Acceptance!!

Yay!!!!!!


I have been accepted from Utrecht University as an exchange student from next February!!!


I got this email the day before yesterday, and I have to reply something by tomorrow.


This email says I have to pay 433 Euro for a resident permit. So expensive...


One of my friend kindly told me that there might be a good place to live in Leiden from Feb.


He said, from Leiden to Utrecht, it would take 40 mins by a train.


Where should I live?


Well, I have plenty of time to think about it.

New People to The House

It's been so nice to be in HdB recently. The new residents are so nice :)

It has been so long for my slippers to be hidden by someone during I'm taking shower. This is awesome, this is my beloved HdB XD

I'm really looking forward to spending this new semester with those people.

The result for my exchange programme didn't come yet... Hurryyyyyy!

I don't like waiting for an answer... I'm so desperate!!!

About Japanese Universities

In the last entry I wrote I'm not sure whether Kyoto University is normal in Japan or not, because I heard one thing about this university: To graduate Kyoto University is way too easier than other Universities like Osaka University, because even during an exam period, we don't need to study to get credits (of course it depends on the classes, but if you choose "right" classes, you don't need to). This is the only reason why I'm wondering this question.

However, people say that all the Japanese universities' students' levels are so low compare to other countries'.

Why? Because usually we don't study after enrolling in our universities. In order to enroll in universities we study very hard, and that's all. We don't need to study that much in order to graduate, especially in Kyoto University.

And also the social system is a little bit strange compare to European one: When it comes to job seeking, all the students HAVE TO skip their classes otherwise they cannot get any job. This job seeking activity is very competitive so their priority is not studying. Usually job seeking season starts summer, one year before our graduation (For example, if you are a bachelor student, your job seeking season starts summer on your 3rd year), and ends spring (just one year before your graduation). *note: Academic year in Japan is starting from spring.

During this job seeking activity, we have to go to Tokyo (the capital city of Japan) so many times to take interviews etc., have to prepare for them, and sometimes they want us to write about something (what is your weakness, what is your regret in your student life, what did you do most as a student, what is your image about our company etc.) so that we cannot study very much, and the worst thing is those companies (usually) don't expect anything academic from students, even though we've spent at least 3 years by then at universities. I know we don't need so many academic knowledge when we work, but still it's not good if they do not expect ANYTHING from our study and grades. I guess the reason why they don't care about our grades or anything is because we usually have to take an online exams on their website, so that they can judge with those results. I think this is one of the reasons why we don't study much. We don't need to for graduation and getting jobs!

Another strange system is this: if you want to find a job in Japan after university (not an intermediate recruitment), you have to be a graduating student. That is, if you already graduated from your university you cannot even apply for the selections. I really don't understand this system, and I have no idea why do they do this. (Oops, this topic has nothing to do with Japanese universities :P)


Oh, and answer for the Diana's question: the relationship between students and teachers is... Hmm, until we became 4th year students, there are usually no relations. When we are 4th year students, we need to write a thesis with teachers' help to graduate, so during this time we'll be quite friendly.


Phew, I'm really tired of writing this long one...><


(Practice makes perfect! I'll keep writing this English blog so that I would suffer less in the Netherlands :P)

How Long the Exchange Programme Would Be?

I just got an email from Utrecht University's international office's woman.


She said even if I got an approval, that doesn't mean I can stay there for one year yet, because each academic year starts from fall semester, and I'll go there from spring semester. This would make me staying there for 2 academic years (each half of them), so they cannot give me an approval for one year at once. Instead, I have to do it well in the spring semester so that I can stay another semester: Apparently, whether I can stay in the Netherlands for one year depends on my performance in the spring semester!!


Mmm, I don't know if I can do a good performance in English... This is the situation.


I'll do my best!


...Well, I have to get an approval at first. :P

Academic Meeting for the First Time in My Entire Life

I just finished my presentation in the academic meeting at Shimane University.


Hmm, that's all... well, It was not so special, but at least I get motivated so much. This is the only benefit for me, because  the presentations are so many that I couldn't keep my concentration for the whole time.


What did I do was just leaving outside and lying down on a bench at University while almost the half of the presentations. lol


I was admired that some professors asked questions to almost all the presenters (well, at least while I was there) even if their presentations were about something which were different from the professor's fields. This means they understood them somehow enough to have questions, whereas I could understand presentations only if they are doing similar things as mine, otherwise I could hardly understand anything.


