Friday, October 17, 2003
Choosing A Project
I'm not a big fan of rain. I realize that it's necessary for plants and stuff, but it's been making this week less pleasant. It's rained on and off ever since Tuesday evening, and I've gotten soaked several times. Wednesday night I had to ride my bicycle home in the pouring rain at night. I'm glad I left my bicycle at the bottom of the mountain, because it would have been really dangerous to ride down. Ever since then, though, my brakes have been squeaking like crazy. It's really, really, annoying (although on the plus side, I no longer have to ring my bell to let people know I'm coming).
Thursday I was pleasantly surprised when I checked my mail on my way to class. My sister had sent me a birthday card! That's the first piece of mail I've gotten from the US since I've gotten to Japan.
As I was leaving the Int. House, I heard my phone ringing, but when I tried answering it there wasn't anyone there. I put it back into my pocket, and then it notified me that I had mail, so I took it out and read the message: "Check VoMail." So I checked my voice mail, and discovered a message. Since it was in Japanese I had quite a bit of trouble trying to figure out what it said. It was a lady (I couldn't understand her name or where she was from) telling me that I absolutely needed to bring my inkan (signature stamp) when I came. This concerned me, because it sounded quite important but I didn't have any idea what this was about or where I was supposed to be coming. Plus I don't even have an inkan, and had only given my cell phone number to my parents, a few friends, and my lab (and the cell phone company would also have it since they gave me the phone). I hoped that it was just a wrong number, and went to class.
Thursday were my first Japanese classes. I tested into level 4 (with the possibility that I'd have to take some classes at a lower level, they said), but I decide that since the test was all multiple choice and some of the answers I didn't know were thus easy to figure out, I'd try going to Japanese 3 (which consists of Grammar 3 (G3), Reading 3 (R3), Listening 3 (L3), and Speaking 3 (S3)). G3 and R3 were on Thursday, and both seemed really easy, so I'm going to try going to G4 and R4 next week and see if those are better. Classes got out at noon, and I walked up to my lab, where I told my professor that, of the topics that people in the lab are studying, I'd be most interested in joining the people working on "Medical Applications of Virtual Reality in Japan." He said he'd need a while to figure out exactly what I should work on. I'm still waiting to hear back from him, but since I've got a fast internet connection I'm enjoying the ability to use that while I wait.
While I was at the lab the lady who'd left the messages called my cell phone again, and I discovered that it was indeed a wrong number, although it was because someone had given her my number, not because she'd dialed it wrong.
Thursday afternoon I walked back down to Kawauchi Campus to see what the Kanji 3 (K3) class was like. I think that this may be too high a level for me. There were 10 Kanji that we covered, and I knew none of them (most people there knew some of them). On top of that, in all of the example sentences and the exercises there were quite a few Kanji that I didn't know. I think I was probably the lowest level of anyone in the class. I may try going to K2 next week to see if that's better (but they may not let me in, since I tested into level 4 Japanese). Class started at 4:20, and ran until 5:50 (all the classes here are 90 minutes). At least the professor said that our grade would be based on weekly quizzes and that there would be no final exam. By the time it was over I was pretty hungry, so I headed over to the cafeteria to get something to eat, only to discover that they close at 5:30.
I rode back to the Int. House and fried up some noodles and frozen vegetables for dinner. I spent the rest of the evening watching TV and a few episodes of anime. One of the things on TV was the Japanese version of "Who Want's to be a Millionaire," which was quite interesting. The guy who asked the questions was a Japanese guy who looked and acted just like Regis. The room was set up the same, and everything looked like the American version, except that the text was all in Japanese and that the numbers on the meter were larger (1 million yen would only be about $9,123). They didn't show nearly as much of the game as in the American version (they only showed the results of the fastest finger, and only showed 1 or 2 of the questions below the 150,000¥ level). In contrast, if the contestant was unsure about an answer, after that person had answered they held the suspense for about a minute (showing shots of the contestant, the family, the person the contestant brought, etc.) .... and then took a commercial break. When they came back from the break, they would quickly show all those shots again, and then finally say "Correct!" or "I'm Sorry." For the "Phone A Friend" lifeline they put the contestant's family in a separate room, where the family could answer together. They occasionally showed shots of the family (like when the person phoned their family), and seemed to allow the family to watch the program (perhaps this only happened once they had been phoned, since they only showed shots of them after they had been phoned). They also had quite a bit of footage of the contestant and her family in her, and spent quite a bit of time talking with the contestant about how she was going to spend the money. They all seemed to have a big need for money (one contestant's father had been robbed of all his money, and another had a bunch of loans to pay off due to her husband being fired/laid off, if I understood correctly).
