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Konnichi wa, minasan~.

I recently was looking at Genki Japan, and a certain tip for fluency caught my eye. They suggested writing a diary (or a verbal, tape-recorded diary) in Japanese for pratice. As no one within a hundrend miles around me speaks, or tries to speak, Japanese (I've been searching for six months, no luck), I thought I'd give this a try. I was wondering if anyone else does this, would like to do this, or best of all, could reccomend some useful phrases and formats to use.

I don't have my books or dictionary, etc, with me right now, but some translations for things like:
Diary (label the book!), dear diary/diary opener, the formats for the date/traditions for the diary, today I (kyo wa?), a closing, etc. I don't know anything about the traditional Japanese diary, but knowing how different their letters are, I'm sure they've got their speical traditions.

I think this should go into the main forum, not learning Japanese? o0;; Anyway, thanks, genki de! <3

They've got all the dates in the Learning Japanese subforum, and I've got some books and a dictionary, too, but thank you for the offer.
I suspose I should look up a few handy words and get some information up.. The main thing I'm requesting is things like, "Today I did ___" or something. And what formality would one use in their diary?