kind can also be time-consuming.
The only way for me to actually stick with the #100DaysOfCode challenge is to add another #100DaysOf… challenge alongside with it. A few of my coder friends from various coding communities I’m a member of, in a way, threw the challenge at me by adding another #100DaysOf… challenge and update on Twitter. The problem with me is that I’m a sucker for challenges and sometimes I would accept the challenge on impulse. This time though, it took me a bit while to think of the type of challenge I’m going to take that would at least take me up to 100 days.
So, I found my calling. I also want to help the members and (some) fans with their English too (especially the members). Some of them are in the same boat as me— reading, writing, understanding English but speaking is a whole different story. That’s the same with me. So, as a favor to the group doing all they can to break the language barriers with their slowly increasing global non-Japanese speaking fans, I want to do the same thing. One fellow global fan is doing just that, but she is just one person. Why not two? Three? More?
I will be opening a separate progress blog. My blog is a network site (WordPress multisite), and for some dumb reason, the browser is giving me a “page does not exist” error when I try to view my newly-added blog on the browser. I already have Symmetry added to this one last year and that went smoothly. I don’t understand this new one I just added today, so for the time being, I’ve opened the Tumblr version. But, when I do get the WordPress one to work, I’ll just sync the entries with the Tumblr one.
Every day when I add the hashtag on my Twitter progress, I’ll be talking about what I read or wrote or comment on something in general (MADKID, J-Pop, anime, etc.) in Japanese with very little English (hopefully none but that’s impossible) in them.
No translating anything into English. That would just hinder my focus. 😅 I used to think of English whenever I write something in Japanese, but that doesn’t always work. I think the key here to getting fluent is to not think of the English before you write… or say something in Japanese. I have to think in Japanese straight up immediately before saying something or writing something down, kind of like thinking in reverse. That’s even a lot harder but easier… I don’t know if that makes any sense.
Pop culture isn’t going to help me much. Watching a J-movie, J-drama, or an anime episode without English subtitles does not help. Listening to music doesn’t help either, as many of the lyrics are very poetic… and I’m not aiming to be poetic in Japanese. If it comes down to it, it has to be the reading, the writing, and most of all just communicating with people in general.
A few of my global fan friends are already praising how I communicate and comment in Japanese, regardless of how I mix up the Japanese and English (sometimes on purpose). Even the MADKID members (well, three of them) always praised how good my Japanese was and how they understood me perfectly (even though they don’t really respond to me in Japanese in return and are doing the same thing as I was), regardless of how messy my grammar and spelling was, regardless of how incomplete my statements were, regardless of how mixed up my Japanese and English were altogether like I was speaking in Taglish (Tagalog & English mixed up). Although I’m happy to hear that I’m able to spread what I wanted to say across, I feel like I could do more, or rather, I should say something more, talk about something that doesn’t make me sound repetitive.
There have been a couple of times on 17 which I just end up watching and trying to listen and understand what was being said. I mean I’m a fan, yes, there are plenty of fans hanging out on 17 that it’s normal to not get noticed sometimes.6 However, if you’re a foreigner fan, it’s not difficult for everyone there to notice you, but it would be a lot more difficult to communicate with the streamer and the fellow people you’re with.
And the way I see it, today, they’re only starting one step at a time. However, when the group becomes huge in the entire industry, meaning the huge increase of fans, it would only seem natural that you as one of the “first generation” global fans to be forgotten. So, rather than just giving yourself your name, your location, what you like about the group, the favorite music, etc., why not give a long-lasting impression, something that would seriously make your favorite member and your favorite group, as well as seasoned fans, would remember you by for a very long time?
I wish I would be one of those people. The only thing the members know about me is that I live close by to their closest global fan who may be safe to say are companions in real life (well, not that close but I guess companions would be a better term?) for several years, that I have some proficiency in Japanese, and I’m a working adult. 😊 Oh, and “Adrianne” is somewhat common but not a very common name either. As of the day I started becoming an active MADKID fan on April 1st, I’m the only Adrianne standing among their small pool of global fans.
But I don’t want them to know me by my name alone and other qualities I mentioned. That’s one of the reasons why I’m taking this challenge. Furthermore, I also want to take on this challenge simply because I really enjoyed learning and speaking and communicating in Japanese. I loved it even more than my high school Spanish courses, mainly because it was very challenging and yet I was able to somewhat taken the grasp of the language, the syntax, the usage rules and regulations, and most of all, the massive writing system. Even after some almost 20 years since college, I’m still lucky enough to be able to read Kana and some elementary level kanji, still lucky enough to remember the basic stroke orders, still lucky to recall some verbs and some conjugations and. But sometimes I’m drawing blanks now to the point that I’m getting all the sentence structures, the particles, the conjugations, and such all mixed up or just simply misspelled. I can’t do that anymore.
Am I going to be completely fluent? Probably not. But hopefully fluent enough to help break the language barrier and even teach some English to those who want to learn at the same time… and of course, I would feel a lot more fulfilled personally that I’ve finally conquered one of my bucket list goals of being able to speak two Asian languages (my own and Japanese) and two European languages (English and Spanish). Who knows, maybe I may reach out to learn one more. We shall see.