When I woke up this morning (Friday) I was a bit concerned to see that my laptop computer was in sleep mode, since I've set it to never go to sleep unless the battery is almost dead. Evidently something has gone wrong with my power cord, so it stopped giving power to my laptop and thus my laptop ran the battery down to almost nothing overnight, and then put itself to sleep. I haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with it yet, but thankfully when I swapped that cord with another plug module I was able to charge my battery again. I don't know if there's something wrong with the power cord or if there's a bad connection in the cable or what.
Today in Japanese Business we covered a bit of the economic history of Japan. The lecture notes we were given were 5 pages long, but we only got to the top of the third page since the professor went off on a tangent talking about Japanese festivals. Evidently Yosakoi (the festival I went to last weekend) is one of his favorite, and Sendai is only one of three cities in Japan that has a Yosakoi festival.
When I got to my lab I went out into the hall and spent a while talking to my family via audio chat. I'm glad I can talk with them for free (using the lab's wireless internet connection) instead of having to pay international telephone call fees.
I don't have any real plans for the weekend yet, other than reading through the chapters of my Numerical Methods book that the professor gave us photocopies of. He's going to photocopy all of the chapters we're covering and give them to us instead of having us buy the book. Since my Japanese Business class doesn't have any book, I'm glad that I decided to get the free bus passes instead of the book vouchers. There is an International Festival going on in the International House on Sunday, so I'll probably go to that.
At about 5 PM every Friday, all the people in my lab stop what they're doing and clean the place up (sweep, vacuum, dust, take out the trash, etc.), which is something that I realize needs to be done but had never even though about before. I wonder if all of the TAs at the UW do this?
Some things I've noticed about Japan:
- None of the bathrooms have hot water. Most don't even have soap or a way of drying your hands.
- I have absolutely no idea how the Japanese can use those hole-in-the-floor toilets. I'm glad all the bathrooms I've been in have at least 1 western-style toilet.
- Japanese love lemon. The dish soap is lemon. There are at least 5 different lemon flavored drinks at the cafeteria, not to mention the variety of lemon flavored soda. The most interesting soda I've seen here is Lime flavored Ginger-ale. I've got a can/bottle of it in my fridge. Lots of soda here comes in steel bottles that are only slightly bigger than cans, so they seem like cans and yet are bottles.
- I had eggs for breakfast one day. It may just be that I cooked them badly, but they didn't taste nearly as good as the eggs back home.
- Someone (another Int. Student) asked me if it was possible to find milk here that doesn't reek. So far I haven't found any, and Mitsu (I think it was him) said that we probably wouldn't. The milk doesn't taste very good, but I have yet to get sick from it (I've been putting it on my cereal for the last two weeks) so it's probably OK.
- You can't find 2 Liter bottles of soda here. The biggest ones I've seen are 1.5 L.
- The only Sprite here is Diet Sprite. The only Pepsi here is Pepsi Twist (ie. lemon Pepsi), and Diet Pepsi Twist.
- Most commercials on TV have pop music playing in the background. At the start of the commercial the song (or perhaps artist?) is displayed in one of the bottom corners of the screen.
- The Japanese LOVE the Japanese guy who's been playing baseball for the Yankees (I can't remember his name now). Everyone in my lab was watching the Yankees game when I got to lab today, and during the 9th inning the station showed a replay of all of his times at bat.
- The Japanese are a bit more flexible in stating the time. One station always shows the time in the corner, and they use 0 instead of 12 (today at 12:45 PM the time said 0:45). Also, things like the TV guides list times that go up to 26 or 28 o'clock.
- The microwave in my lab plays a little song when it's done, instead of just beeping.