This is why they are professors. They know a lot of things about anything.


"Knowledge is power"


I decided I'll read more and more articles at least in my field.

(500) Days of Summer

The title is a name of the best movie.


In this one, there are three of my favorite actors/actresses: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel and Chloe Morez.


"A good story" plus "favorite actors" equal "great!!!"


Check this out.

New Residents and A New Semester

A new semester isn't actually started yet, but for the new semester, our dormitory has held a interview for new residents.


I was complaining about those horrible people from the committee side, but at the same time I did nothing to them. Just complaining. I just ignore the situation... And I know this is the worst attitude, but what can I do to them? We told what we think to them. What else can we do? *sigh*


However, I changed my attitude towards other residents a little bit and realised the fact that we have such a lot of fun people in the dorm. I didn't do so much for the house recently (my bad). Those committee side people can change the atmosphere of the house (they did, honestly), but nobody can change the people. Then, I should take advantage of the people from the house!! (Mmm, I'm not sure whether I wrote what I meant, but I'm lazy enough not to check this... I'm just tired now :P)


So, I'm now enjoying my life in the house again like two years ago! I also realised the fact that I can stay here only another 5 months... I have to do my best again. I want to find other precious, true friends from the house again!! That's the reason why I came into the house.


Fortunately, I think new comers seem very friendly and active people (I know 3 of them now, out of 7) so the atmosphere could probably be going to change in a good way. Besides, the very strict rules are no more valid! For example, we can use the kitchen and the lobby as much as we want without submitting a paper to the house parents (maybe this hasn't been valid so long... I'm not sure. I've never cared these stupid rules).


The house is gonna be an awesome place again!!!!!

Farewell Party For Yui

I go to a club, bar etc. every weekend these several weeks, and so that I think I can work hard on weekdays (yes, I'm convincing myself).


We had a farewell party for Yui at Nikki's bar yesterday. She is going to go to Venezuela as an expatriate staff for two years. 


She had been living in Argentina for one year as an student, and since then she has been saying that she wants to go back to Argentina again someday. This time she will be in Venezuela, not in Argentina, but at least she'll be in Latin America and apparently she is going forward to her goal.


Recently sometimes I feel many of my friends are living straight ahead to their dreams whereas I'm just doing a student without any of them. If someone asks me what is my dream I would say I want to have an experience living abroad for a certain span. This goal is almost coming true, but that's a bit different from others'. This one is short span dream, not a life time one.


I am turning to 23 years old next month. I think I'm old enough to think about my life and future.

Climbing Up the Mount Fuji

I learnt something from climbing up the Mount Fuji: DO NOT CLIMB UP THE MOUNTAIN WHEN A STORM IS NEARBY!!!!!!

Mount Fuji is Japanese highest mountain, which is 3,776m above the sea level. Actually I did climb up this mountain last summer as well, and felt this mountain is very easy one. This time, however, it was way more difficult than any other mountains I have ever climbed.

Alison and I went climbing up the Mountain on the 11^th and 12^th of August, 2010. We kind of knew a typhoon was at Japan Sea at that time, and we thought it wasn’t such a big problem because Japan Sea is far away from the Mount Fuji. Actually, however, the weather was truly horrible because of the typhoon... We could have died seriously... On the half way to the top, a guy from one of the mountain lodges said to us that “this wind is too strong to continue going up. All the tours have been canceled. This is that serious situation,” but still a lot of people keep going up without listening to him at all. We were, at least, considering his advice and,,, our conclusion was “keep going!” At this time, the wind was already so much strong and sometimes we cannot just stand still. To make the situation worse, rain had started. Sometimes we needed to grab a rock so that we wouldn't be flown off. However, this was nothing compare with the situation on the top.

We got the top at 4 am. As soon as we got there, we felt a little bit of excitement, and it changed to fear in a second. The excitement was from this strong wind, which we had never experienced, but it was too strong to enjoy… So, excitement had changed to fear immediately.

On the top the wind was so strong that I, literally, flown off several meters several times. The temperature was super low (6 degrees Celsius in summer!) and because of the rain we were all wet so that we felt we might be frozen to death (this horrible wind has also worked on it)!!! In order to survive, we took out all the single cloths from our back-pack, and wore all of them (of course they were including even short sleeve T-shorts!!!). Can you imagine this? Taking out cloths from a bag is such a hard work in this strong wind with our not-well-working hands because of the coldness....><

We were suffering for about 1 hour from 4 a.m. on the top until the sun comes up (otherwise it was too dark to go down the mountain), then this little mountain lodge on the top opened the door, so all of us rushed into the lodge and ate something worm to find "We survived!!" This feeling didn't continue so long though.

