Yes, after a 4 months stint in Japan I am sitting home in front of my brother's computer and typing this. The trip back home took close to 30 hours if I consider the trip to the airport, check-in, the flight, the car ride back home. A few things I noticed right away...I can read everything! I don't need to stare and try to remember a Kanji, my brain feels so relaxed. Second, I discovered I have trouble sleeping on mattrasses, they are too soft.
Well, I'll keep writing about my reverse culture shock, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The Tokyo Homecoming
Well, I am back at Sakura Asakusa Hostel. My day today was, not fun, I will say that moving out/in is not a lot of fun. I ended up sleeping only 3 hours during the night, packing until the last minute, ending up with more stuff then I expected and making the bus 3 minutes before it left. Telling a quick good-bye to two close friends and taking some last minute pictures.
Still, by the time I got to the station I wanted to talk around the akita city a little bit, but by then I could not find the energy to do it. So, I locked up my stuff in a coin locker and spent a little bit of time just wondering the station buying some food. I ended up sleeping most of my 4 hour train ride to Tokyo. Dragging the luggage around, it still was not nowhere near as bad as my trip to Akita.
Arriving in Tokyo, I coldn:t help but feel a little relieved. Akita is so rural, so seperated from the outside world. Being in a real city gave me some kind of sence of relief. Still the atmosphere was very different, the atmosphere wasn:t as laid back, it had city energy. I made it back and checked in at the hostel without any issues. I have one full day in Tokyo, I probably won:t leave Asakusa, I will try to meet up with a friend who is leaving for Canada on the same day as me and will also be in Tokyo tomorrow.
Still, by the time I got to the station I wanted to talk around the akita city a little bit, but by then I could not find the energy to do it. So, I locked up my stuff in a coin locker and spent a little bit of time just wondering the station buying some food. I ended up sleeping most of my 4 hour train ride to Tokyo. Dragging the luggage around, it still was not nowhere near as bad as my trip to Akita.
Arriving in Tokyo, I coldn:t help but feel a little relieved. Akita is so rural, so seperated from the outside world. Being in a real city gave me some kind of sence of relief. Still the atmosphere was very different, the atmosphere wasn:t as laid back, it had city energy. I made it back and checked in at the hostel without any issues. I have one full day in Tokyo, I probably won:t leave Asakusa, I will try to meet up with a friend who is leaving for Canada on the same day as me and will also be in Tokyo tomorrow.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Picture update starting with this one. Includes pictures of Snow at AIU and Okonomiyaki with the Aikido club.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
2 Days
Well, 2 days left, I have lost control over my sleeping patterns, sleeping for very short times over long periods of time, then sleeping for an extremely long time, I doubt this is healthy but then again what time I sleep won't matter since I'll have to switch very soon.
Besides that, over my time in Japan I had a lot of interesting food such as "otskumi", "Shabu Shabu", "Sushi", and probably my last interesting food here: Okonomiyaki. Pretty much you were given meat, a mixture of eggs and vegetables and there was an oven in front of you. You pretty much cooked everything yourself on the oven. Funny, its not any more or less interesting then anything I tried, but I have difficulty giving any more details. I was thinking, that because you are given an oven, that if something like this exists in the US, you would probably have to sign a waiver before using it. Considering a price, I still say that Sushi is the cheapest and best tasting thing here.
Besides that, over my time in Japan I had a lot of interesting food such as "otskumi", "Shabu Shabu", "Sushi", and probably my last interesting food here: Okonomiyaki. Pretty much you were given meat, a mixture of eggs and vegetables and there was an oven in front of you. You pretty much cooked everything yourself on the oven. Funny, its not any more or less interesting then anything I tried, but I have difficulty giving any more details. I was thinking, that because you are given an oven, that if something like this exists in the US, you would probably have to sign a waiver before using it. Considering a price, I still say that Sushi is the cheapest and best tasting thing here.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
8 days
Well, I've got 8 days to go, 6 days at AIU. I am done with all my finals and I have one class visit. I can't help but say that AIU's finals week is kind of a mess. There is a finals week, yet a lot of the finals are before that week, and some classes are still on during finals week? I really don't follow things here, it seems ot be kind of a mess. I have one high school visit left later today, one more practice with the Aikido club, hopefully a small going out with them over the weekend. There is a concert on Friday by a music performance class that a friend of mine is a part of. There are a few small souvenirs I want to buy before leaving, and of course there is packing. I dragged my luggage all the way from Tokyo to Akita on my way here, I have no intention of doing that again. Luckily, the luggage can be sent ahead directly to the airport, I just have to carefully allocate everything I might need during my last few days here.
