2019 was another amazing year, in both my private and fangirl life. A bit of a long selfish post but it’s nice to look back on what a big and amazing year 2019 has been before taking the next step into 2020!
February
Hikaru opened a question box on his blog and did his best to answer as many questions from the fans as he could. Amazingly, one of the questions that he answered was mine! Thank-you Hikaru-kun! I know it was a completely non-eventful, boring question but your cute answer really means a lot. I love dogs too! 🐶
End of February
Johnny’s Web discontinued their foreign language services. I took on a personal challenge to translate all of the A.B.C-Z and JUMP blogs that were posted this year. After realising that Tottsu blogs were much too high level for regular translations and that Tsuka blogs were too frequent and chaotic to keep up with I dropped these two (Sorry boys). But I made it to the end of 2019 translating every single JUMP paper post, and every Fumi, Gocchi and Hasshi blog since March 2019. I didn’t talk about it much to start with because I was worried I had bitten off more than I could chew but now I am really proud that I kept up with the translations all the way to the end of the year. I’m also really grateful for how much doing these short, regular translations has helped the speed and quality of my translating skills overall.
March
Fiance-kun and I and two of our friends had a trip to Adelaide to visit another friend who had moved there. I had never been to Adelaide or even South Australia before. The beaches at Glenelg were stunning and it was a lovely refreshing trip. Thank-you for having us P & A!
April
We took a trip to Canberra to visit Fiance-kun’s brother’s family and see our little nephew who is already three and actually not so little anymore! We had a big tasty Easter barbecue and spent 80% of the time playing with lego and reading picture books!
May
Our close friends welcomed a beautiful baby girl into their family and I cut off half my hair! Not exciting but a big change for me.
June
We went to America! I had never been to the States before and it was really eye-opening to see what it’s really like there. It was the first time I’ve travelled to another “Western” country outside of Australia, and even though everyone spoke the same language the subtle differences in the culture were almost confronting. We had a great two weeks travelling around New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Salem. I finally fulfilled my childhood dream of going to see the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History! We also attended our friend’s wedding at a beautiful chalet in the countryside in Philadelphia. Congrats M & D 💒
July
Johnny-san passed away. While there continue to be many divided opinions on Johnny’s passing and the future of the company the boys all dealt with the loss in their own, professional way; as always helping support the fans and each other through this tough time.
I didn’t talk about this at the time because it felt disrespectful while everyone was still dealing with the fallout from Johnny-san’s passing, but I also had a whirlwind trip to Melbourne with a group of friends to see The Cursed Child play. I had influenza but I wasn’t going to miss this play for anything so I masked up, drugged up and had an amazing time. It was such a spectacular theatrical production. The way that they used the entire theatre made it a truely immersive experience.
August
I had my once a year Japan trip to go and see A.B.C-Z’s Going with Zephyr concert. Thanks to help from so many of my lovely Ebi fan friends I was able to attend the concert five times. I got fan service from Fumi which was probably the highlight of my year! I was also able to stay with my generous friend C in her apartment in Tokyo. She took me on my very first Disney trip to Disney Sea and we got to go and enjoy the A.B.C-Z Joypolis collaboration project together for the second year in a row. She also helped me be brave and go to visit Fumi’s brother at the Psycho Bunny store and even brought him outside to meet me when I was too much of a scaredy cat to go into the store myself. Things didn’t work out between us by the end of the year but I really cherish the time we spent together and the memories we made. Thank-you for everything 💓
September
Fiance-kun and I finally bought our own house. After three years of saving and searching we finally found a place. It’s in a really nice neighbourhood, only a 10-minute drive from work, and right next to a big dog park! Oh, and Fiance-kun turned 30! Congrats 😘
October
I wrote a small, sad letter to A.B.C-Z’s radio show for Fumi’s birthday. I had never written to the radio before but I was brave and sent a letter just this once. Then half way through the show Hasshi read out my letter. It was a really crazy experience hearing Hasshi read the words I had written and hearing Fumi and Ebi respond to them. Fumi didn’t even realise I wasn’t Japanese until half way through the letter which also made me feel really great about my Japanese skills; maybe they’re not as bad as I thought!
And then not much else has happened for the rest of 2019. Just working, keeping up with fandom things, translating and continuing to make our new house our own.
It’s been another full-on year of work, travel and fandom. Thank-you to everyone in my personal life and my fandom life for your support and patience this year. 2018 was rough for me after leaving Japan and reacclimatising to life in Australia but thanks to everyone’s support I feel like I have finally hit my stride again in 2019. Now that I am back I’m going to do my best to push myself to achieve even more next year!
And of course thank-you so much to JUMP and A.B.C-Z, to Hikaru and Fumi, for bringing so much joy to everyone with all of their hard work again this year. I am a busy person, I am always doing, always reading, always coming up with some project. Being able to put all of my doing energy into supporting these boys again this year has been so fulfilling. I am very lucky to be a fan of such hard working and generous boys. I am so grateful for their easy-to-read daily blogs, for their regular selfies, for Hikaru’s Hirunandesu appearances and for Fumi’s musicals. They give so much to their fans and continue to push themselves harder everyday. I hope that they both have a successful and fulfilling year in 2020!
I still don’t know what next year will bring for me. So far we have plans for a trip to Perth in February and I have a promise with my beautiful friend N to go to her first A.B.C-Z concert together. I’m also planning to submit some pieces to the JLPP International Translation Competition and if I can get my study butt back in order I might even try sitting the N2 in Melbourne. Apart from that I might finally plan my wedding! Watch this space! 😂
HSJパン屋 