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reflection
Biggest Challenges I faced
1. Other Responsibilities
The largest challenge I faced was my other life responsibilities sometimes conflicting with my quest to complete the book. Of course, there was the usual schoolwork, assignments and group projects for my subjects which I needed to complete and also a MST and Class Test to prepare for, but I also had various programs, most notably TF-SCALE (2 Weeks) which required me to devote long periods of time to attend, in addition, I was also working as a Marketing Development Intern at HRNETONE.
I had been working in this position since March 2024 during my Semester Break, but a prerequisite for me to qualify was to accept a contract longer than the duration of my break which would mean I would also have to work during school, albeit on a flexible 3 day/week (1 Full day and 2 Half days). As a result my progress on this book during the first few weeks were quite slow as I struggled to find a balance between projects, assignments, studying for tests, work and writing the book. I ended up taking on additional work and extending my contract because, money. But that's life and I eventually managed to strike a working balance and continued making good progress on my book up till the present day.
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2. Difficulty finding sources
For a challenge more specific to the writing process, I felt that it was difficult gaining access to some of the sources I wanted to use as they were either behind a paywall, not accessible because I am not a student of the University who has the book, or it was simply difficult to find a easy to understand source as they were written by academics with years of experience studying Japanese history and wrote in a manner which I found difficult to understand.
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3. Inexperience
As someone without any real experience writing a book barring some failed attempts since my days in Secondary School, this was a first for me. I have only ever written reports for projects while studying in ITE and Polytechnic so throughout the 17 weeks I have spent working on the book, there was always this thought in the back of my mind that my book was not going to be up to standards and would not be comparable to the books that i could buy off the shelf ffrom Kinokuniya or Popular.
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My Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths
My biggest strength which has arguably enabled me to come this far in the project, is my passion for Japanese History. Although I have a keener interest in studying the Edo Period and ages before this particular period of Japanese history, I also enjoyed doing research on the Meiji Period. Even though I am not Japanese, i still feel a sense of secondhand pride that a country like Japan managed to defy the expectations of outsiders and carve a path for itself on the world stage and modernise into a modern and powerful nation state in only a few decades.
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Weaknesses
I observed that my biggest weakness most responsible for my slow progress was my tendency to procrastinate. Despite having a lot of responsibilities, I also did in fact have plenty of free time over the past 17 weeks. For instance, there were many days after school where I would have no work to do, and instead of focusing on writing, I would instead opt to play video games, or binge watch yet another anime series on Netflix.
If I had focused on completing the book and not allowed myself to be distracted, I honestly may have been able to reach the 50,000 word goal by now, or be a lot closer to this number.
Moving forward
Although I did not manage to reach my desired 50,000 goal, I want to reiterate that I am far from done with this project. I plan to continue writing this book till I hit the 50,000 word mark and possibly even exceed it.
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There's so much more I want to write about, the wars of expansion in the Meiji Period, the economic benefits of resource extraction from gaining all those new colonies in the Taisho and Showa Periods, the effects of the war on the GDP, the eventual fall of the military dictatorship in Japan, the postwar economic boom, the emergence and popping of the asset bubble, the onset of the lost decades, and the future of Japan's place among the world's top economies.
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I hope that you dear reader, will lend me your support by subscribing to my newsletter through the red 'Contact Information' button below.
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By subscribing with your email account, you will receive semi-regular updates via email of my progress whenever I am able to, and you can even expect to see sneak peaks of new chapters as I write and perhaps even get a say on what topics I add in the book, and most importantly, you will be giving me a figurative pat on the back which is all the motivation I need.
I am still working out the details and will have more information after my final semester exam on 23rd August 2024.