Oh, and funny story about the snow. On the first day of snow, a friend of mine was flying from Tokyo to Akita (about 1 hour flight), unfortunately when the plane arrived here it couldn't land because of the snow. So, it ended up turning around and going back to Tokyo, where the airlien bought her a Shinkansen (bullet train) ticket to take instead. So, a trip that was supposed to take 1 hour took about more then 6 hours. I told her that she should've just walked.
One debate that I'm having with myself is, was it really worth taking a Japanese language class? I am really not so sure anymore, the classes were really intense and I felt like I could get more out of self-studying and itneracting with japanese people here. That way I could also go at my own pace. Furthermore, Japanese lcass is 6 credits, I could have taken two other classes and met more Japanese upperclassmen, something I feel I did not get to do enough of here. On the other hand, I'm not sure I would have realized that if I did not take the class, so I'm not sure.
Oh, and funny story about the snow. On the first day of snow, a friend of mine was flying from Tokyo to Akita (about 1 hour flight), unfortunately when the plane arrived here it couldn't land because of the snow. So, it ended up turning around and going back to Tokyo, where the airlien bought her a Shinkansen (bullet train) ticket to take instead. So, a trip that was supposed to take 1 hour took about more then 6 hours. I told her that she should've just walked.
One debate that I'm having with myself is, was it really worth taking a Japanese language class? I am really not so sure anymore, the classes were really intense and I felt like I could get more out of self-studying and itneracting with japanese people here. That way I could also go at my own pace. Furthermore, Japanese lcass is 6 credits, I could have taken two other classes and met more Japanese upperclassmen, something I feel I did not get to do enough of here. On the other hand, I'm not sure I would have realized that if I did not take the class, so I'm not sure.
AIU cafeteria
So it is still snowing, but while I am at it I decided to share some thoughts about the AIU cafeteria. Now, its pretty common knowledge here, that the cafeteria gets pretty low reviews among the students. The cafeteria defends critcisim by saying that, this is the best it can do for the low flat rate meal plan.
Now, a few days ago a japanese friend of mine asked me to proofread his essay. It was an argumentive essay, in which he argued that the cafeteria's low quality is the result of it only caring about profit. At the time of me proofreading that, I didn't really pay attention at the content and focused on fixing the grammar and vocabulary. Later however, I couldn't help but think that I disagree with that point. The cafeteria's qulity is what it is, not because of it only cares about profit, but because it DOESN'T care about profit. I will explain how the meal plan works. Only 2 groups of students are allowed on the meal plan, freshman and international students. Japanese upperclassmen are excluded from the meal plan, but they are allowed to buy the meals from the cafeteria. Still, they account for a very small portion of the people buying the food as, they even need to call someone to the register when they come to pay as there is nobody regulary standing there. Furthermore, I would say that the cost is rather high for them.
Now, freshman living in Komachi Hall (the freshman dorm) as well as the international students living there are automatically included in the meal plan. International students living in the other dorm, the global village apartments are allowed to opt out, but only during the first week. I was in this group, and this really wasn't enough time to make a decision.
So, to put it all together, the freshman and international students are pretty much forced to buy the meal plan, while the upperclassmen are pretty much excluded from it. Now, what profit is there to be made here and what motivation would the cafeteria have to improve quality? The international students are here for a year at most, there's no reason to satisify them to keep coming back, and the freshman will become sophmores and they aren't really costumers either. Kind of a funny system if you ask me.
