iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Ever translate something that the original is just so bad you don't want credit because you don't want to be affiliated with it, even though your translation is an acurate representation and linguistically reads smoothly?

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Picked up two options for 2nd grade summer reading from the 100 yen shelf at book off 😂 My son's IEP has him doing the same work as other kids but with extra teacher/parent support. So he's going to be reading one page and following along with me reading ~10 pages every day to finish in time.

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Hallelujah, this time my younger son also allowed them to clean his teeth for the first time ever. Suuuch a relief! It was ROUGH before.

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Today a bunch of people from some city-sponsored anti-drug coalition were outside the grocery store handing out pamphlets about the harmful effects of drugs, along with these promotional presents... a packet of basil seeds. The only acceptable herb???

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Walking to school in a double-typhoon. ☔

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

My kids have a new kinda weird favorite snack... 'cucumber lightsaber.' 😂

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Kazuma normally has a really hard time focusing on homework. Almost every day his homework is just tracing kanji, but today's homework was copying sentences from the workbook into the notebook, and for whatever reason he LOVED this assignment so he did two days' worth of homework all on his own!

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Our preschool is the best. They have a dedicated 'play in the mud' day where they intentionally floor the sanbox and surrounding ara and let the kids go ham. Afterwards kids get hosed off and change into spare clothes.

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Being a homeowner means paying 700 dollars to have 50+ years worth of grease buildup power-washed out of the drainage pipes of a house you've only lived in for 7. Being a millennial means putting this off for months because you have no idea who to call about the swamp forming in the backyard. 😂🤮💰

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

I told my 5yo to take a picture of me with the dinosaur in an attempt to convince him it's not scary so I could then take his picture. I did not know the dinosaur moves and makes noise! He captured my 100% authentic reaction fleeing for my life. 😂😂😂

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Camping in Fukui. This campground has very friendly goats!

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Another word I hate translating is つむじ / 旋毛. We don't really talk about 'the whorls of (a person's) hair' in English prose. Unless its specifically describing the movement of hair, I usually change it to 'the crown (of the head),' which is still awkward but a little less?

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

This kid has been doing a variation of 不登校 where he doesn't actually mind going to school, he just completely refuses to walk. No actual reason, he's just lazy and going by car is easier. 😭🙄😖

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Random thoughts while cleaning the bath/shower room: "Scrubbing Bubbles" is the most Japanese-coded American product name ever. It can be translated so literally as ゴシゴシあわあわ and lose absolutely nothing in nuance... and yet they left it as Scrubbing Bubbles in English on the packaging here. 😅

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Night at the Manga Museum was AMAZING! My favorite was the 3am tour of the employees-only climate-controlled book vault in the basement where they are preserving over 250,000 volumes of antique manga magazines and books dating back to the 1960s!

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Got our first property tax bill since buying our house in 2024, and at 36,700 yen (230 dollars) for the entire YEAR, it's less than the automobile tax for a regular-engine car, and less than half of ONE MONTH's property tax for a very modest house in my home town. This is why I live in Japan 👍

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

I just got a new novel series to work on (yay!) and the writing is possibly the best I've worked on so far (yay!) but the character names are SO BAD! I think the author set her keyboard to katakana mode and then had a seizure 😱 It's just random katakana smushed together 😂😂😂

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Kids' first movie theater experience: Super Mario Galaxy. Listening comprehension is my weakest skill so I have to admit I only understood about 90% of the movie, but it was good 😅 Kids were surprisingly well behaved too!

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Yesterday we went for a walk to another shrine in our neighborhood, I think this is number four in a 10 min radius of the house.

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

It's really annoying to be in between projects with all the different companies I freelance for at the same time, but knowing that if I register with another company suddenly they'll all send me work at the same time and I'll have to turn something down. 🙄

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Today's my 10 year wedding anniversary ＆ 12 year anniversary of moving to Shiga (I've spent 13 years in Japan including 1 year study abroad in Nagoya, but I went back for a year in between to finish my degree). To celebrate I recreated the 'strawberry vanilla custard tart' currently @ starbucks.