Suddenly, a young man working at this lodge said to us that "This is just a breeze as a storm on the mountain. The longer you wait here, the stronger and stronger the wind would be! So if you want to go down the mountain today, start moving immediately!!"

So we start going down in this horrible wind and rain... That was literally a NEAR DEATH experience. There was a crowd at the starting point of the way back and we wondered why. We just wanted to go back as soon as possible! So, we tried going through this crowd and found that there was a reason for this: the wind was sooooooo strong that they COULD NOT move forward. The wind was this much strong. If you can’t imagine how much it was, you can think that this wind was like a kind of experimental wind which was made of a special facility like this (YouTube video).

And also at one point, a lot of fist-size rocks flow from a cliff at as almost the same height as our head :P

I think that was the most dangerous situation in this little adventure. To try avoiding these rocks, I was walking with watching the cliff, but Alison to me said that “don’t face the cliff! What if a rock hit into your face? It would be better to get hit with them on the side of your head without realizing it.” Haha, maybe you're right!

We are alright now, so I can laugh about this experience but what if something bad would have happened...><

This story is a very good one to tell for my grandchildren when I get old.

Moved from livedoor Blog to Blogger

As my last blog didn't accept English comments, I just moved into here, Blogger's.


So, all the comments (just three though:P) posted on the previous entries has disappeared now, sorry Diana and Hai Minh ><


I think this blog would accept English (and maybe also other languages?) comments.


I start writing again!! Next one will be about climbing up Mt. Fuji.


The previous bolg: http://blog.livedoor.jp/shige_k1-english.ver/

I'm Embarressed!!

My girlfriend is staying in my room because she has no place to stay anymore; she is leaving Japan this month. She is now in Tokyo to say good-byes to her friends there, so this morning I had to do the laundry for her. Of course it includes her underwear. In the basement where there are the washing machines I was trying to put her cloths on the hangers but it was a little difficult because I never put women’s underwear on the things (and they are made of so little fabric that I don’t know by where they are supposed to be hanged, otherwise they might get stretched and be ruined I assume…)

So I was just trying to do my best in the basement. Then the house cleaning lady and one of the residents (female) come downstairs!! Thank god the cleaning lady didn’t seem to be aware of my doing, however this resident (I cannot remember her name, and I don’t know her so much and vise versa I guess) might see me with loads of women underwear…

What was she thinking when she saw me!? She might have seen the photos on the facebook on which you can see me wearing totally like a woman. I felt like I could read her mind like this;

OMG! He has a lot of underwear for women. What is he doing with them…? Oh, I saw pictures of him wearing like a woman! I thought that was a joke but I guess he is really into it.

I am so embarrassed!!

Weekend

This weekend I fully enjoyed my time with my friends.
On Friday, we had a farewell party at the House and drink and drink and drink… I puked a looooot and felt so bad at the last actually, but still I can say “Worth it!”


On Saturday, I did nothing but wring the blogs and studying Dutch.


On Sunday, I went to Nara prefecture in order to come to a BBQ party which was held by my karate teacher. I used to go to the head quarters of Seido-Karate, but recently I couldn't make enough time to go there so at the party I met a lot of people from the HQ since then! That was awesome! Now I really feel like doing karate more and want to get strong again, or get stronger and win a competition again! After the party I went to do a part time job at Osaka from 7 to 9 p.m.


And after the job I went to Sanjo-Kiyamachi to come to another farewell party for a Korean girl at midnight. Then we had several tequila shots and beers and some fun at Nikki’s Bar!!! At 2 a.m. we start moving to the club “world” and danced until 4:30. Now I want to complain about the clubs “world” and “Sam & Dave” in Kyoto. I just want to say,,, the DJs are really SUCKS. What we want from the clubs is just MUSIC, not the DJs’ VOICE, so do not speak on the microphone and say “Buy tequilas, guys! Otherwise I won’t play next music, blah blah blah…” That's strongly annoying, seriously. These kinds of things always happen in both “Sam & Dave” and “world.” Actually the reason why we went to “world” at that time instead of “Sam & Dave” is because we thought "world" would be different from the other, but they were totally the same.