Now, a few days ago a japanese friend of mine asked me to proofread his essay. It was an argumentive essay, in which he argued that the cafeteria's low quality is the result of it only caring about profit. At the time of me proofreading that, I didn't really pay attention at the content and focused on fixing the grammar and vocabulary. Later however, I couldn't help but think that I disagree with that point. The cafeteria's qulity is what it is, not because of it only cares about profit, but because it DOESN'T care about profit. I will explain how the meal plan works. Only 2 groups of students are allowed on the meal plan, freshman and international students. Japanese upperclassmen are excluded from the meal plan, but they are allowed to buy the meals from the cafeteria. Still, they account for a very small portion of the people buying the food as, they even need to call someone to the register when they come to pay as there is nobody regulary standing there. Furthermore, I would say that the cost is rather high for them.
Now, freshman living in Komachi Hall (the freshman dorm) as well as the international students living there are automatically included in the meal plan. International students living in the other dorm, the global village apartments are allowed to opt out, but only during the first week. I was in this group, and this really wasn't enough time to make a decision.
So, to put it all together, the freshman and international students are pretty much forced to buy the meal plan, while the upperclassmen are pretty much excluded from it. Now, what profit is there to be made here and what motivation would the cafeteria have to improve quality? The international students are here for a year at most, there's no reason to satisify them to keep coming back, and the freshman will become sophmores and they aren't really costumers either. Kind of a funny system if you ask me.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Snow
Well, I just wanted to announce that, in my last week here, Akita snow is finally here. There were flurries before, but the snow never stuck. This morning however it snowed pretty hard forming a thin layer of snow on the ground. Its evening now and the snow is very intense now. According to weather.com, the snow will not stop for the time I am here. So...I guess I'll update about it soon, if it snows as intensively as it does not, no doubt there will be several feet of snow by the time I leave next Tuesday.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Christmas Party
Post #100! The AIU "Christmas Party" was tonight, it was very similar to the "Halloween Party". I will briefly mention that what they call a "Party" here is more like a "Talent show" back home, and they like these a lot here. We did a lot of dancing and singing, and a really cool movie made by the event commitee. I don't think I mentioned this but there was a movie at the Halloween party, a scary movie about a student that vanished in the computer lab. (Yes, it was rather scary without any major special effects).
This time the movie was a romantic story, where a guy goes away to study abroad for a year as all AIU students are required to, and how the girl waits for him. I guess this is it for now.
This time the movie was a romantic story, where a guy goes away to study abroad for a year as all AIU students are required to, and how the girl waits for him. I guess this is it for now.
Picture update
Ok, so my AIU People Album is up. It has a variety of pictures from an elementary school visit, AIU Christmas party, some pictures that I just took randomly wondering around. The philosophy behind it is to try to include myself in these pictures, something I hesitating doing. I guess looking good in pictures is a skill in itself, I will add more pictures to this album, I will also add captions telling a little bit about the people in each picture.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The "Election"
Ok, this is something I have to chuckle about, about 10 minutes ago the election for the President of AIU student government took place. Having lived in the states, I have seen many elections, ranging from president of a junior high school student government to president of the United States. Not all of these elections were perfect, some were uncontested, this however....well, by American standards I have difficulty calling that an "election" at all.
The way it worked is, the outgoing president of student government picked one candidate, and the job of all the students was to give them either a vote of "confidence" or "no-confidence". I really have no idea how many 'confidence' votes this person needs, and what would happen if they wouldn't get enough, either way, we had a couple of speeches from both the outgoing president the candidate. Most people just put the confidence mark before even hearing the speeches. So I guess...democracy in action?
I don't meant to insult anyone...but this is a system I have difficult agreeing with.
The way it worked is, the outgoing president of student government picked one candidate, and the job of all the students was to give them either a vote of "confidence" or "no-confidence". I really have no idea how many 'confidence' votes this person needs, and what would happen if they wouldn't get enough, either way, we had a couple of speeches from both the outgoing president the candidate. Most people just put the confidence mark before even hearing the speeches. So I guess...democracy in action?
I don't meant to insult anyone...but this is a system I have difficult agreeing with.
Monday, December 7, 2009
16 Days to go
Well, I am officially down to 16 days which is a little bit over two weeks. Wha have been up to the last few days? Well I had another what I believe was a really bad cold, the influenza panic seems to have calmed down a bit. I went to get some Sushi again at a different sushi place, this one was much smaller and rather then using a computer the orders were yelled directly to a chef. This place also had an English menu, still overall I felt that the place I went to last week was better. Of course fresh fried squid sushi is very good!