- I feel like I'm always hungry, because the Japanese food costs so much and the portions are so small. I go to the cafeteria, and put things on my tray until it's full, but each dish only contains a little bit. The bowl of spaghetti they sell is a fairly normal sized bowl, but it only contains about 7 or 8 noodles. I got a sort of noodle salad that took me 3 bites to finish. I probably could have eaten it in 1 if I'd gotten a spoon. Sometimes I've gotten things like ramen, because "you get so much!" but unfortunately that's only filling for a little while since it's mostly water.
Thursday I was pleasantly surprised when I checked my mail on my way to class. My sister had sent me a birthday card! That's the first piece of mail I've gotten from the US since I've gotten to Japan.
As I was leaving the Int. House, I heard my phone ringing, but when I tried answering it there wasn't anyone there. I put it back into my pocket, and then it notified me that I had mail, so I took it out and read the message: "Check VoMail." So I checked my voice mail, and discovered a message. Since it was in Japanese I had quite a bit of trouble trying to figure out what it said. It was a lady (I couldn't understand her name or where she was from) telling me that I absolutely needed to bring my inkan (signature stamp) when I came. This concerned me, because it sounded quite important but I didn't have any idea what this was about or where I was supposed to be coming. Plus I don't even have an inkan, and had only given my cell phone number to my parents, a few friends, and my lab (and the cell phone company would also have it since they gave me the phone). I hoped that it was just a wrong number, and went to class.
Thursday were my first Japanese classes. I tested into level 4 (with the possibility that I'd have to take some classes at a lower level, they said), but I decide that since the test was all multiple choice and some of the answers I didn't know were thus easy to figure out, I'd try going to Japanese 3 (which consists of Grammar 3 (G3), Reading 3 (R3), Listening 3 (L3), and Speaking 3 (S3)). G3 and R3 were on Thursday, and both seemed really easy, so I'm going to try going to G4 and R4 next week and see if those are better. Classes got out at noon, and I walked up to my lab, where I told my professor that, of the topics that people in the lab are studying, I'd be most interested in joining the people working on "Medical Applications of Virtual Reality in Japan." He said he'd need a while to figure out exactly what I should work on. I'm still waiting to hear back from him, but since I've got a fast internet connection I'm enjoying the ability to use that while I wait.
While I was at the lab the lady who'd left the messages called my cell phone again, and I discovered that it was indeed a wrong number, although it was because someone had given her my number, not because she'd dialed it wrong.
Thursday afternoon I walked back down to Kawauchi Campus to see what the Kanji 3 (K3) class was like. I think that this may be too high a level for me. There were 10 Kanji that we covered, and I knew none of them (most people there knew some of them). On top of that, in all of the example sentences and the exercises there were quite a few Kanji that I didn't know. I think I was probably the lowest level of anyone in the class. I may try going to K2 next week to see if that's better (but they may not let me in, since I tested into level 4 Japanese). Class started at 4:20, and ran until 5:50 (all the classes here are 90 minutes). At least the professor said that our grade would be based on weekly quizzes and that there would be no final exam. By the time it was over I was pretty hungry, so I headed over to the cafeteria to get something to eat, only to discover that they close at 5:30.
I rode back to the Int. House and fried up some noodles and frozen vegetables for dinner. I spent the rest of the evening watching TV and a few episodes of anime. One of the things on TV was the Japanese version of "Who Want's to be a Millionaire," which was quite interesting. The guy who asked the questions was a Japanese guy who looked and acted just like Regis. The room was set up the same, and everything looked like the American version, except that the text was all in Japanese and that the numbers on the meter were larger (1 million yen would only be about $9,123). They didn't show nearly as much of the game as in the American version (they only showed the results of the fastest finger, and only showed 1 or 2 of the questions below the 150,000¥ level). In contrast, if the contestant was unsure about an answer, after that person had answered they held the suspense for about a minute (showing shots of the contestant, the family, the person the contestant brought, etc.) .... and then took a commercial break. When they came back from the break, they would quickly show all those shots again, and then finally say "Correct!" or "I'm Sorry." For the "Phone A Friend" lifeline they put the contestant's family in a separate room, where the family could answer together. They occasionally showed shots of the family (like when the person phoned their family), and seemed to allow the family to watch the program (perhaps this only happened once they had been phoned, since they only showed shots of them after they had been phoned). They also had quite a bit of footage of the contestant and her family in her, and spent quite a bit of time talking with the contestant about how she was going to spend the money. They all seemed to have a big need for money (one contestant's father had been robbed of all his money, and another had a bunch of loans to pay off due to her husband being fired/laid off, if I understood correctly).