I went to “Sam & Dave 2” in Shinsaibashi two weeks ago. This one was a great club instead. The point is… DJs don't speak stupid things on the microphone. That's all. We don't want them to speak because we cannot dance with their voice. Why can't they understand such an easy thing??


Oh, and in the club in Shinsaibashi, we met one of our Sempai from karate, he was working there as a security guy! lol

About The Kyoto International Student House

As I wrote in the first entry, I live in the dormitory named “Kyoto International Student House.” This dorm had been the best place to live until some changes have made.


There are not only students but also “House Family” in the dorm. And they are supposed to help the residents and enjoy the life with us (students). As far as I know, the former and the former of former house family were so great that this house was the place where people who lived in want to come back (not any more).


However, now this horrible house family came and the situation has totally changed. To be honest, I do not like them. I might go to the Netherlands for a year and when I finished this I’ll have to come back to Kyoto and need a place to live in, but as long as this house family stay in the house I would never come back here. They ruined and changed our house. They think they are dominator of the dorm or something. One day we had an argument with house parents about how we think and feel, how we want them to be like, and the house mother said to me that “if you don’t like our way, just move out from the dorm!” --- How dare can she say that? Who the hell she thinks she is?

I don’t think they understood what we wanted to say after more than 2 hours discussion…*sigh*


Also, I just heard something happened in the house. There is this guy from Argentina who has been living in the house for 5 years now. And his contribution to the house was quite huge, for example when we had party kind of things he always tried to get as many people as possible and made people fully enjoy.


About one month ago he had a traffic accident with a taxi and his PC was broken, so he had to buy a new one (the taxi company would pay for the cost afterwards, of course) so that he couldn’t pay his rent. The house parents and the office lady are so upset about this and said to him that “you have to pay extra money for the delay.” I could hardly believe my ears when I heard the story. I could understand their decision if he was someone who just came into the house, because then this guy seems he might not pay his rent and run away, but for him, he’s been in the house for 5 years... And he had his reason... I feel they are so mean. I guess they just want kick him out (Actually, they are about to make it, because he's leaving tomorrow) and that’s why they also said to him that he cannot let his friends (even his girlfriend) in his room at all, I’ve never heard this rule though.


I believe they just want to live in the house comfortably, quietly. It seems that all they care about are their own good only. I’m sorry to say this but if someone wants to live in this house, they cannot expect this house to be quiet or a good place to study at all. Once you come into this house you should try to find a life-changing friendship, which you really can find. We literally live in the same house and we talk, eat, hung out together and everything, these make us so much close. And the house parents ruined these opportunities by making ridiculously strict rules in order to make this house comfortable for them, and this makes me so angry...!!


This house is not a usual apartment at all, although the house father said “why this house is so different from a normal apartment?” I knew that he thinks this way! The house is nothing but a normal place to live for them. If they really think this way, they should be disqualified from the house parents, seriously. They don’t get any of the philosophy of “Haus der Begegnung.”


We live in the same dorm with such a thin walls and doors so that everyone knows who is sick, who is with their boy/girl-friends etc. I admit that at first this is not so comfortable but after a while you would find how precious this is.

Introducing Myself

This is my first entry in English.

I've been writing a blog in Japanese for some time. I just wanted to write something what I think, feel etc.

The other day one of my friends asked me if I have a blog. I said yes and gave her the URL but the problem is she cannot read Japanese. This is the reason why I started another blog in English.

And another reason why I started this is that I might be able to go to the Netherlands as an exchange student from February 2011 for a year, so I want to polish my writing English.

When you find some horrible mistakes, just tell me please!

From now on, I introduce myself. I'm a graduate student and my major is Geology, especially in Metamorphic Petrology. I'm turning 23 in this September (2010). I live in the dormitory named "Kyoto International Student House." In this dorm, two thirds of us are not Japanese. Because of this situation I experienced a lot of things which I guess I would never have if I didn't come into the dorm.

Before living here my whole world was just Japan. I knew ABOUT the fact that there are other people and other world but I didn't KNOW the fact. For those reasons I never considered about studying abroad or even about trip to other countries.

I guess a lot of Japanese people are the same as me at the time. I think we should go out and see things in the world. This is why I want to spend my time abroad and this is why I applied for the exchange programme.