I also went to another event similar to the kids event a few month ago. It was with the same group, the families baked a lot of food, we talked and just like last time played games. Unfortunately my cold seems to have gotten the best of me here, and I couldn't enjoy the event very much. We did play one new game whose rules I'd like to remember here, everyone sits in a circle and music plays. Two people join hands and run to the opposite side of the circle grabbing both hands of a third person and running back with them. Then, the people that were sitting to the right, and left of the "third" person that was grabbed join hands, and repeat the action. The game goes on until the music stops. I had my camera...but I hate to use it as an excuse I was kind of busy running back and fourth to the bathroom to blow my nose (this is a 'no-no' in public here).
I haven't posted these pictures yet, but I've been walking around campus trying to take pictures with people that I've met over my time here. Not going as fast as I'd like to, but hopefully I'll take a lot of pictures since there are quite a few things going on over the next few weeks. First, the "end of semester" gathering and the "Christmas Party" are going on back to back next Friday. No excuses, I will take a lot of pictures, including asking people to take pictures of me. The Aikido club is also planning a little "going away" party for me and another Japanese member who is leaving for his Study Abroad in Canada in the spring.
There is no doubt, that if I had to point out my closest friends over my time at AIU most(but not all) of them would be members of the Aikido Club. Of course 600 people is an interesting amount of people. Its too many to meet everyone, but it still seems like you see a couple of people all the time and you kind of wish "Hey, I wish I've spoken to this person more, they seem nice/interesting".
Going home is definitely a mixed feeling, in a way I do miss home and I can't help but look forward to go back, see friends and family back home and tell about my adventures here. But it seems that there is so much more to do and see here, and so many people that I would like to get to know better. Coming back from Study Abroad, a lot of people when they hear about it the thought "going back to your old life"' might come to mind. But, that's kind of a bad way to think about it I think, Study Abroad is not a "vacation". I don't think I can go to the way things were (not that I really want to). I guess I'll have to wait and see, it seems to me like returning (reverse culture shock as its called) might be an experience on its own. Well, at least for now, this blog isn't gonna go anywhere so I might blog about it, tell how it goes.
I also went to another event similar to the kids event a few month ago. It was with the same group, the families baked a lot of food, we talked and just like last time played games. Unfortunately my cold seems to have gotten the best of me here, and I couldn't enjoy the event very much. We did play one new game whose rules I'd like to remember here, everyone sits in a circle and music plays. Two people join hands and run to the opposite side of the circle grabbing both hands of a third person and running back with them. Then, the people that were sitting to the right, and left of the "third" person that was grabbed join hands, and repeat the action. The game goes on until the music stops. I had my camera...but I hate to use it as an excuse I was kind of busy running back and fourth to the bathroom to blow my nose (this is a 'no-no' in public here).
I haven't posted these pictures yet, but I've been walking around campus trying to take pictures with people that I've met over my time here. Not going as fast as I'd like to, but hopefully I'll take a lot of pictures since there are quite a few things going on over the next few weeks. First, the "end of semester" gathering and the "Christmas Party" are going on back to back next Friday. No excuses, I will take a lot of pictures, including asking people to take pictures of me. The Aikido club is also planning a little "going away" party for me and another Japanese member who is leaving for his Study Abroad in Canada in the spring.
There is no doubt, that if I had to point out my closest friends over my time at AIU most(but not all) of them would be members of the Aikido Club. Of course 600 people is an interesting amount of people. Its too many to meet everyone, but it still seems like you see a couple of people all the time and you kind of wish "Hey, I wish I've spoken to this person more, they seem nice/interesting".
Going home is definitely a mixed feeling, in a way I do miss home and I can't help but look forward to go back, see friends and family back home and tell about my adventures here. But it seems that there is so much more to do and see here, and so many people that I would like to get to know better. Coming back from Study Abroad, a lot of people when they hear about it the thought "going back to your old life"' might come to mind. But, that's kind of a bad way to think about it I think, Study Abroad is not a "vacation". I don't think I can go to the way things were (not that I really want to). I guess I'll have to wait and see, it seems to me like returning (reverse culture shock as its called) might be an experience on its own. Well, at least for now, this blog isn't gonna go anywhere so I might blog about it, tell how it goes.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The AIU Swine Flu epidemic
Well, I don't know about the rest of the world but things are getting kind of crazy here, there are free surgical masks everywhere, and anti-bacterial spray. Rumor has it that if there are 3 confirmed cases classes will be canceled, if that is indeed true then the chances of that happening tomorrow morning are extremely high. Of course the school put several people into isolation for a week after they were confirmed as having swine flu, as such I think some people might be hesitant to report it.