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Out of 739 applicants, 20 were chosen by raffle to participate in a special "Night at the Manga Museum" event to celebrate Kyoto Manga Museum's 25th anniversary. Incredibly, I won one of those 20 spots! I'm abandoning my kids (with their father) to go to a giant sleepover in a manga museum!!! 😍😍😍

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

A happy weekend with good weather. They're closing a Starbucks location that we have a long history with because it was the first and one of very few in our area up until recently. So me and some of my child-free friends I rarely get to see anymore got together for a coffee date 😍

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Welcome to second grade kanji 😍 They are wobbly cute elementary schooler letters, but I'm so proud of him. At age 4 I thought he'd be non-verbal for life. When he entered 1st grade in special ed I worried he'd never learn to read. But he's absolutely thriving 🥰

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

I bought two cheap old DS's from メルカリ for my kids to play with on the plane ride to America this summer because they're obsessed with Mario 😅 They are enjoying 'practicing how to use it.'

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Mr. T helped me make cinnamon buns the other day. I forgot to get a picture of them after baking but of course we slathered them in an ungodly amount of cream cheese frosting.

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I'm now up to four different militaristic groups in the novel series I'm currently translating. 1.護衛 (MC's bodyguards) 2.軍 (the national military) 3.私兵団 (territory's private army) 4.自警団 (city militia). Any more and I'm not going to be able to keep them straight!

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

We visited the US consulate in Osaka today to renew this cutie's US passport because he's turning 5 soon! 🇺🇸

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Every year me and my equally non-Christian friends gather at my house on the appropriate day and have a taco party to celebrate easter eggs, because we're millenial Americans 😅👍

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Another play date with local foreign/mixed family friends. Goodbye all my money, is spring break over yet?!

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Strawberry picking! This place is free to enter, pay by weight for what you pick,which works better for us. 2 containers, just over 500g came to 2660 yen.

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

I was translating tentacle porn after the kids went to bed but my 4 y/o came down for a drink. While I was getting it, he opened my mostly-but-not-completely closed laptop and asked "Mommy, what's that? Is that a mean snake?" "YES! Very mean snake, it's too scary for kids so don't look!" 😱😱😱

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Kazuma's been really into going for walks lately so since the weather's beautiful and I desperately need to be more active, we've been exploring the hidden corners of our neighborhood. Like the shrine with a randomly placed tunnel to hell...

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Kids and I planted the garden today. We're trying direct-from-seed this year. I know it might seem strange to cover the dirt with weed sheets and plant in planters, but I have OCD and weeds are easier to keep under control in the planters. I'm grateful to have space to garden at all.

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Spring break day 2, playdate with foreign mom friends. Our kids only see eachother a few times a year now that they're in school, but they are BEST friends. There's something special about people who look like you, speak like you, and are different from everyone else the same as you. ❤

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Everyone talks about the racist "Japanese First" nutcases from sanseitou, but I've been seeing a few of these political posters pop up in my neighborhood lately. I'm not sure the best way to translate it but maybe "All Contributing Members of Society First"? 😅

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

I'm not great at hand-writing kanji from memory (I have no visual memory whatsoever) BUT I have improved a bit over the past year due to writing approximately 200 pages of 連絡帳 back and forth with my son's special ed teacher 😂 Maybe by the time he finishes 6th grade I'll be a master?

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Engrish in the wild, snapshot from a friend of mine. Idk what this is even from, maybe some kind of free promotional notepad or calendar?

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

I got my annual 'countdown to summer vacation in America' sticker calendar made up. First had to decide the dates of our spring/summer camping trips!

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

The picture leaves a lot to be desired (sorry!) but I was so amused to see this kei truck pulling a trailer that is essentially another entire kei truck. Is this even legal?! How can the engine bear the load when it's full of 荷物?! I never saw this before...

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

New word of the day: ビロード＝velvet (the fabric)

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

I finally have a 'look at me localizing!' non-literal translation to share: さすがだ! ＝ Impressive!

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Any idea what I witnessed? They were playing some kind of flute music and doing a dragon dance? In front of a real estate development company, not sure if it's relevant.

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Graduation season means a few half days and days off for kids NOT graduating so teachers can attend the ceremony. And time off during the week means a Costco trip! I got my sister an entire case of Takenoko no Sato, and hid it in the under-floor storage to hopefully not melt before summer. 😅

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Today's new word 殺人未遂罪 (さつじんみすいざい) - (the crime of) attempted murder 😁🔪 Been trying to expand my vocabulary beyond my bubble of childcare and romantasy by reading ~the news~ 😅

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

There's something so surreal about teaching my supposedly-native-speaker child to read and write Japanese. I think I'll be fine up until the end of JHS, but when the kids get to HS we may be studying together 😂

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Victoria Kasahara @vkasahara85.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Today I made deep-dish pizza. As is often the case, I had a craving for something I never would've bothered to try and make in America, but because there's nowhere to buy it here, I had to get creative. It was amazing. Next I have to figure out how to make sausage...

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