Yesterday, I had my annual diabetic eye exam. I didn’t notice any strange changes with my eyesight, however, the eye doctor has detected that there’s a few cataracts or hemorrhage of some sort that’s building up somewhere in my eye… or both of my eyes. Still, I didn’t detect any strange changes with my eyesight all this time. I didn’t see any clouding or anything blurry aside from my usual nearsightedness. I understand that I am diabetic, and there can be a lot of unfortunate things that may happen to me involving parts of my body if I go overboard with diabetes. However, one of my biggest fears of being diabetic is the loss of eyesight. I rather lose an arm or a leg, but my eyesight is very precious to me, you know?
On the first week of April, the time that I met Karu8 on Twitter, she was in the process of creating a global fan book to hand over to the guys when she got to Japan to watch the boys with their One-Man Live concert and their upcoming lives right after to commemorate their major debut in mainstream J-Pop that occurred last January 31st. It may be a few months late, but it still counts.
I submitted my well-wishes to the guys for the fan book. I believe I was one of the last of the global fans to get included in the book, so I felt quite blessed. Because I was still new at that time, I only gave them a brief short message (mixed English and Japanese), sending them their well-wishes and how much their hard work and their obstacles inspired me to overcome the hurdles I’m currently facing to reach my goals. She translated the English part of my message and printed the entire translation next to it.
Before she handed the fan book to the guys, she shared all the photos of the entire fan book that had all the fan messages she gathered from Amino, Twitter, and Instagram. I have to say there are plenty of those who shared their messages. Some of them even had their own section of two pages. Much to my surprise, I was one of them.
To be honest, I didn’t expect to have my message to have its own section of two pages. I thought it’d be just one small page stuck somewhere on the top or bottom, it didn’t matter how my message was placed as long as the guys can see them. But instead, I’m one of the people who’s able to get an entire section with my name in big bold letters.
The interesting part here is that while Karu waited for the day she would finally take off for Japan (4/28), the guys have already met me through social media (17, Twitter, probably Instagram). Among the global fans who frequently visit the 17 lives, I was the only Adrianne there. Even in this fan book, of all the photos I’ve seen on Amino, I’m also the only Adrianne in there.
In other words, MADKID only knows only one Adrianne (as of today anyway)— me. In short, once the guys read the messages in this fan book and see “Adrianne” in big bold letters, they’ll automatically know it’s me. 😅 I may sound like I’m showing off, but then again everybody shows off in their blogs one way or the other, however, this is just my way of sharing to the world how awesome and wonderful MADKID is and how they truly deserve the worldwide recognition. However, like I mentioned before, they have to make it big in Japan first before they venture out.
I still don’t know what I can do for MADKID as a fan. I built fansites dedicated to my favorite J-Pop groups before9 and I don’t even know if fansites are still a thing among J-Pop fans today because of social media. I’ll think about that much later.
#teacherappreciationweek I would like to say thank you (from the bottom of my heart to) Karu @karuchan225_i for introducing @MADKID_official to a number of us global J-Pop fans. I at first thought of becoming a silent fan but you brought me out of my comfort shell.
Right, this would be my first entry for the month of May. I hope I get to blog more often.
Springtime Social Media and Fandom	Summer is here!
I think I only got to Day 30ish on the 100 Days of Code challenge, I found it difficult to commit to because of my busy schedule. Also during the time, I was on my placement year where I was on the computer from 9 – 5 so more time on the computer after work was not what I wanted to do. I will try and do it again soon!
I definitely prefer Twitter, I reach more people and people tend to have more interesting conversations as opposed to Facebook IMO.
I’m so sorry to hear about your eyes. :( Coming from a BMS background, I can just emphasise the importance and power of lifestyle changes – it can honestly heal you naturally. :) Sending you positive vibes!
I think the last time I was on #100DaysOfCode last year was day 51 or 52 and then life happened. But it’s definitely helping me keep up with the challenge this year when I paired it with another #100DaysOf… (Japanese). I’ve been doing both on Twitter simultaneously even if I haven’t been tagging much and it’s been very fulfilling.
I have to admit that I regret not spending too much time on Twitter then, how powerful this microblogging platform may be. To be able to reach out to so many people of all different places and backgrounds, even the people you’ve never imagined or expected to meet, even if it’s just the internet, is still amazing and rewarding. Aside from keeping in touch with irl friends I do go on Facebook, but there’s just way too much drama and stuff going on on my wall that I couldn’t even remove them from my Friends list that I decided to stray away from there haha!
Its so sweet how you want to help them and the fanbase! I would never think to do that.
I’ve helped other artists before from several years ago, but MADKID is a lot different. How is it can you be just a fan while you get to talk/hang with them online via livestream at the same time? If you think about it, if you do end up talking to them and then not do anything for them in return, how would that feel? Anyway.
I hope you will be fine. Maybe you can consider using Crizel Xperio sun lenses? That’s what I am using and it is one of the highest sun protection in the market currently.
Life has been crazy busy and I’m just now catching up with everything. I hope the sunglasses help keep your eyes as healthy as possible. I don’t have diabetes but I’m very near sighted so I can relate to your worries. Have fun with MADKID!