As you can tell from this image of Fonzie, “How To Be Casual, Part 2” is up and pretty much ready to go. The rest of this week will be spent finishing the next chapter after this one, as well as the next kanji chapter.

Oh, and there will be some neat things regarding e-mail showing up too, if the other two things get done first.

Season 3 is finally starting to roll (after coming back and getting caught up on all the naggy little things). I just posted up the second lesson of Season 3 (which probably means there are a decent number of bounty opportunities available), and the third lesson is being worked on as we speak (as well as the next kanji chapter, which for some reason seem to take ridiculous amounts of time to finish). I’m also pretty excited for this most recent chapter as it’s the first one that integrates homework that involves using Lang-8. Utilizing the social tools available on the web, I think, is going to be one of the really neat things that sets TextFugu apart. Sure, you could go ahead and use Lang-8 on your own, and that’s wonderful, but using it in concert with TextFugu? Now that’s a beautiful (and educational) combination.

Anyways, I’m also putting together a customer survey so I can learn more about the things you find most important (so I can make sure my time is spent wisely for you), so please fill it out when you get it!

Today I spent a good portion of my day migrating the TextFugu “bounty program” over to a brand new system that should make things oh so much easier to keep track of (the other half of the day was spent going through all the bounties – lots of catch up to be done after getting back from my funeral leave). Before, I would get your e-mail, and then put it on a spreadsheet, and things would get all jumbley. Now, I’m using an actual ticket capturing system which will allow myself (and others) to coordinate bounty checking without stepping on each other’s toes. I’m so happy for the new system, which should solve a ton of problems that existed before.

I think I might hate kanji more than all of you, if that’s possible. Yesterday and today were the first days “back to work” since the funeral, but I’ve gotten a good amount done probably thanks to Hawaii being so cold right now. Biggest thing that was done is the next kanji chapter, which consists of 30 new kanji (all three stroke kanji), some blank kanji practice sheets you can use, and a new list on Smart.fm. If you’ve already completed “The Things I Hate” in season 2, you’ll want to circle back and go through the second “real” kanji chapter, found here. If you haven’t gotten to this point yet, then don’t worry about it, because you’ll get to it when you get to it. More updates:

Once again, thank you all so much for your patience and condolences, and we’ll get back to normal soon!

Also, because of this situation, although I’ll be working on TextFugu offline (it’ll feel weird, but it’ll have to be done!), there will probably be no updates this week until I can get back home and transfer the offline online. I appreciate ahead of time your understanding!

There have been a few updates in the last couple days, though – here they are in case you’re interested in checking them out:

• First “kanji” chapter. My gosh, it was a pain to write this one. Hopefully my pain means you will feel a lot less pain while you’re going through it, though! Many chapters similar to this one are in the pipeline, since you’ll be going through these along with the other chapters.
• A few kanji radicals chapters.
• Some chapter revisions.
• Some more audio in some earlier chapters (was going to finish this up this week, but, of course, circumstances prevent).

Thank you all so much for understanding – I should probably get to packing now, as I have to head out early tomorrow morning. Here’s to hoping there will be internet at whichever relative’s place I end up staying at.

• Season 1 has gotten most of it’s revisions. The only thing left to do is to add more audio (did this with the first half of season 1). The rest of the audio will probably be coming this week, along with a few extra worksheets if I can wrangle the extra time.
• A Kanji section has popped up! This was unexpected. I was planning on spending the last week working on revisions of previous lessons, and all of a sudden I have an epiphany about kanji, and focus half of my time on that. A lot of Season 1’s vocabulary learning has changed (and gotten way way better, in my opinion), so hopefully it doesn’t get confusing for anyone. I’d recommend going back and doing a quick run through to see what changed. And, no matter who you are, you’ll want to get through all the kanji radicals by the end of Season 1 (so, if you are on Season 2, you should go through the radical chapters on your own).
• Season 2 Revisions didn’t get done. Thanks to the kanji section, my focus got moved a bit. I’ll be working on Season 2 revisions while working on the first couple chapters of Season 3, and hope to get that, along with 5-6 more kanji chapters, wrapped up in the next one to two weeks. Many apologies for not getting these done earlier.
• Hired someone to help with customer service… bounties. For the sake of being able to focus, I hired someone to help me with these things. You can still always e-mail me directly though. That info is on the contact page.
• Changed the Pricing Model: That happened just today, actually. I’m excited to see how it goes, and excited for all of you who got in while things were less expensive! Lucky ducks.