When I woke up this morning (Friday) I was a bit concerned to see that my laptop computer was in sleep mode, since I've set it to never go to sleep unless the battery is almost dead. Evidently something has gone wrong with my power cord, so it stopped giving power to my laptop and thus my laptop ran the battery down to almost nothing overnight, and then put itself to sleep. I haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with it yet, but thankfully when I swapped that cord with another plug module I was able to charge my battery again. I don't know if there's something wrong with the power cord or if there's a bad connection in the cable or what.
Today in Japanese Business we covered a bit of the economic history of Japan. The lecture notes we were given were 5 pages long, but we only got to the top of the third page since the professor went off on a tangent talking about Japanese festivals. Evidently Yosakoi (the festival I went to last weekend) is one of his favorite, and Sendai is only one of three cities in Japan that has a Yosakoi festival.
When I got to my lab I went out into the hall and spent a while talking to my family via audio chat. I'm glad I can talk with them for free (using the lab's wireless internet connection) instead of having to pay international telephone call fees.
I don't have any real plans for the weekend yet, other than reading through the chapters of my Numerical Methods book that the professor gave us photocopies of. He's going to photocopy all of the chapters we're covering and give them to us instead of having us buy the book. Since my Japanese Business class doesn't have any book, I'm glad that I decided to get the free bus passes instead of the book vouchers. There is an International Festival going on in the International House on Sunday, so I'll probably go to that.
At about 5 PM every Friday, all the people in my lab stop what they're doing and clean the place up (sweep, vacuum, dust, take out the trash, etc.), which is something that I realize needs to be done but had never even though about before. I wonder if all of the TAs at the UW do this?
Some things I've noticed about Japan:
- None of the bathrooms have hot water. Most don't even have soap or a way of drying your hands.
- I have absolutely no idea how the Japanese can use those hole-in-the-floor toilets. I'm glad all the bathrooms I've been in have at least 1 western-style toilet.
- Japanese love lemon. The dish soap is lemon. There are at least 5 different lemon flavored drinks at the cafeteria, not to mention the variety of lemon flavored soda. The most interesting soda I've seen here is Lime flavored Ginger-ale. I've got a can/bottle of it in my fridge. Lots of soda here comes in steel bottles that are only slightly bigger than cans, so they seem like cans and yet are bottles.
- I had eggs for breakfast one day. It may just be that I cooked them badly, but they didn't taste nearly as good as the eggs back home.
- Someone (another Int. Student) asked me if it was possible to find milk here that doesn't reek. So far I haven't found any, and Mitsu (I think it was him) said that we probably wouldn't. The milk doesn't taste very good, but I have yet to get sick from it (I've been putting it on my cereal for the last two weeks) so it's probably OK.
- You can't find 2 Liter bottles of soda here. The biggest ones I've seen are 1.5 L.
- The only Sprite here is Diet Sprite. The only Pepsi here is Pepsi Twist (ie. lemon Pepsi), and Diet Pepsi Twist.
- Most commercials on TV have pop music playing in the background. At the start of the commercial the song (or perhaps artist?) is displayed in one of the bottom corners of the screen.
- The Japanese LOVE the Japanese guy who's been playing baseball for the Yankees (I can't remember his name now). Everyone in my lab was watching the Yankees game when I got to lab today, and during the 9th inning the station showed a replay of all of his times at bat.
- The Japanese are a bit more flexible in stating the time. One station always shows the time in the corner, and they use 0 instead of 12 (today at 12:45 PM the time said 0:45). Also, things like the TV guides list times that go up to 26 or 28 o'clock.
- The microwave in my lab plays a little song when it's done, instead of just beeping.
- I feel like I'm always hungry, because the Japanese food costs so much and the portions are so small. I go to the cafeteria, and put things on my tray until it's full, but each dish only contains a little bit. The bowl of spaghetti they sell is a fairly normal sized bowl, but it only contains about 7 or 8 noodles. I got a sort of noodle salad that took me 3 bites to finish. I probably could have eaten it in 1 if I'd gotten a spoon. Sometimes I've gotten things like ramen, because "you get so much!" but unfortunately that's only filling for a little while since it's mostly water.
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