Introduction # This post assumes familiarity with alternative keyboard layouts and magic keys. For further reading, check out layout.wiki’s excellent introduction to alternative keyboard layouts, as well as their overview on magic. Adaptive swaps are a class of magic that follow the following rule: Immediately after hitting key X, swap the positions of keys Y and Z. Adaptive swaps do not require a dedicated key, so they can be used comfortably on a traditional rowstagger board.

See also Wagashi Resources (Acknowledgements) for a related post. At some point in my tea career, I decided to be the “wagashi guy.” It wasn’t necessarily a conscious choice. Some events that happened over the years: Back at Japan House, we had fresh omogashi every lesson. I joined as many Wagashi Issho workshops as I could in Japan. I volunteered to be part of the sweets committee for our Midorikai Christmas Chakai and helped my senpai churn out a hundred (?

I have been making sweets for every tea class for a couple years now. I’m still learning constantly, and failing frequently, but I’ve gotten to a point where I’m usually comfortable serving what I’ve made to the students. You can see some of my more recent sweets below. My first tea teacher, Kimiko Gunji-sensei, just released a new wagashi cookbook in English called Wagashi: Season by Season which got me thinking about the resources I’ve used to make sweets.

My journey with tea started in 2014. I was beginning my final year of undergrad at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and I was going through depression. My coursework and thesis were overwhelming, and I found myself needing a break from engineering. I had no prior interest in Japanese culture at this point, and no prior contact with tea, but I knew I had to do something different from my regular coursework.

At the time of writing, I have put ~180 hours into learning Russian while largely following the Refold method. I am nowhere near my goal of fluency yet, but I can generally follow podcasts (with transcripts) targeting A2 learners at around level 4 comprehension. I have had a tough time finding immersion resources for my level, so I thought that I would write down what I’ve been using. First, I will level-set on terminology with the tools I’ve been using, then I will share a (roughly) chronological list of resources I’ve used while immersing.