Look at all those N3 books. Which one of those do you recommend?

Or even better, they should have a なんやねん！ button lol

Mark, did he ever end up replying back to you?

Gigatron:
Maybe this has little to do with studying, but I wanted to share a small victory that made me feel good.

Today I went to my usual hangout to eat a little sashimi. If I’m lucky there will sometimes be Japanese customers that sit near me and I can, well, eavesdrop on their convos with the staff. Today was just such a day. Then the chef made a little small talk with me (in Japanese) and I decided to be daring and talk more than I usually would. Then the customer next to me got in the conversation and the three of us spoke Japanese for quite a while about a variety of topics (cars, food, work).

I spoke haltingly and there were some limits to what I could say or understand, though my pronunciation was, I’d say, very good. But it was the longest and most advanced conversation I ever had in Japanese and I was honestly surprised with how I did, considering it’s been years since I stopped actively studying. I felt like a million bucks.

It cemented my decision to try to go back to studying because for the first time I finally felt like fluency was something I could actually attain.

Sounds good. You should feel great.

desu