As far as I go, I do seem to feel very mildly sick, actually I think I'm getting better, somewhat surprising as I did end up getting the flu last May in New York right at the peak of the epidemic then. Perhaps however, the reason that its relatively mild now is that I do have some immunity to it.
I'm not really sure if the precautions are being taken too far, generally I would say that swine flu isn't any worse then the regular flu, and all these precautions won't do very much. But a LOT of people seem to be getting sick, so I guess we'll see.
As far as I go, I do seem to feel very mildly sick, actually I think I'm getting better, somewhat surprising as I did end up getting the flu last May in New York right at the peak of the epidemic then. Perhaps however, the reason that its relatively mild now is that I do have some immunity to it.
I'm not really sure if the precautions are being taken too far, generally I would say that swine flu isn't any worse then the regular flu, and all these precautions won't do very much. But a LOT of people seem to be getting sick, so I guess we'll see.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Non-Fiction
Ok, so I was thinking that while I do read a very significant amount, the vast majority of books I read are Fiction. However, having talked with many of my professors at AIU I became very interested in reading more non-fiction. This reminds me that, when my family installed cable TV for the first time a little over a year ago (I think). I quickly discovered that I enjoyed things such as the "Science channel", "BBC", and "History" a lot more then things such as HBO or Sci-Fi. While going through my mind, there is quite a list of non-fiction books I want to read, however the first 2 books currently on my list are something by Barack Obama (Probably "The audacity of Hope") and the 2nd being "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith.
The reason I want to read the first book is that my Debate teacher keeps talking about him (trying really hard to meet him). Motsumoto-Sensei (debate teacher) says that has read all of Obama's books as well as all the books that Obama likes according to his facebook profile. Motsumoto believes that by reading these books he can get an insight into the person's mind, which I guess fascinates me a bit, could I get a deeper insight into the current president's mind?
The 2nd book is written by Adam Smith, my Economics professor (Lacktorin-Sensei)'s favorite economist and his "Hero". Adam Smith is a strong supporter of free market laissez-faire policies, in other words the belief that the government should not interfere with the market, and that interfering will only cause damage in the long term. Either way some of this guy's ideas sound absolutely fascinating. Afterwards, if this goes OK, I would like to read Marx as well.
Now, the question I would also wish to briefly address here, is why didn't I read more non-fiction before. Well, to be honest non-fiction scared me, what if it uses lingo unique to its topic that I won't understand? What if its an old book (Like the "Wealth of nation") and uses old language that I won't be able to understand? I guess once does have to consider the intended audience when approaching a non-fiction book. If the author intended to reach a general audience, then he should make an attempt to make his book easy to read.
The reason I want to read the first book is that my Debate teacher keeps talking about him (trying really hard to meet him). Motsumoto-Sensei (debate teacher) says that has read all of Obama's books as well as all the books that Obama likes according to his facebook profile. Motsumoto believes that by reading these books he can get an insight into the person's mind, which I guess fascinates me a bit, could I get a deeper insight into the current president's mind?
The 2nd book is written by Adam Smith, my Economics professor (Lacktorin-Sensei)'s favorite economist and his "Hero". Adam Smith is a strong supporter of free market laissez-faire policies, in other words the belief that the government should not interfere with the market, and that interfering will only cause damage in the long term. Either way some of this guy's ideas sound absolutely fascinating. Afterwards, if this goes OK, I would like to read Marx as well.
Now, the question I would also wish to briefly address here, is why didn't I read more non-fiction before. Well, to be honest non-fiction scared me, what if it uses lingo unique to its topic that I won't understand? What if its an old book (Like the "Wealth of nation") and uses old language that I won't be able to understand? I guess once does have to consider the intended audience when approaching a non-fiction book. If the author intended to reach a general audience, then he should make an attempt to make his book easy to read.
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